“That could have happened to us,” muttered Sanchez, at last tearing his eyes away from the distant, grisly feast.
“But it didn’t,” said Grimes. “Thanks to Su Lin. But I suggest that, from now on, we move very slowly. It might help.”
It did—but working in slow motion was tiring. And although the flying things now seemed to be ignoring them (perhaps they were intelligent and had come to the conclusion that the strange, two-legged beings on the island were better left alone), there were other . . . nuisances. There was a sort of huge worm that, unexpectedly, would extrude its blind head from the mossy ground and attempt to fasten its sucker mouth upon their booted feet and ankles. There was a small army of crablike things, each with a carapace all of a meter across, each armed with a pair of vicious looking pincers, that marched out of the stream and up the hill in military formation, that milled about in confusion on finding the way blocked by the wreckage of Fat Susie, that finally made its way around the stranded airship and then down the hill and into the water.
There was a straggler.
This Grimes killed with the laser pistol. The smell of roast crab made his mouth water.
“That was very foolish, Commodore,” chided the girl. “The rest of them might have come back to attack you.”
“But they didn’t, did they? And I’m very fond of crab.”
“These things only look like crabs. Their flesh might be poisonous to us.”
“There’s only one way to find out. Standard Survey Service survival technique. You take only a very small taste of whatever it is you’re testing. If, at the end of an hour, you’re suffering no ill effects then it’s safe and you can tuck in.”
While he spoke he was using his knife to lever up the top of the carapace, like a lid. The smell was stronger, more tantalizing. He scooped out a pea-sized portion of the pale pink, still steaming, flesh with the point of the blade. He was raising it to his mouth when she put out a hand to stop him.
“No, Commodore. Not you. You’re the Governor. I’m the guinea pig.” Her long fingers plucked the morsel of meat from the knife, brought it to her mouth. “Hm. Not bad, not bad at all. Now, I’ll put this thing in the shade. If I’m still healthy at the end of an hour it will be our lunch . . .”
Slowly, painstakingly they continued to make their way about the wreck. They found that a relatively large area of the solar energy collecting screens on top of the envelope was undamaged. Power would be no problem. Hopefully neither food nor water would be—as long as they could fill buckets from the river without being dragged into it and eaten. (None of them had any desire to see the things that had attacked the downed flier at close quarters.) They might even, constructing a raft or canoe from the dirigible’s metal skin, be able to get away from the island by crossing the stream or by drifting downriver. But what then? Could they hope to make their way overland or by water to human settlement? So far they had seen only a small sample of the Unclaimed Territory’s flora and fauna, and only those creatures that operated by day.
What came out at night?
Yet, thought Grimes, there just could be a way. It all depended on what was in the workshop, what materials there were for making emergency repairs. Too, they would have to gain access to the wrecked control car so that they could study the charts.
“I’m still alive,” said Su Lin, breaking into his thoughts. “It’s lunch time. I can whip up some mayonnaise, and . . .”
But when they went to pick up the crab-thing they found that the worms had gotten to it first, sucking the shell dry and empty.
Chapter 34
Back in the wardroom they took lunch, eating rather uninteresting sandwiches (Grimes bitterly regretted not having had the crab put in a safe place) and washing them down with mineral water. After the meal and a brief smoke Grimes suggested that they get in a supply of fresh water. There were buckets available; there were some large empty plastic bins that could be filled. Sanchez volunteered to do the actual bucket filling and insisted that it was his duty. While he stooped on the river bank, bending out and down and over, Su Lin and Grimes kept watch—she of the sky and he of the water. Her weapon had a far greater range than his, the laser tool.
The winged creatures did not bother them. The many-legged swimmers did, once they became aware of the humans’ existence. Grimes drove off the first attack, by a single predator, without any difficulty. He discovered that if he kept the water boiling or almost so it was a good deterrent. The ugly, vicious things did not venture from the merely warm into the very hot. He was beginning to congratulate himself when, very fortunately, he took a glance upstream. The water centipedes—as he had decided to call them—were coming ashore, were advancing toward them, their two-meter-long bodies wriggling sinuously along the bank. Hastily he and the others retreated up the hill, temporarily abandoning the buckets. Luckily the aquatic predators could not stay long out of their native element. They returned to the river.
But they waited there, their writhing bodies gleaming just under the surface, stalked eyes upheld like periscopes.
Grimes had seen in the workshop some pairs of rubberized work gauntlets. Accompanied by Su Lin and Sanchez he went to get three pairs of these.
“A good idea, sir, now that it’s too late,” complained Sanchez. “I could have done with these when I was having to dip my hands into that near-as-dammit boiling water . . .”
“They’re to insulate against more than heat,” Grimes told him.
Su Lin laughed appreciatively; she was quicker on the uptake than the pilot.
They went in search, then, of shockers. It was quite easy to distinguish them from those other gaudy plants that they imitated. If a thing wriggled sluggishly when it was lifted, it was a shocker. If it didn’t wriggle and was securely rooted to the ground it wasn’t. They were able to build a barricade of the electric plants up-river from where the buckets had been left. Then Grimes, with the laser, heated the water to near-boiling point again, simmering a centipede that was evincing hostile attentions toward him. The other creatures, as before, came ashore upstream. They tried to cross the living, garish carpet to get at their prey. They twitched and died.
Grimes wondered if they were edible—but the motile plants had already made that decision. Very soon the long, twisted bodies were enveloped and the process of ingestion had commenced. Grimes shrugged. Those centipedes hadn’t looked very appetizing. Hopefully, perhaps tomorrow, at the same time as today, there would be another procession of crabs. . . .
Anyhow, something had been accomplished. The wreck of Fat Susie was now well-stocked with water.
“What now, Commodore?” asked Sanchez wearily.
“We get down into the control car to fetch out the charts, Raoul.”
“Come off it, sir. Can’t it wait until tomorrow? We’ve put in a very busy day, and it will be advisable for us to keep watches all through the night. We’ve seen only the daytime beasties—Bakunin alone knows what the nocturnal ones are like!”
“Was Bakunin a xenobiologist?” asked Grimes interestedly.
“Just somebody to swear by, sir—the same as your Odd Gods of the Galaxy.”
“We’ll continue this theological discussion later,” said Grimes. “Right now I want those charts. I want to see what chance we have of getting out of here.”
“But we can’t even get ashore from this blasted island!”
“Can’t we?” asked Grimes gently. “Can’t we?”
“Of course we can,” said Su Lin, “as long as the Commodore’s famous luck hasn’t run out.”
“I don’t think that it has,” said Grimes softly. “I don’t think that it has. . . .”
They had to cut their way into the control car, using the laser tool. Fortuitously—a case of Grimes’s luck!—the aperture that they burned in the deck was directly over the chart table. Fantastically none of the charts sustained fire damage. They took these to the wardroom, spread them out on the carpet, studied them.
“We’re here,�
� said Sanchez definitely, drawing a circle around the representation of an island in a wide river with a soft pencil.
“Are you sure, Raoul?”
“Yes, sir. It’s not far from where Flattery attacked us. We made very little headway after that—for obvious reasons.”
“Mphm. Now find me a small-scale chart, one with the Shocking River and this island on it but showing the terrain beyond the Unclaimed Territory.”
“This one should do, Commodore.”
“Good. Now, how was the wind today?”
“I . . . I didn’t notice. . . .”
“Did you, Su Lin?”
“No.”
“Well, I did. It’s been northerly all the time—no more than light airs during the forenoon but, by now, quite a stiff breeze. Presumably—and hopefully—this weather pattern will persist. From where we are now the shortest distance to what is laughingly referred to as civilization is due south.”
“But we still have to get off the island, sir!” protested Sanchez. “And then, when we do, we have to cross at least a thousand kilometers of broken terrain crawling with all manner of things. . . .”
“I know that, Raoul. Now, am I correct in stating that I saw, in the workshop some tubes of a very special adhesive?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Used when you’re slapping patches on to ruptured helium cells.”
“That’s what it’s for, sir.”
“And did I see some cylinders of compressed helium?”
“You did.” Sanchez laughed. “I see what you’re driving at, Commodore. A balloon with the envelope made from pieces of our burst gas cells glued together. And suppose we get winds with an average velocity of, say, twenty kilometers an hour . . . A fifty-hour flight—and we’re out of this mess!”
“And probably into a worse one,” grumbled Su Lin, but smiling as she spoke.
But the supply of adhesive, they discovered, was sufficient only for making the odd repairs. There was not nearly enough to gum together pieces of fabric to make a balloon large enough to support three persons. The helium situation was better—but what would they have to put the lighter-than-air gas in?
Grimes said, “With luck we might be able to make a reasonably airworthy one-man balloon. With luck that one man might make it, then come back to rescue the others . . .”
“A one-woman balloon,” said Su Lin.
“After we’ve made the thing,” said Grimes, “we’ll decide who’s to go.”
Chapter 35
Sanchez stood the evening watch, Su Lin the middle and the morning watch was kept by Grimes. Before they broke up—two to go to their beds and the other to commence his tour of duty—they discussed procedure. Would it be better for the watchkeeper to stay inside the ship or should he go outside? They agreed that an open-air vigil could well be tantamount to suicide. Then there was another question. Should lights be rigged to illuminate Fat Susie from the outside, or not? None of them knew much about the flora and fauna of the Unclaimed Territory. Would night prowlers be scared away by lavish illumination or would they be attracted to it?
“We didn’t have any unfriendly visitors last night,” argued the pilot. “The only lights were those inside the ship—and most of the ports were well-screened by wreckage.”
“Any nocturnal animals,” said Grimes, “could well have been scared away by the descent of a huge monster from the sky. It might not be long before they accept Fat Susie as part of the scenery. If we rig lights outside it will make her look unnatural and delay acceptance. Too, if we do have to go outside to fight something we shan’t be fighting in the dark.”
“That makes sense,” said Su Lin. “But the watchkeeper should stay inside the ship, on the catwalk handy for the cabins, and, on no account, go outside by himself. And the watchkeeper will have with him what seems to be our most effective weapon—my lighter.” She grinned at Grimes. “And I hope that you, Commodore, will use matches to light your pipe. I don’t want the lighter’s charge reduced unnecessarily.”
They found suitable and powerful lights and ran them, on wandering leads, outside the ship. They stood there, while the darkness deepened, waiting to see if anything would be attracted. They soon came to the conclusion that the gearing lamps would be useful in an unexpected way. Up the hill, from all sides, oozed the shockers, coming to recharge their solar batteries. They soon formed a tight cordon about the wreck, seemingly content to remain there, quiescent, soaking up the radiation. They were far more effective a barricade against intruders than anything that might have been constructed from the available materials could be.
After a not very satisfactory supper Grimes and Su Lin retired to their cabins, leaving Sanchez in charge.
The girl called Grimes at 0345 hours, bringing him the usual tea tray. After a sketchy toilet he dressed, then joined her on the catwalk.
She said, “It’s been a quiet night. Either the lights have been scaring things off—or they’ve been electrocuted. If you don’t mind, Commodore, I’ll get my head down. We shall have a busy day.”
“Off you go,” Grimes told her.
He made his way through the ship to the hole that had been cut in her metallic skin, looked out. The external lights were burning brightly, the garish carpet of shockers was still in place. Here and there were sluggish stirrings, lazy undulations. A few of the carnivorous, mobile plants were bulging. They had fed, obviously. On what? On something quite big, that much was obvious. Something that, quite possibly, might have gotten inside the wreck and fed on its human occupants.
Would it be possible, wondered Grimes, to . . . to harvest? Why not? They were plants after all, not animals . . . to harvest the shockers, keep them in captivity and export them at a nice profit? The Survey Service would be a potential customer. Grimes recalled occasions in his own career when he had been involved in the exploration of newly discovered plants. Efficient sentries such as these creatures would have been very, very useful.
Get-rich-quick Grimes, he thought. That’s me.
At the moment there was only one snag. As Governor of this world he could not, legally, engage in any profit-making enterprise. As Governor? He laughed aloud. If things didn’t go as he was hoping he would soon be the late Governor Grimes.
He went back inside, smoked his foul pipe. He went into the galley and constructed a multitiered sandwich, made tea. He thought, as he was munching his snack, we shall have to institute a system of rationing until we find out just what around here is edible.
The watch wore on.
At 0600 hours he called Sanchez.
Shortly thereafter the two of them went to the hole in the envelope. They could not watch the sunrise as that was on the other side of the ship. They saw the shockers slowly oozing away from the shadow cast by the twisted hull. Artificial light they liked when there was nothing else—but they preferred the real thing.
“So we can get out,” said Grimes, “without having to wear rubber boots . . .”
Until it was time to call Su Lin the two men busied themselves in the workshop, carrying the tools and some of the materials that they would need out of the ship. They did not think that any of the local lifeforms would be interested in gas cylinders, shears or tubes of adhesive. They kept a watch for fliers, some of which were already sailing through the sky like, Grimes thought, the manta rays that he had seen in the tropical seas of Earth. Only once did one swoop down upon them but it sheared off at once as soon as Grimes directed a jet of flame, from Su Lin’s lighter, in its direction.
Then the girl was called and they had breakfast. She, officiating as cook, looked at Grimes suspiciously.
“I could have sworn,” she said, “that there was more bread than this when we finished supper last night. And there were those hard-boiled eggs that I had plans for. And what’s this in the ashbin? An empty sardine can . . .”
“I’ll get you another crab this morning,” promised Grimes.
“You’d better, Commodore. You’d just better . . .”
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br /> After the meal—fried eggs (there would be no more after this) and bacon (in. short supply but not finished)—they got down to work. Working mainly inside the ship they cut large sections from the fabric of the collapsed helium cells, trying to keep these as big as possible. Sweating with the exertion they—Grimes and Sanchez—lugged these out of the ship, spreading them on the mossy slope while the girl, her weapon once again in her possession, kept watch. They were troubled only by the great worms. Su Lin managed to kill one of these before it could withdraw its ugly, sucker-equipped head back into its burrow. They dragged it out of the hole, carried the still-twitching body—it was like a huge, greatly elongated sausage—into the wreck. There was a chance that its flesh might be edible.
Grimes, using his versatile wrist companion, and its computer functions, had made his calculations the previous evening, had drawn plans and diagrams on the backs of the charts salvaged from the control car. The workshop yielded rulers and tapes and sticks of crayon. Finally, making ample allowance for overlap, it was possible for Grimes and Sanchez to begin cutting out elliptical sections from the gas cell fabric. They worked slowly and clumsily. At last Su Lin could stand it no longer.
“Here, Commodore,” she told him, “take this.” She handed him the golden lighter. “You keep watch. Dressmaking, with the preliminary cutting, is one of my skills. Obviously it’s not one of yours.”
Ride the Star Winds Page 17