by Andre Norton
Having a greasy feel it clung to Travis’ fingers, and he did not really need the evidence of his nose to tell him that it was rankly odorous. He brought it back to Ashe, his distaste in handling it growing steadily. The latter put the trophy away in one of his belt pockets.
“Any chance of opening that?” Ashe indicated the hidden door in the wall.
“Not that I can see,” Travis returned. “It is probably secured on the inside.”
They studied the building dubiously. Behind its length, as far as they could judge, there was only a waste of sand dunes reaching out and out to the sky rim where the fire had played the night before. If there was any riddle to be solved, its answer lay inside this locked box and not in the desert countryside.
“Ross, you stay here. Travis, move on to the end of the wing. Stay there where you can see Ross—and me, as I go along the back.”
Ashe used the same care as the Apache had done, running his hands along the eroded surface, seeking any indication of another door which might possibly be forced. He went the entire length of the building and came back—with nothing to report.
“There were windows once and a door. But they were all walled up a long time ago, sealed tight now. We might pick out the sealing, given time and the right tools.”
Ross’s voice came through the helmet corns. “Any chance of getting in through the roof, chief?”
“If you’re game to try—up with you!”
Travis stood iigainst the wall which refused to give up its secrets and Ross used him as a ladder, mounting to the roof.
He moved inward and the two left on the ground lost sight of him. But on Ashe’s orders he made a running commentary of what he saw through the com.
“Not much sand—you’d think there would be more…. Hulloo!” There was an eagerness in that sudden exclamation. “This is something! Round plates set in circles all over— about the size of quarters. They are solid and you can’t move them.”
“Metal?” Ashe asked.
“Nooo…” the reply was hesitant. “Seem more like some kind of glass, only they aren’t transparent.” “Windows?” suggested Travis.
“Too small,” Ross protested. “But there are a lot of them— all over. Wait!” The urgency in that last cry alerted both the men on the ground. “Red—they’re turning red!”
“Get out of there! Jump!” Ashe’s order barked loudly in all their helmets.
Ross obeyed without question, landing with a paratrooper’s practiced roll on one of the dune crests. The others scrambled to join him, all their attention focused on the roof of the sealed building. Perhaps something in the sun-repelling qualities of their helmets enabled them to see those rays as faint reddish lines cutting up from the roof into the reach of the sky.
The skin on Travis’ bare hands tingled with a pins-and-needles sensation as if the circulation in it had been arrested and was not coming back to duty. Ross scrambled up out of the sand and shook himself vigorously.
“What in the world is going on?” There was an unusual note of awe in his tone.
“I think—some fireworks to discourage you. I believe that we may assume whoever lives in there is definitely not at home to curious callers. Not only that, but the householder has some mighty unpleasant gadgets to back up his desire for privacy. Probably just as well we didn’t find his, her, or its front door unlocked.”
Travis could no longer see those thin fiery lines. Either the power had been shut off, or the rays were now past the point of detection by human eyes, even with the aid of the helmet. That coarse hair, the repulsive odor—and now this. Somehow the few facts did not add properly. The hair, of course, could have been left by a watchdog, or the equivalent on this particular planet of a watchdog. That supposition would also fit with the low entrance into the building. But a watchdog that kept to carefully chosen cover, the best in the whole landscape, and stayed to spy, maybe for hours, on the ship—? Those facts did not fit with the general nature of any animal he had ever known. Rather, that action matched with intelligence, and intelligence meant man.
“I believe they are nocturnal,” Ashe said suddenly. “That fits with all we’ve seen so far. This sun glare may be as painful for them as it is for us without helmets. But at night—”
“Going to sit up and watch what happens?” Ross asked.
“Not out in the open. Not until we know more.”
Silently Travis agreed to that. There was a furtiveness about the last night’s spying which made him wary. And to his mind this world was far more frightening and sinister than the fueling port. Its very arid barrenness held a nebulous threat he had never sensed in the desert lands of his own planet.
They walked back to the ship, climbed the ladder, and were glad to close the port upon the dead white glare, to unhelm in the blue glow of the interior.
“What did you see?” Ashe asked Renfry.
“Murdock taking a high dive from the roof and then some red lines, very faint, shooting up from all over its surface. What did you do, push the wrong doorbell?”
“Probably waked somebody up. I don’t think that’s a very healthy place to go visiting. Lord—what a stink!” Ross ended, sniffing.
Ashe held on his palm the tuft of hair and the odor rising from it was not only noticeable in the usual scentless atmosphere of the ship, but penetrating in its foulness.
They carried the lock into the small cubbyhole which might once have been the quarters of the commander and where Ashe had assembled his materials for study. In spite of the noisome effluvia of their trophy, they gathered around as he pulled the tuft apart hair by hair and spread it flat.
“Those hairs—so thick! Renfry marveled.
“If they are hairs. What I wouldn’t give for a lab!” Ashe placed a clear sheet of the aliens’ writing materials to imprison the lock.
“That smell—” Travis, remembering how he had handled the noisome find, rubbed his hand back and forth across his thigh.
“Yes?” Ashe prompted.
“Well—I think that comes from just plain filthiness, sir. Or, part might be because the hairs are from a creature we don’t know.”
“Alien metabolism.” Ashe nodded. “Each Terran race has a distinctive body odor far more apparent to a man of another than to one of his own breed. But what are you getting at, Travis?”
“Well, if that does come from some—some man” he used the term because he had no other— “and not from an animal, then I’d say he was living in a regular sty. And that means either a pretty low type of primitive, or a degenerate.”
“Not necessarily,” Ashe pointed out. “Bathing entails water, and we haven’t seen any store of water here.”
“Sure, there’s no water we can see. But they must have some. And I think—” Only there were few proofs he could offer to bolster his argument.
“Might be. Anyway, tonight well watch and see what does come out of the booby-trapped box over there.”
The napped during the day, Renfry in the control cabin as usual. None of them could see any reason why the ship had earthed on this sand pile, and the very barrenness of the place reinforced Renfry’s belief that this could not be their ultimate goal. It was only logic that the ship must have originally voyaged from some center of civilization—and this was not that.
The glare of the sun was gone and dusk clothed the mounds of creeping sand when they gathered again at the door in the outer skin to watch the building and the stretch of ground lying between them and that enigmatic block.
“How long do you suppose we’ll have to wait?” Ross shifted position.
“No time at all,” Ashe answered softly. “Look!” From behind the dune which marked the low doorway Travis had discovered, there showed a very faint reddish glow.
11
Had the flaming display of the late evening before been in progress, they could not have spotted that. And now, in the dusk, with the shapes of the dunes distorting vision, it was difficult to see. Ashe was counting slowly under his b
reath. As he reached “twenty” the glow vanished with a sudden completeness which suggested the slamming of a door.
Travis strained his eyes, watching the end of that masking dune. If the thing which had spied upon them the night before was coming back to the old position, the shortest route to take would cross that point. But he had seen nothing so far.
There was a very thin sound, but that came from the opposite direction, a whispering from the open country. Then a pat of arid air touched his cheek, wind rising with the coming of night. And the whispering must be the moving of sand grains under its first tentative stir.
“We could ambush one scout,” Ross observed wistfully.
“Their senses may be more acute than ours. Certainly if they are nocturnal, their night sight will be. And we can believe that they are already suspicious of us. Also, I’d like to know a little more about the nature of something or someone I’m going to lay a trap for.”
Travis only half heard Ashe. Surely he had seen a flicker of movement out there. YesI His fingers closed on the older man’s arm in swift warning pressure. A blob of shadow had slipped from the end of the dune, skidded quickly into hiding, heading straight for the hollow behind the upended block of masonry. Was the spy now setded in for a long spell of duty in that improvised observation post? Or tonight would he, she or it venture closer to the ship?
The dusk deepened and with the coming of true dark the tongues of fire danced in the sky. Though the light afforded by that display was not steady, it did illuminate the smoother ground immediately about the globe. Any attack on the part of the unknown natives could be sighted by the men on guard above. The Terrans knew, though, that with the ladder up and open port some dozen feet removed from ground level, they had little to fear from any actual attempt to force their stronghold. Unless the creatures out there possessed weapons able to cut down the distance advantage.
“Close the inner-lock door,” Ashe said suddenly. “Well shut off the ship’s light, make it hard for them to spot us here.”
With the lock shut and the blue light of the ship blanked out, they lay flat on the floor of the cramped space, trying not to hamper each other, awaiting the next move on the part of the lurker or lurkers below.
“Something there,” Ross warned softly. “To the left—right at the end of that last dune.”
The lurker was impatient. A blob of dark, which might have been a head, moved against the white sand. Wind sang around the ship, gathering up grit. The men snapped down their helmets in protection against that. But those whirls of sand devils did not appear to bother the native.
“I think there are more than one of them,” Travis said. “That last movement came too far away from the first I sighted.”
“Could they be getting ready to rush us?” Ross wondered.
Oddly enough, none of the Terrans had drawn his blasters. The perch was so high above the surface over which the attackers must advance, and the smooth rounding of the un-climbable globe was so apparent, that both gave them a sense of security.
The dark thing made a dart toward the globe. And it either ran bent almost double—or else on all fours! One of the startling jumps of the sky’s light spotlighted the form, and the watchers exclaimed.
Man or animal? The thing had four long limbs, and two more projections at mid-body. The head was round, down-held as it darted, so that they could not sight any features. But the whole body was matted with hair—dark hair, not light to match the tuft Travis had found. There was no sign of clothing, nor did the creature appear to be carrying weapons.
For a single moment that flitting shadow paused, facing the ship. Then it scurried back into hiding among the dunes once more. There was another flash of movement which the watchers could hardly detect, as this time the body of the runner merged in color with the sand about it.
“That might have been your hair shedder,” remarked Ashe. “It certainly was lighter in color than the first one.”
“They come in different colors—but all about the same size,” Ross added. “And what in the world are they?”
“Nothing in our world.” Ashe was definite about that. “We can believe, though, that they are interested in this ship and that they are trying to find some way of getting to it undetected.”
“The way they move,” Travis said, “as if they feared attack…. They must have enemies.”
“Enemies to be associated with such a ship as this?” Ashe jumped to the point with his usual speed of understanding. “Yes, that could be. Only I don’t believe that there has been a ship here for a long, long time.”
“Memories passed down—”
“Memories would mean they are men!” Travis was not aware until he voiced those words out of a sense of outrage that he abhorred association with those half-seen creatures in the dunes.
“To themselves they may be men,” Ashe returned, “and we might represent monsters. All relative, son. At any rate, I believe that they do not regard us with kindness.”
“What I wouldn’t give for a flashlight now,” Ross said wistfully. “I’d like to catch one of them in a beam for a really good look.”
They were treated to a wealth of half glimpses of the natives moving through the sand hills as the minutes crawled on, but never did they have a chance really to study one.
“I think they’re working their way around to come in behind the globe—on our blind side,” Travis offered, having traced at least two in that possible direction.
“Won’t do them any good—this is the only opening.” Ross sounded close to smug.
But the thought of the natives coming in behind the globe could not be accepted so easily by Travis. Every buried instinct of hunter and desert warrior argued that such a chance threatened his own security. Reason told him, though, that there was only this one door to the ship, and that it was easily defended. They need only close it and nothing could reach them.
“What was the reason for this port anyway?” Ross pursued the big question a few seconds later. “There must have been some purpose for stopping here. Do we have to find something —or do something—before we can leave again?”
That thought had ridden all their minds, but Ross had brought fear into the open. And what if the solution lay over there, in that building to which there was no entrance—unless one could be forced at night? A nighttime entrance guarded by the flitting hairy things which could see in the dark and whose home hunting-ground it was….
“The building—?” Travis made a question of it. He felt Ashe stir beside him.
“Might just be,” the other assented. “If we are hung up here much longer, we can try burning our way in by day. These blasters pack a pretty hefty charge when set at maximum.”
Travis’ hand shot out, clamped down on Ashe’s shoulder. His helmet was locked against the grit drift in the wind, but his hand had been resting on the edge of the door casing and had caught that thud-thud transmitted by the outer skin of the globe. Below the bulge which kept the Terrans from viewing the ground directly under the curve of the side, something was beating on the metallic outer casing of the vessel— for what purpose and with what result, he could not guess. He groped for Ashe’s hand, drew it out beside his own and pressed the palm flat to get the same message.
“Pounding, I think.” He realized that the messages in helmet corns could not reach the ears of lurkers below. “But why?”
“Trying to hole the ship?” Ross hung over the other two. “They’ve no chance of getting through the hull—or have they?” His concluding flash of anxiety was shared by the rest. What did they know of the resources of the natives?
Coiled beside Travis was the ladder. Dare he push that out, climb over to see what the night creepers were doing below? The thud of the pounding appeared to him to be taking on both speed and intensity. Suppose by some miracle, or the use of some unknown tool, the hairy things could pierce the outer skin of the globe? Then there would be no possible hope of escape from this forgotten desert.
H
e began to edge the ladder forward. Ashe made a grab which the younger man fended away.
“We have to see,” he said, “we have to!”
Ross and Ashe moved together and in that narrow space blocked each other long enough for Travis to squeeze through the door, swing over the lip and climb down the length of his own body. Then he felt the ladder catch tight and knew that the other two were preventing its descent to ground level.
Gripping the rungs tightly, holding his body as close as he could to the surface of the ship, Travis looked down. The play of red flashes against the sky furnished a weird light for the activity below, for there was activity. He had been right. The hairy things had crept in unseen from behind the ship, and a group of them were now clustered about the base of the globe. But what they were doing he could not make out in the constant flickering of the light. Then one reared from its usual quadrupedal stance, and raised its forearms over its hump of head. The appendages at its midsection gave a twitch, writhed out in a manner which suggested boneless-ness, and clasped tight to the ship.
The creature gave a bound into the air and then hung, its hind feet now a foot or so off the ground. Apparently it held on by the grip of waist tentacles against the globe, while the fists or paws on its forelimbs pounded vigorously against that surface. There was something about that hitching climb, for it gave another squirm upward as Travis watched, which spelled for him a purposeful malignancy.
Now a second creature had hitched itself by midsection tentacles to the hull and was beginning to ascend. Travis could sight no weapons, nothing but those steadily pounding fists. But neither did he have any wish to battle the slow climbers. He reported to Ashe and was ordered back into the ship. They closed the port, took the precaution of sealing it as if making ready for flight, and then loosened their helmets.
Neither the pounding nor the sound of the climbers could reach them now. But Travis did not believe that the creatures had ceased their efforts to win into the ship, futile as those efforts might seem. The Terrans climbed to the control cabin to watch the outer world on the limited view of the vision plate. Renfry looked puzzled.