Kicked off her foot? For the first time, fear grabbed him, a clawed fist or ice in his belly that turned him to look again at the bright rainbow of stuff draped and torn on the edge of the bush near the door. It was part of the skirt of the new robe, the one she made herself last week, after he noticed the new fabric in the shop window. He had liked it; so she had bought it and fashioned into a garment to please him. Now it hung cruelly tom by spiked thorns. And she—
He tore himself loose from the immobility of anxiety, and ran for the house. Somewhere in back of his mind the question was registered: What shop? Where? The nearest shop was forty million miles away. The question was registered, filed, and ticketed for later thought Right now he could not even stop to wonder why he had not noticed the door before. He had to have seen it, when he saw the bush. How do you not notice that the thick door of a pressure hut has been tom loose from its hinges? What kind of wild man speculates about his wife’s robe when his home, in which he left her safe and protected, no more then five hours ago, has been violated?
That was a dangerous word. He unthought it, and the red haze cleared away. He could see again.
“Ruth!” he shouted. “Ruth!”
No answer. He had known there could not be one. “Ruth!” he kept shouting to thin-aired emptiness inside the dome that had been—five short hours ago—rich with Earth air and scents, sounds and solidity: Ruth.
His gun hung by the door. It had been a joke, he remembered. Pioneers ought to keep a gun by the front door. Damn right they should! He grabbed it as he ran, stride unbroken. He tore off down the trail of the monstrous prints, past the bushes and the sandal, fifty feet more. His lungs were on fire inside him. He would have cursed in his futility, but there was no strength or breath for self-anger; not even, just now, for anger better placed. It was not even possible now to run back to the copter. He had wasted too much strength. He had to drag himself full length along the sand, catching and holding the thin concentration of lichen’s oxygen at the sand surface.
Inside the copter, lungs full again, he was coasting along fifteen feet above the prints of homed three-toed feet. He had time enough, and more than he wanted, to think and to question his idiocies. As if he had forgotten where he was. At the first hint of danger they faced he went into shock. As if he were back on Earth, wrapped in her warm air, strong-armed gravity.
Ancestral memories reacting for him in moment of panic? He sneered back at himself for that kind of excuse. The only part that applied was the single word “panic.”
He’d panicked. Okay. Don’t forget it, boy. But don’t let it slow you down, either. File for future reference. Take it out and examine it—later. Meantime, what counts is down there. Right now, you’re just a pair of eyes. Later you may get to be arms and legs, a back, if you’re lucky a gun. Right now—just eyes. And a computer.
He studied the prints. Two-footed or four? He couldn’t decide—and then he saw the pattern, and it was not two or four, but three. Three? Distribute N pounds of weight—divided at any time on two of three feet, in prints that each dug in deeper than his own foot would, with his full weight on it. The damn thing was big. N pounds was too many.
That didn’t make sense. What kind of Thing made prints like that on Mars? On a planet whose largest life-form was adapted to breathing air no more than two feet above ground? And even those didn’t cross desert dryness. They lived in the still thinly moist and green valley of old sea bottoms.
The error was obvious. What kind of creature could make a print like a man’s, on Mars? Largest native life-form, he had meant. So this Thing, with three-toed, three-legged stride, hard-bottomed foot digging too deep in dry sand, had a stride barely more than a man’s, one meter maybe from print to print along the trail. It was not long enough to be that heavy. Not man, not Martian. Something else.
Alien.
He tried to think more, but either there were no more clues or the block was too great. Alien, from where? No way to know. What for? Where to? Why? When?
For the moment, the “when” was what counted the most. Whatever and whyever, It had Ruth with It. Was she still alive? Did she have an oxytank?
He tried to remember, aside from the door, what signs of violence, struggle or damage he’d seen in the house. He remembered none. The door, the robe and the slipper. That was all.
Ten minutes after the copter lifted, he came to the first rock outcroppings. For a while after that he could still follow the trail without too much trouble. The creature tended to stay on the sand-drifted crevices between hills. There were still plenty of prints clear enough to be seen from the height he had to maintain to stay clear of the jagged-edged, sand-scoured shapes of bare hilltops. But as the ground level rose, there was less and less sand between rocks to catch imprints, and it was mere difficult to peer down and navigate at the same time.
Hard to say if he would be better off on the ground. He could spend hours trying wrong passages, backing and trying again, to search out the scattered prints that made the only trail now. Circling above, he could save time—maybe. Certainly, if he could stay in the air, he kept an advantage he’d never have face to face. (Face to chest? belly? thigh? No way at all to judge relative height.) Not to mention armament, general equipment. Inside the copter, he had the distilled and neatly packaged essence of Earth technology to fight for him. On foot in the hills, with whatever he could carry on his own back—?
It was obvious he had no choice. He had just noticed the time. Twilight would fall fast and dark across him in a half hour or less. Moonless, or as good as moonless, dark would follow short minutes after. The kind of cross-eyed trail-following and peak-hopping he could barely manage in sunlight would then be impossible. Find a place where he could land, then. Now, quickly, while he still could.
The copter dropped, and he found a ledge just firm and wide enough. Charles went methodically through lockers, picking and choosing, till at last he had a pile he thought he could manage, with all the essentials, in one form or other.
Searchlight, rope, hand pickaxe, knife. Pistol-grip torch, which he thought of as a flame thrower. Plain old pistol. Extra airtank. Extra mask. Light warm blanket. Bullets, and gas for the torch. Food concentrates. Two water flasks. He climbed into his heat suit, discarded the blanket, and took her suit instead. He had thought to make a knapsack of the blanket, carrying the rest of the stuff on his back, but that was silly. He had to be able to get at whatever he needed but fast He got out a package of clip-back hooks and studded his suit with them, hanging himself like a grim Christmas tree inside-out: bright flame-red suit underneath; dull gray, brown and black tanks, handles, tools and weapons dangling all around.
He practiced bending over, sitting, squatting, reaching. He could climb. Okay. The weight was going to be hard to handle, but not impossible.
He added one more airtank, and one more flask. If it all got too heavy, he could leave a trail of his own behind him. At least the stuff would be nearer than here in the copter. He was half out of the hatch when he remembered it: the first aid kit.
He started into the hills with his searchlight flooding the pass at his feet just as darkness collapsed from the sky. He wondered as he stumbled forward and up—following an edge of toe here, of heel there—what else he had not thought to take.
Then the glare of light glinted of redness on rockside. A smear, that’s all. Red blood. Not alien. Ruth’s!
His gloved hand reached out and the red smudged.
Still wet? Impossible. In this atmosphere, the seconds they’d need to get out of sight would have dried blood. He looked closely at his gauntlet and moved forward more swiftly, with an exultation of knowledge and purpose he had not dared let himself hold until then. It was not blood. It was spilled red powder. Rouge! She was alive, able to think, to act! She knew he would have to come after, and she was helping by leaving a trail.
He no longer followed footprints. He followed the crimson trail blazes. And wondered how far back they’d started, how much time h
e might have gained had he abandoned the copter sooner.
No use wondering. No use thinking back. Now it was only the next moment and the next. Was he gaining or losing? This he had to know. He was traveling at his best speed. He went faster. If he lost ground now, he had no chance. The creature was making a path as straight as the hard rockside hills would permit; It knew where It was headed The Thing could not climb, that was clear, so It would not have gone through the hills without cause. But wherever It was headed, presumably that spot offered It some protection. He had to find. It and head It off first.
He found he could go faster still. And then, suddenly, be knew he’d better slow down. It was nothing he’d seen—surely nothing he’d heard. Inside the suit hood, even such sounds as carried through the thin air were stilled. Well, then.
He opened the mask, and he did hear. Maybe it was some vibration of the Thing’s tread through the rock that had warned him first. Well, he would not give himself away by the same carelessness. He knew he was very close to. It now.
He moved so carefully after that, it seemed agonizingly as if he were once more crawling belly-flat. But he knew he was gaining on them. The Thing was really slow!
He was close. Fool! he thought angrily, as he switched his light off. Creep up on the Thing with a searchlight to flood the scene in advance! The suit had an infrascope in the visor. He’d have had to close it soon anyhow. Five minutes was about maximum breathing without a tank; unless you cared to drag yourself flat as he’d done earlier.
The black-light scope came on. Charles paused with a new certainty under an overhang of rock at the next bend. And saw the Thing. And his wife.
He noticed, in a detached and extremely calm way, that what happened next all happened in seconds. Maybe a minute at most. No more, because with the sharp self-awareness exploding inside him, he could count his breaths while he did all the rest.
He inhaled exactly three times—deeply, evenly—while it occurred.
Before the first breath, there was again the ice-fingered grip of fear twisting his gut, squeezing the strength and air out of him.
He inhaled then. And let the retinal image go to his brain, instead of his belly.
It was twice the height of a man, weirdly elongated, the tripod base all ropy tendon, thin and hard. The trunk—thorax?—chest?—well, whatever, shelled or spacesuited or something, but shiny-hard—bulked enormous, four feet around surely at the center. At least four. And the Thing’s head was turned just far enough to the side so that Charles could see clearly that his wife’s face was in the gaping, reptilian maw of the Thing.
It held her under one arm. Her feet kicked at its side. It seemed not to notice. Her arm, with the bright metal cosmetic case clutched in her hand, swung wide, reaching to hit the canyon wall whenever it could. Her head was half into the creature’s mouth, firmly held, chin and forehead, by its enormous stretched lips.
While he drew in the first breath, he saw all this clearly and knew he dared not act in such a way as to make It bite down—from fear or anger, made no difference Charles could not see inside the great maw. What kind of teeth, what harm had been done, what could be done, he did not know . . . and knew he could not risk. He thought through and rejected five separate plans, while his hands found the items he’d need. He drew a new breath, and his kgs moved beneath him.
He could not shoot first. And he could not simply follow and learn more about the Thing. Because another image came through from somewhere—the same eyes that watched every move of the Thing? Unlikely, but it had to be—of the gleaming column of metal too close ahead. A Thing-ship. So: no time.
He leaped, knife in hand. Pricked the creatine, and jumped back.
It worked, as he’d prayed; no; as he had known, not just hoped or prayed, that it must. The Thing jumped, turned to look—and released his wife’s head.
He did not waste effort in looking, but saw anyhow that her face was unharmed. He jumped again, drawing the third breath, and pricked at the arm that held her. She squirmed and pushed, exactly on time, like a part of himself—which she was—and her body was dear of his as he emptied the pistol at Its head.
He reached for the torch.
By that time he could not stop himself. He would have avoided the torch if he could. As it was he thundered at Ruth, above the explosion: “Down! Keep down, babe!” And the blue flame of released oxygen missed her head by a foot . . .
He carried her back to the copter with strength he had not believed he could find. Nobody pursued.
She sat up, dazed, as the lights brightened slowly, and the white wall turned serenely opaque. She looked across at Gordon, and her face glowed with pleasure.
“No sillier than mine was,” she said, laughing. “Was it?”
“Not at all,” Gordon said.
She sat politely, waiting.
Gordon stood up, grinned down at her, and offered his hand. “I think they must be done in there,” he told her, nodding in the direction of the screenwall. “I imagine you’d like . . .”
He let it trail off.
“You’re a smart old thing, aren’t you?” She took the hand and came to her feet. Then, on impulse, astonished at herself, she stood on tiptoe and placed a quick kiss on his cheek. “What’s more, you’re a doll.” She turned and ran, glad but embarrassed.
The door closed behind her. A mirrored door on the opposite wall opened, and a young man entered. Gordon greeted him warmly. “Well—what did you think?” His own enthusiasm was unmistakable.
“Outside of its being a great racket? Do they all react that way?”
“Well, not all. Matter of fact, this pair is practically classical. You don’t often get a mesh like this one—you saw hers, didn’t you?”
“I don’t think so,” the other said. “Unless it was one of the bunch you ran for us last night?”
“Could be. She worked out a sort of a junior-size Tyrannosaur. Out of Professor Challenger maybe? Future-past uncertainty, here on Earth. Had it threaten the children, and just when she was about to sacrifice herself to save them, old Charlie showed up in the nick of time to do the slaying.”
The other nodded. “It’s a fascinating technique,” he said. “Damn glad to have this chance to see it work. One thing I don’t follow—why do you show them each other’s? That’s pretty much against basic theory on joint therapy, isn’t it?”
Gordon was smiling again. “Well,” he said slowly. “This pair didn’t really take the runs for therapy.” He had a surprise to spring, and he was enjoying it “You’ve heard about the new screening technique for colonists? You know the last expedition had only one broken couple and two psychotic collapses, out of fifty-six?” The younger man whistled. Then he understood. “This is how you’re doing it? Let them fantasy their own reactions? Well, hell. Sure! What’s surprising is, nobody thought of using it before!”
“Of course not. It was right under our noses,” Gordon said.
They both laughed.
“In this case,” he added, “we’ve got everything. His sequence stressed readiness, thoughtful preparation, careful action. You saw that Hers was strongest on instinct physical wisdom, that whole set. He was moved to do things he couldn’t possibly do—and knows he can’t by the way—in real life, because she was in danger. Her stimulus was a threat to home and children. And even then, she made sure he did the actual dragon-slaying job.” He flicked a switch. Through the wall, now, they saw Ruth and Charles, standing, holding hands, smiling and squeezing a little. That was all.
The two doctors smiled as the pale-skinned, ninety-five-pound, five-foot product of slum-crowded Earth threw a proud arm around his wife’s narrow shoulder, and led her out.
“Doesn’t look like much of a dragon-slayer,” the younger one said.
“No. But as long as he is . . .” He paused, looked the visitor over with care, and said. “You asked about showing them to each other? Ever think how much more therapy there might be for him in knowing she knows he can handle a dragon? Or
for her, knowing that he really can?”
THE KAPPA NU NEXUS
Avram Davidson and Morton Klass
Only one word is needed to introduce this rococo piece of baroque titillation: WOW.
THERE ARE CERTAIN PRINCIPLES WHICH FLOURISH (to use Addison’s felicitous phrase) midst the Crash of Matter and the Wrack of Worlds. Facts, we believe we may safely say, are facts. When the supple and suntanned young woman clad in two (or at most three) wisps of an astonishingly non-opaque material walked out of the closet and into the guest bedroom of the Kappa Nu Fraternity House, the goggling and gaping occupant of the bed—and here we take our stand—was young Hank Gordon.
But how come? you ask, and with justice and commendable tenseness. Why would he, now the Biggest of the Big Men on Campus, and an experienced (not to say, polished) womanizer, goggle and gape in such a situation? No matter. We affirm that it was to Hank Gordon’s imbecile stare of disbelief—and to no one else’s—that the young female person responded with a smile of infinite lubricity as she removed from over her left mamma a large name-pin reading Thais, and tossed it in the direction of the closet shelf.
The pin, that is.
It may also cane as a shock to learn of the anti-fraternity statements for which Henry Gordon had been noted in school prior to his successful assault upon the College Entrance Boards. The world is scarcely aware at all that it was he who remarked to the other components of the stag line (Hank? In a stag line? Even so.) on the occasion of the Senior Hop, “Frats? Strictly from Oldsville. Besides, y’think I got rocks? I mean, my old man would flip his wig if I asked for more money. Anyway—I mean, like frats? Who needs ’em?”
Thus Henry, pre-college. At other times he had been known to insist that he was going to college to “work hard” (though he did not specify at what, or with what purpose, save it might be to deceive his draft board) and not to “horse around.” There are even witnesses to the fact that he accused the entire American fraternity system of being undemocratic We mean, how callow can one get?
13 Above the Night Page 22