* * * *
‘Ricky, do you remember a day or two ago we were talking about the Great Rift?’
Ricky looked up from the microscope he was using.
‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Why?’ His smile faded and he began to look worried. ‘What’s happened?’
‘You remember you said something about the date - that it was about fifteen thousand years ago? You did say that, didn’t you?’
Ricky’s expression had faded to a watchful blank, but he nodded.
‘Well, who told you that? How did you know?’
‘Somebody said it,’ said Ricky flatly. He did not sound as though he expected to be believed.
Ellen Scott frowned.
‘Listen, Ricky. Dr Cartwright’s got the idea that somebody must have looked through the papers on his desk and read that date. He says he didn’t mention it to anyone. There may be trouble. If you did get curious and took a look at his notes -well, now is the time to say so. It’s not a good thing to have done, of course, but nobody’ll pay much attention once it’s cleared up.’
‘I didn’t look,’ said Ricky wretchedly. ‘I don’t remember how I knew, but I didn’t look. Honestly not.’
Unfortunately by that time Cartwright and Penn had already started arguing, which ended with both of them crashing through the wall of the dining cabin - which had not been built to take assaults of that kind - and throwing Barney the cook into a kind of hysterics. After that Jordan came on the scene.
Ricky had come and told him about it all. At least, he’d said that he had somehow learned that the date of the Great Rift had been fixed, and had mentioned it to Dr Scott while they were talking about geology. He didn’t know how he had learned it. He denied looking through Cartwright’s papers.
It was something that he had told the story, but then he must have thought that Ellen Scott would if he didn’t.
Jordan’s thoughts wandered off to Ellen for a moment. She was another person who believed that people who chose to work on alien planets must avoid personal ties-. How right she was.
Nothing more had happened. Cartwright and Penn seemed to be on somewhat better terms, having purged their animosity. But Ricky had been going round with a haunted and hopeless look on his face and Jordan was going crazy trying to think up an approach to the matter which would not drive the boy still farther away from him. But if he really made a habit of prying into private papers - and Cora had accused him of just that, after all - something must be done about it.
But what?
Jordan sighed, turned the viewer back to the beginning again and started to concentrate on Woodman’s report. He had read three frames when the silence was split by a terrified bellow from the direction of the forest.
‘Uelph! Uelph! Dewils. Uelph!’
Jordan shot through the door, grabbing a flashlight on the way. It was hardly needed: three moons were in the sky and their combined light was quite enough to show him the huge shape blundering among the cabins.
‘Barney!’ he shouted. ‘Stand still! What’s the matter?’
Barney - seventeen stone on Earth, over twenty on Lambda -came to a halt and blinked at the flashlight. He put up a huge hand, feeling at his face. He seemed to be wearing some sort of mask or muffler over his mouth - otherwise he was draped in flannelette pyjamas of brilliant hue and was barefooted. He ripped off the muffler - whatever it was - and threw it away. His utterance was a little clearer, but not much.
‘Dewils in a voresh. Caught eee. Woot ticky tuff on a wouth.’
He was gasping and sweating and Jordan was seriously worried. Barney was a superb cook, but he was apt to get excited and the extra gravitation of Lambda produced a slight strain on his heart. At that moment Ricky appeared like a silent shadow at his father’s elbow.
‘What’s the matter with him?’ As usual the boy looked neat and alert, although at the moment he was wearing pyjamas and a robe. Jordan gestured towards his cabin.
‘Take Barney in there and see what’s sticking his mouth up.’ Several other people had appeared by this time, including Ellen Scott in a brilliant robe and Woodman in rumpled pyjamas. Jordan sent Ellen to switch on the overhead floods and organized a search party.
Half an hour later Barney’s mouth had been washed free from the gummy material which had been sticking his lips together, and he was in some shape to explain:
‘I woke up suddenly lying out in the forest. All damp it was.’ He groaned faintly. ‘I can feel my lumbago coming on already. I was lyin’ flat on my back and there was somethin’ over my arms - rope or somethin’. My mouth was all plastered up and there was a thing sittin’ on my chest. I got a glimpse of it out of the aack of me eyes, and then it went. There was more of them round. They was shoutin’.’
‘Shouting?’ repeated Jordan. ‘You mean just making a noise?’
‘No, sir, they was shouting in English. I couldn’t hear what, but it was in words all right. They said “People”. That was the only word I got, but that’s it right enough. “People.” Then I got my arms free and started to swipe around. I got hold of one of them and it stung me and I let it go.’
He pointed to a neat puncture wound in the flesh at the base of his thumb. Jordan got out antiseptics and bathed it.
‘I got up and ran back,’ Barney went on. ‘I was only a little way into the forest - I could still see the lights here. I ran as hard as I could but me feet kept slippin’.’ The light of remembered panic was in his eyes. ‘They stuck somethin’ over me mouth - I couldn’t breathe. It took me hours to get it off. I dunno what it was.’
‘It was a leaf,’ said Woodman. He produced a large leaf, perhaps twenty inches long: it was dark grey and one surface was smeared with a dully shining substance. ‘It’s been coated with some kind of vegetable gum.’
‘But how did you get into the forest, Barney?’ demanded Dr Scott.
Barney shook his head miserably.
‘He walked,’ said another of the party. ‘On his own. Tracks of his feet in the mud. You’ve been sleep-walking, Barney.’
‘Then where did he get the gag?’ demanded Woodman. ‘This gum comes from a plant which is quite rare and there aren’t any within a hundred yards of the clearing. Besides, we found the place where he’d been lying. A couple of saplings were bent over and the ends shoved in the mud - those were used to hold his arms down, I reckon. No, he was attacked all right, but what did it?’
‘I suppose,’ said Dr. Scott slowly, ‘this couldn’t have been somebody’s idea of a joke?’
There was a brief silence. Ricky looked up suddenly and caught his father’s eye. His face went rigid, but he said nothing.
‘We shall have to assume it wasn’t,’ said Jordan. ‘That means precautions. We always assumed that Lambda was a safe planet. Apparently we were wrong. Until we know what happened no one goes out alone. Those of you who have observations to make outside will have to work in pairs and with your radios turned on. We’ll arrange for a monitor on all the individual frequencies. The floods had better stay on tonight and we’ll have a patrol - three men keeping in touch. Two hours for each of us. Doc, will you see to Barney?’
The medical officer nodded and took Barney off to his cabin, and its specially strengthened bunk. Jordan looked thoughtfully at his son.
‘You’d better get back to bed, Ricky. Unless you have anything to contribute.’
Ricky was standing stiffly upright. ‘I haven’t,’ he said.
‘Get along, then. Now about this patrol—’
Jordan put himself on the first shift of the patrol - he wouldn’t be able to sleep. Why in Space had he brought Ricky? Either he had brought him into danger or - worse - Ricky was somehow at the bottom of this. He spent a good deal of time running errands for Barney. He had not seemed to mind it, but how did you tell what a boy was thinking? Might he have thought it funny to send big Barney lumbering in panic through the forest? And how could he have done it?
Jordan remembered that Ricky had once been found reading the
article on Hypnosis in the Terrestrial Encyclopedia.
And if Ricky was innocent, what could be at the bottom of that ludicrous and inefficient attack?
* * * *
In the top of the tallest tree available, Big Sword waited for daylight and brooded over the failure of his plan.
It was easy enough to get the biggest of the Big Folk into the forest. He had discovered that for part of the time they lay folded out flat in their enclosures, with their eyes shut, and during this time they were more sensitive to suggestion than when they were active. Big Sword, whose own eyes had an internal shutter, found eyelids rather fascinating: he had been tempted to experiment with Barney’s but had refrained. He thought bitterly that he might as well have done so.
He had summoned twelve of the People and all of them thinking together had got the Big Person to its feet and walking. It had occurred to Big Sword that the receptiveness of the Big Person might be improved if they got it to lie down again. He had further decided that, in view of the blanking-out of thought when the creatures began to blow through their face-split, this aperture had better be shut.
That, he now knew, had been a mistake. No sooner was the gummed leaf in place on the Big Person’s face than its eyes had popped open and showed every sign of coming right out of its face. There had been just warning enough in its thoughts for the band of People to hop out of range, except for Big Sword, who had had to use his spike for the first time in his life, to get free. Then the great arms had swung dangerously about and the creature had thrashed to its feet. After that there was no hope of making contact. Its mind was in a turmoil, making the People actively uncomfortable: they had retreated as far as they could, until the interwoven lives of trees and other forest creatures were sufficiently interposed to reduce the Big Person’s thoughts to a comfortable intensity.
Big Sword had been surprised by the low level of intelligence shown by the Big Person. It had made no effort at all to understand him - its thoughts were a much worse muddle than any of the others he had investigated. Perhaps he had made a mis-taker1 Perhaps size among these monsters was not directly connected with intelligence? Or perhaps it was an inverse relationship?
Big Sword was suddenly desperately thirsty and tired. He slid into the rain-filled cup of an enormous leaf - to soak up water through the million mouths of his skin and make his plans afresh.
* * * *
The camp next morning was subdued and rather weary. Nobody had got their full sleep. Now there was all the awkward business of rearranging a full-time research programme so that nobody should have to go into the forest alone. The lurking menace which last night had provided a formidable thrill, this morning was nothing more than a vague, dreary uneasiness. Furthermore, there was always the possibility that it would turn out to be nothing more than the work of an ingenious kid with a distorted sense of humour. And nobody liked to think what that would do to Jordan.
The working parties dispersed. Those whose work took them to the laboratory sheds tried to concentrate on it. Ricky, who had decided that this was not a morning for wrestling with lessons, slipped off to see if Barney wanted any odd jobs done, and was sent to pick fresh beans in the hydroponics shed.
The mechanical job helped to keep his mind steady. Having once got out of a nightmare, it was creeping round him again. This time with a difference.
There had got to be an explanation somewhere.
When he had left the house in Antarctica he had seemed to leave all his troubles behind. No more need to keep a continual watch on himself, in case he let something out. No more temptation, when in spite of himself he had put his foot in it again, to come out with something really startling and see what they could do about it. He was free. He had been free for months.
Then it started happening all over again. He had heard all sorts of scientific gossip - people here talked shop all the time. How was he to know what he’d heard and what he hadn’t? How could he stop this happening again, now that whatever it was had followed him out here?
There was just one ray of hope. He couldn’t possibly have had anything to do with what happened to Barney. If he could only find out what did that, some real solid explanation he could show everybody, then he might somehow be able to tell someone of the way he seemed to pick up knowledge without noticing it, knowledge he had no right to have—
Anyway, doing something was better than just sitting and waiting for things to go wrong again.
He delivered the beans to the kitchen and wandered out. The raw, red earth of the clearing shone like paint in the sun. In places he could still see the traces of Barney’s big feet, going and coming, leading into the forest. There, among the black leaves and blacker shadows, lurked some real, genuine, tangible menace you could go for with a stick. There was a good supply of sticks stacked by his father’s cabin for the benefit of the working parties. Ricky provided himself with one.
* * * *
Big Sword had finished drinking - or bathing, whichever way you looked at it - and had climbed out of the diminished pool in the leaf-cup to spread his membranes in the sun. He looked like a big bat, lying spread out on the leaf. The black webs that stretched between his arms and legs and his sides would snap back into narrow rolls when he wanted to move, but when he extended them to catch the sunlight they covered a couple of square feet. They absorbed all the light in the visible range and well into the ultra-violet and infra-red. Like most organisms on Lambda, Big Sword supported himself by a very efficient photosynthesis.
He had only just begun to make up for the wear and tear of the night - continuous activity in the dark was exhausting -when he felt the call out of the forest.
‘Longfoot is going, Big Sword. Longfoot is going on the Journey. You wished to see. Come quickly!’
Big Sword’s membranes snapped into thin ridges along his arms and legs and he bounded off among the trees. The Long Journey was mysterious to him, as it was to all of the People before the urge actually came to them - but the rest were content to leave it as a mystery. Big Sword wanted to know more.
He came in flying leaps to the edge of the forest, where the trees stopped short on the edge of the Great Rift. Some twenty or so of the People were gathered on the edge of the sheer cliff. Longfoot sat among them, his legs twitching occasionally with the urge to be off. As Big Sword arrived Longfoot shot to his feet, eager to depart.
‘Where are you going?’ demanded Big Sword. ‘What will you find over there, Longfoot? Why do you want to cross the waste, with no water and no shade? You will be dried to a stick before you get halfway across.’
But Longfoot’s mind was shut off; he had no longer any interest in Big Sword, or the People, or the danger to the Tree. He did not know why he had to go down on to the waste of boulders and small stones, but the urge could no longer be resisted. He dropped over the edge of the cliff, bouncing from ledge to ledge until he reached the bottom, and set off across the wide, rock-strewn plain, along the lines of shadow cast by the newly-risen sun.
Big Sword watched him sadly. He himself was nearly a year away from feeling that call which had come to Longfoot, and the thought of his own journeying did not trouble him yet. He had been warned early of the dangers of going out on to the waste and, with the habit of logical thought strongly cultivated in him, he was troubled about what would happen. The waste stretched almost as far as he could see - at least twelve miles. At the end of it was the dark line which might have been a far-off continuation of the Forest. But why Longfoot should have wished to go there, or the many thousands of the People who had made that journey before him, Big Sword could not see.
He went back into the forest and found another perch on the edge of the clearing. Few of the Big People were in sight. He was conscious of vague alarms emanating from those who were within reach - it was an emotion foreign to his experience, but he disliked it. He wondered how to set about detaching a specimen from the group, since the direct method had proved unsuitable.
He became suddenly and
sharply aware that one had detached itself already and was coming slowly towards him.
* * * *
Ricky had seen the little black figure sail out of the shadows and land on an equally black leaf. It took all his concentration to make it out when it had stopped moving, but he at last managed to fix its position. Slowly, casually, he wandered towards it, observing it out of the corner of his eye.
Its body was a blob perhaps four inches long and its head about half of that, joined on by a short neck. It rested on its bent fore-limbs and the hind legs stuck up like those of a grasshopper; they looked to be at least twice as long as trunk and head together. As he sidled closer Ricky could make out the big convex eyes, grey with black slit-like pupils, filling more than half the face. Ricky knew the fauna list of Lambda by heart; this creature was not on it. It must be one of Barney’s ‘little devils’ all right.
Spectrum 5 - [Anthology] Page 26