"I think so, too," Martin confirmed. "And it had to be here for a long time-long enough for the trees to grow up against it."
Patsy was craning her neck to see what was past the shrubbery, and what she saw made her catch her breath. "Look at that," she called. There was open ground there, but planted- planted in regular rows of tall stalks.
"It looks like farmland," Patrice said, staring. "And there's a path-and, hey, what's that thing over there on the ground?"
The thing along the path was definitely a machine. It had three wheels, bicycle-size, though the spokes were wood-the whole thing was wood, as far as Patsy could see, and it had a sort of basketwork thing in the middle. A farm cart? But if there was a farm, where was the farmer?
That was the next shock. There was a stirring among the tall, ruddy-leafed stalks, and a creature appeared, holding half a dozen banana-shaped fruits (or husks, or something) and staring at them.
It was nothing Patsy had ever encountered before, though even at first glimpse there was something about it that looked vaguely familiar. What it looked like was a scale model of one of the ancient big-bodied, long-necked dinosaurs, maybe the kind that was called apatosaurus-though in this case an apatosaurus that was covered with curly hair all over its body, strands poking out from the colorful embroidered shirt and kilt it wore on its tubby, watermelon-size body, and curly bangs that hung over its tiny, lashed eyes-and a very small apatosaurus, at most a couple of meters from the end of the tail that rose behind it to the little head on the end of its sinuous, long neck. It stood on its hind legs, and its front legs-no, Patsy decided, you'd definitely have to call them arms and hands-were holding what it had just collected.
If the watchers were startled, the creature was petrified with fear. It made a sharp mewing sound, dropping its harvest, and flopped itself onto the machine in the path. Patsy saw what the basket was for. It supported the creature's belly as it lay flat, its legs pumping reciprocating levers that turned the rear wheels, its hands on a tiller that evidently guided the wheel in front. As the vehicle rolled away the long neck swayed around so that the fear-filled eyes could stare back at them.
When he was out of sight Patrice shook herself. "He doesn't look like one of the Seven Ugly Dwarfs," she said thoughtfully, "and he's definitely not a Beloved Leader. But I could swear I've seen somebody like him before."
Patsy had the same feeling. She said, "Maybe he's a prisoner like us. Maybe there are other intelligent races of captives around-even those things in the water last night, maybe?"
"Oh, hell, no," Patrice said positively. "This thing had a velocipede and it wore clothes; they didn't."
Rosaleen sighed and turned, automatically reaching for Martin's arm. "Think about it, Patrice. If you live in the water, what do you need with a velocipede? Or clothes, for that matter. People like us wear clothes to protect us against the weather, but there isn't any weather underwater. In any case, it's time for my bath."
Martin looked alarmed. "That's risky. Maybe that thing went to get help."
"Yes, perhaps so," Rosaleen said, "but it's time for me to clean myself up a bit. You've all been very polite, but I really need a bath."
"We'll take a couple of spears along," Patsy promised.
"You'll take me, too!" Martin insisted.
"We will not" Patrice said indignantly.
But in the long run prudence won over modesty-what was left of modesty, after those long nude days in their first pen. The compromise they finally reached was that Martin would come along to carry Rosaleen to the bathing pond, while Jimmy Lin stayed behind to keep an eye on the place where they had seen the dinosaur with the velocipede. Then Martin would stay nearby as long as they were in the water; but he would concede enough to their modesty to sit with his back to them. "And no peeking," Rosaleen called good-naturedly as they began to undress.
Patsy was the first to be naked, but she paused before getting into the water, appalled at the sight of Rosaleen's nude body. The woman was skeletal. Her breasts, never ample, were mere flaps of flesh; her ribs showed; her hip joints protruded, and so did her knees and elbows.
Patrice had begun helping Rosaleen toward the water; Patsy turned away in embarrassment and splashed in. The water was still cold, but bearable. After the first shock Patsy began to swim. She couldn't help glancing around at the woods every few moments, but, really, there wasn't much to fear. Was there? And it was so wonderful, so fine, to be free in the cleansing water after all that time of filth and deprivation…?
She rolled over on her back to look back at where Patrice was helping Rosaleen in the shallows. She noticed that Patrice was holding one of Dan's metal spears, and wondered if she shouldn't have one, too-wondered a moment later whether she wasn't being reckless in swimming out so far from the others. Treading water, she looked around.
That was when she saw the tiny pairs of eyes on the surface of the pond, three or four sets of them, nearer to the other bathers than to herself.
She screamed a warning and didn't wait to see if they would respond. She began to swim as fast as she could toward the shore. Yells and screams spurred her on; when she reached the bank she stood up to look. Martin was there already, splashing fully dressed in the shallows, furiously stabbing at something in the water with his own spear. She didn't see the eyes; she did see the water swirling there as though something large were moving under the surface. Patrice was hurrying Rosaleen out of the water, peering back over her shoulder in panic.
Patsy began to run along the bank toward them, pausing to catch up another spear from the stack beside their clothes. Martin might need help…
Martin did need help. Something huge and slate gray erupted from the water behind him; he screamed something-in Spanish, Patsy thought, though she could not make out the words- and fell back into the water. "Oh, God!" Patrice cried. "It got him!"
Patsy didn't hesitate. She splashed into the shallows to where Martin was half floating, half resting on the muddy bottom of the lake. She didn't see the creature that had attacked him. There was a stain in the water-blood? From Martin? But it was some distance away, and the surface was swirling there; something was there and bleeding. When she reached Martin's body it was motionless. Dead? Patsy tried to imagine what it was like to be killed, to die suddenly, without warning…
But maybe he wasn't dead. The spear in one hand, she wrapped her fingers in his long, coarse hair, trying to pull him ashore. The man weighed twice as much as she. She was barely able to move him, and his face was underwater, time passing; if he hadn't been killed by the amphibian he might drown. When Patrice splashed in to join her she let her take over with the task of pulling the general toward dry land, while she remained in the water, on guard with the spear, watching the swirl of bloody water. Across the pond something was heaving itself out of the water; a good sign, Patsy thought hopefully. They were running away. The thing didn't really look like a hippo, more like a walrus; and it galumphed across the ground in its pinniped fashion. It stopped, turning to look at her with those protuberant eyes, then leaned forward, scooped up some mud, formed it into a ball and threw it at her with its finlike paws.
The mud fell far short, splashing in the middle of the pool. Patsy almost laughed at that pitiful display of hostility. Why, they're as frightened as we are, she thought. It did not occur to her that there had been several of the creatures.
She didn't even see the one that was coming up behind her.
She never saw it at all, only felt the sudden touch of something cold on her back, and then the sharp agony of an electric shock; and then Patsy Adcock's question was answered, and she knew at last what it was like to die.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Dan
Before Dannerman and Pat had gone a hundred meters they weren't walking hand in hand anymore. They were arm in arm. Very soon thereafter their arms were around each other's waists, and their pace had slowed-no longer a march, now an affectionate stroll. They weren't so wrapped up in each other that t
hey didn't take note of what was around them. That was what they were there for: to explore their surroundings. Dannerman observed that the path they were on had once been trodden hard by some creature's feet-but not recently, since it was now broken here and there with clumps of the wiry grass spikes. It was Pat who first saw the trees that looked so much like cherries (though the bright red fruits that hung from their branches were segmented with hard scales like tiny, ruby-colored pineapples), and it was Dannerman who pointed out the hill that rose off to their left, looming a good hundred meters over the surrounding terrain. ("We could climb that and see everything for kilometers around. Maybe next time.") But they both knew that the thing they were most interested in exploring was not geography; and when Pat looked up at Dannerman, he naturally kissed her; and when they moved their faces away the only question was which of them could first get out of their clothes. They wasted no time. The weeks of enforced abstinence and excessive intimacy were all the foreplay they needed.
When they were done Dannerman propped himself up on one elbow to take some of his weight off her body and gazed reminiscently at her face. "You know, I thought about doing this a lot when we were kids."
"Well, so did I," she said, taking his ears gently in two hands and pulling his head down for a kiss. "But right now it's a little uncomfortable. Oh, don't let go of me-let's hug for a while, okay? Only next time," she added as they shifted position, "we ought to bring a blanket. This mossy stuff has some pretty sharp stickers."
After a while they walked a little farther down the path, remembering that they were supposed to be checking out the area for points of interest. They didn't find many. They had their clothes back on, but Dannerman was comfortably aware that they could get them off again quickly enough if they chose. He rather expected they would choose.
It crossed his mind that probably they shouldn't stay away from the others too long-Dopey might come back and then they would have to think seriously about this mad plan of his to reconquer the base for the Beloved Leaders. Or, alternatively, Dopey might not come back at all. Then they would have to think even more seriously about simple survival. But he didn't want to think about such matters just then, because he was too busy feeling good. It was, he decided, about the best he had felt in a long time-certainly since they had boarded the Clipper for the trip to Starlab. Maybe for a good deal longer than that.
Finally it was Pat who had to say, "Maybe we ought to start back."
Dannerman blinked down at her. "Oh, do you think so? I was sort of thinking that maybe we could-"
"Of course we can," she said, patting his shoulder. "It doesn't have to be here. There's plenty of nice secluded spots right near the yurts, so whenever we like we can just excuse ourselves for a bit and-" She paused, looking curiously at his face. "What's the matter?"
"It just seems so, well, obvious," he said.
Then she did laugh out loud. "Oh, Dan-Dan. Do you think there's one soul back there who isn't absolutely sure of what we were doing here? Come on. Let's see if we can get back without getting lost."
But of course they didn't get lost, because they'd never got that far off the well-marked old path, and of course what Pat said was right. Dannerman switched gears without difficulty. He didn't forget the pleasant feeling in his loins, but he remembered to pick a few of the bright red fruits to carry back, just in case, and even before that he was testing strategies in his mind in the event that Dopey really did bring them their weapons.
That was the part of the Dannerman mind that the Bureau training and experience had honed to a sharp edge. He considered the prospects. If, in spite of everything, they were going to get involved in combat with the Horch machines the first thing they would need was more information. They would need to know, from Dopey, just what parts of the Horch machines were vulnerable to a projectile weapon; and they would have to decide how to allocate the available weapons. He had no doubt that Jimmy Lin and the general could handle a gun; the females were iffier. "Pat?" he asked. "Have you ever been checked out on that little gun you used to carry?"
But she wasn't listening. She was suddenly straining to hear something. "What's that?" she asked, her face suddenly worried.
But by then he had heard the sudden distant screaming, too, and he was already beginning to run.
When they reached the bathing pool there was Martin Delasquez, lying on his face by the side of the pond, his feet still in the water, with Rosaleen, naked, struggling to try to turn him over; and just meters away a clothed Jimmy Lin and a naked Pat were frantically trying to pull the limp form of the other Pat, also naked, to dry land.
What he couldn't see was what it was that they were trying to flee from, but the women were shouting the answer to that. The amphibians? How could that be? What were they doing here, so far from their own pond? But then he saw the little eyes, only a few meters from shore, and then there was no doubt. He didn't waste time wondering. He and Jimmy got the inert hulk of Martin Delasquez pulled away from the water, while the two Pats did the same for the third. "Let me," Jimmy panted, taking over from the Pats; once again his Boy Scout training was useful. Dannerman stood guard, knee deep in the muddy shallows at the water's edge, spear ready. When he stole glances over his shoulder he saw Jimmy bending over the motionless woman, doing the mouth-to-mouth and the rhythmic chest-hammering of CPR, while Rosaleen and the other Pats copied his actions on the form of Martin. Which Pat was which? Hard enough to tell them apart at any time, it was impossible when they were naked.
If the amphibians had any intention of attacking on dry land they kept it in check. Dannerman knew they were there, saw water swirling, caught a glimpse or two of gray flesh; but they seemed more interested in getting their own wounded member to the safety of deep water than in the creatures that had stabbed him. Slowly Dannerman retreated to the high ground, spear still ready, but beginning to feel a little safer.
When he looked around Martin was stirring at last, coughing, looking dazedly around, trying to sit up. But the other Pat
Jimmy was still working on her. He kept it up for long minutes, kept it up long past the time when Dannerman could still feel hope. Then Lin sat somberly back on his haunches.
"She's dead," he said. He thought for a moment. "If we had adrenaline, or shock paddles," he began, and then shook his head and repeated, "She's dead."
Dead?
Dannerman felt the word like a physical blow. Dead. It did not seem possible. Yes, sure, they had all fated the strong probability that they might all be dead before long, starvation most likely, possibly some other assault from this hostile place. But not now. Not so soon.
"Dan?" It was Rosaleen, drawing on her clothes and looking at him. "Don't you think we ought to get out of here?"
He roused himself. "Yes, of course. But-" He hesitated, looking at the two living Pats and the one that lay motionless on the ground. "But which?"
The nearest Pat glared at him angrily. "It's Patsy, you fool," she said, and began to cry.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Dan
They didn't walk back to the yurts. They fled. As rapidly as they could, all of them craning their necks to watch for pursuit-but Dannerman knew that if the amphibians attacked again there was very little they could do about it. He had organized them as best he could, but under the circumstances his best was not a lot. Martin had turned out to be able to walk, more or less. He was staggering, confused, seeming tranced and bewildered, with little strength in his limbs. But Jimmy Lin supported him on one side and Patrice on the other, and he managed. Rosaleen Artzybachova was making it on her own-not very well, either, but limping after the others with Pat's help; Pat was carrying Patsy's bundled-up clothing, too, and she had a spear to handle as well, since she was all they had in the way of a rear guard against the amphibians.
Dannerman was carrying the body of Patsy. Jimmy Lin had offered, but Dannerman could not let the man touch her damp, cooling and naked body. Dannerman had her cradled in his two hands, each one also hold
ing a spear. Part of the time he walked backward, scanning the path behind them for possible attackers; there were none. One of Patsy's lax arms hung toward the ground. The other lay across her body, as though trying to preserve modesty. But she had no modesty left to preserve. Though her head hung down Dannerman could see that her eyes were open and so was her mouth. Patsy Adcock would never have let herself be seen in so unflattering a pose. She didn't look pretty. She barely looked like herself; she looked only dead.
Dannerman looked away. They had other things to think of. They would have to bury Patsy, which meant somehow digging a grave. He would have to organize some sort of guard duty to watch for a possible attack. What he would do if that happened he did not know; the yurts were simply not defensible. But there would have to be some sort of plan. Useless or not, it would have to be tried.
There was another thought swelling inside him, bursting to come out-well, no, he corrected himself; not a thought exactly. A pain. A deep hurt that he had never experienced before and did not know how to deal with. Sooner or later he would have to let it come to the surface-
But not yet.
As soon as they had crossed the little stream he put Patsy's body down, as gently as he could, and began giving orders. Martin was to be put to bed in one of the yurts, Rosaleen in the other. Jimmy Lin would be the first to stand guard, while Pat searched the yurts for something to dig a grave with. The others listened attentively. They didn't offer objections to his seizure of command. They moved. But they did not, exactly, obey. Jimmy Lin's first care was for his precious little fire, and only when that was fed did he, not Pat, begin looking for digging tools. Rosaleen flatly refused to be shut away from the others, so Patrice hauled a pallet out of a yurt for the old lady to lie on. Then Jimmy returned with a couple of flat-bladed wooden things that would do as scoops, and he and Dannerman began using their metal spears to loosen clods of dirt, while Pat and Patrice silently dressed Patsy's body. They didn't talk much. There wasn't much to say.
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