Jamieson's harsh laugh cut off the thought. "What you mean is that you've run up against something you couldn't handle. Since you're pretending to be altruistic, I guess I'll have to wait to find out what happened." He shouldered his knapsack and started toward the bridge. "In the meantime, we have a long way to go."
The giant snake slid heavily out of the jungle, ten feet from the mainland end of the bridge of trees and thirty feet to the left of the ezwal, which had already crossed over. Jamieson, shuffling toward the center of the bridge, had seen the first violent swaying of the long, purple-edged grass and now froze where he was as the broad, ugly head reared into sight, followed by the first twenty feet of yellowish, glistening body, fully a yard thick. For a brief moment the great head was turned directly at him. Its little pig eyes seemed to glare straight into his own.
Shock held Jamieson—shock and utter dismay at the incredibly bad luck that had allowed this deadly creature to find him in such a helpless position. His paralysis there, under those blazing eyes, was an agonizing thing—an uncontrollable tautness that strained every muscle. But it worked. The fearsome head whipped aside, fixed in eager fascination on the ezwal, and took on a new rigidity. Jamieson relaxed somewhat; his fear became tinged with anger. He projected a scathing thought at the ezwal: "I understood that you could sense the approach of dangerous beasts by reading their minds."
No answer came to him. The monstrous snake flowed farther into the clearing, the flat, horned head gliding smoothly above the long, undulating body. The ezwal backed slowly, yielding reluctantly to the plain fact that it was no match for this vast creature.
Calmer now, Jamieson directed another thought at the ezwal: "It may interest you to know that as chief scientist for the Interstellar Military Commission, I received a report on Eristan II not too long ago. In the opinion of our survey expedition, its value as a military base is very doubtful, and there were two main reasons: one of the damnedest flesh-eating plants you ever heard of and this pretty baby. There are millions of both of them. Each snake breeds hundreds in its lifetime—their numbers are limited only by the food supply, which is potentially every other species on the planet, so they can't be stamped out. They attain a length of about a hundred and fifty feet and a weight of eight tons. Unlike most of the other killers on this planet, they hunt by day."
The ezwal, now some fifty feet away from the snake arid still backing slowly, sent Jamieson a swift series of thoughts: "Its appearance did surprise me, but only because its mind held merely a vague curiosity about some sounds—no clear intention to kill. But that's unimportant; it's here; it's dangerous. It doesn't think it can get me, but it's considering the chances, in a rudimentary way. In spite of its desire for me, the problem remains essentially yours; the danger is all yours."
Jamieson was grim. "Don't be too sure that you're not in danger. That fellow looks muscle-bound, but when he starts moving, he's like a steel spring for the first three or four hundred feet."
An impression of arrogant self-assurance accompanied the ezwal's retort. "I can run four hundred feet before you can count your fingers."
"Into that jungle? Twenty feet from the edge, it's like a mat— or, rather, like one mat after another. In spite of that, I've no doubt you could drive that big body of yours through it. But nowhere near as fast as the snake, which is built for the purpose. It might possibly lose a prey as small as me, in that tangle, but in your case—"
"And why," interposed the ezwal, "should I be so foolish as to head into the jungle when I can skirt the edge of it without hindrance?"
"Because," Jamieson returned, with chilling emphasis, "you'd be running into a trap. If I recall the lay of the land as I saw it from the air, the jungle tapers out into a narrow point not many hundreds of feet behind you. I wouldn't gamble that the snake isn't smart enough to take advantage of that fact."
There was startled silence; finally: "Why don't you turn your atomic gun on it—burn it?"
"And have it come out here while I'm burning through that tough head to that small brain? These snakes live half their lives in this mud and move around on it as well as anywhere. Sorry, I cannot take him on by myself."
The brief seconds that passed then were heavy with tension— and reluctance. But there could be no delay, as the ezwal must have known. Sure enough, the grudging request came through: "I am open to suggestions—and hurry!"
2
The depressing realization came to Jamieson that the ezwal was once more asking for his assistance knowing that it would be given yet was offering no promise in return. And there was no time for bargaining. Curtly he projected: "We must act as a team. Before the snake attacks, its head will start swaying. That's almost a universal reptilian method of hypnotizing victims into paralysis. Actually, the motion is partially self-hypnotizing, since it concentrates the snake's attention on its intended victim. A few seconds after it begins to sway, I'll burn it in the region of the eyes, which will damage or destroy its vision. Then you get on its back—fast! Its brain is located just behind that great horn. Claw your way there, and bite in if you can, while I try to weaken it by an attack on its body. It's starting now.'"
The tremendous head had begun to move. Jamieson raised his gun slowly, fighting to steady his trembling hand. When he was sure of his aim, he squeezed the control button.
It was not so much, then, that the snake put up an awesome fight as that it wouldn't die. Its smoking remains were still twisting half an hour later when Jamieson stumbled weakly from the bridge of trees and slumped to the ground. When finally he climbed to his feet, the ezwal was sitting fifty feet away along the narrow strand, contemplating him. It looked strangely sleek and beautiful in its blue coat and in the supple massiveness of its form. There was comfort for him in the knowledge that, for the time being at least, the mighty muscles that rippled underneath that smooth hide were on his side.
He returned the ezwal's stare steadily. Finally he said, "What happened to the antigravity raft?"
"I abandoned it about thirty of your miles north of here."
Jamieson hesitated; then: "We'll have to go to it. I practically depowered my gun on that snake. It needs a breeder reactor for recharging, and the only one this side of the ship is the small one on that raft. We'll need it again, I'm sure you'll agree."
There was no answer. Jamieson hesitated, then spoke decisively. "The obvious method of getting there quickly is for me to ride on your back. I can get my parachute rig from the little island and contrive a sort of harness for your neck and forelegs to hold myself in place. What do you say?"
This time there was sensory evidence of mental squirming before the proud beast could acquiesce. "Undoubtedly," it projected at last, contemptuously, "that would be a method of transporting a weak body such as yours. Very well, get your harness."
A few minutes later Jamieson approached the ezwal with a
boldness he didn't feel and unrolled the bundled parachute on the ground beside it. At close range the ezwal's great bulk was truly imposing—even surprising, since, at a distance, its suppleness and ease of movement tended to make it look smaller. Jamieson felt puny indeed as he set about the strange business of making a harness for this six-legged behemoth.
Again and again as he touched its body Jamieson felt a faint wave of repugnance emanating from its mind.
"That ought to do it," he said finally, surveying his handiwork. He had wrapped the light, strong lines of the parachute with the cloth for padding and crisscrossed them under the beast's body between the fore-and middle-legs, making a close-fitting harness that would allow the ezwal full freedom of movement. Attached just behind the neck, the straps of his original harness made rude but effective stirrups.
Once on the ezwal's back, Jamieson felt a little less vulnerable.
"Before we go," he said softly, "what did you run into that made you" change your mind? I have an idea—"
He was almost flung from his perch by the ezwal's first great bound, and thereafter he had all
he could do just to hang on. The ezwal was doing nothing, apparently, to make it easier for his unwelcome rider. But after a time, when Jamieson accustomed himself better to the peculiar rhythm of a six-legged gallop, he began to feel exhilarated by this maddest of all wild rides. To the left, the jungle flashed by in a dizzying rush as the great animal raced along the strand. Then the trees closed overhead like an archway as it veered through an area less densely overgrown than the rest. Unerringly, the ezwal selected the route with no slackening of speed, as if a highly developed instinct were directing it back exactly the way it had come.
Suddenly there came a sharp command. "Hold tight!"
Jamieson instantly locked his grip on the harness and bent forward, bracing his feet hard against the straps just in time. Under him the steel muscles twisted. The great body whipped sideways; then with a tremendous surge it bounded forward.
Almost immediately the blinding flurry of speed diminished, and Jamieson was able to look back. He caught a glimpse of several large four-footed animals vaguely suggesting oversized hyenas, before they became obscured by the trees, hopelessly outdistanced. The beasts made no effort at pursuit. Very wise of them, it seemed to Jamieson. The magnificent creature under him, bigger than a dozen lions and deadlier than a hundred, was clearly well equipped for survival on this planet.
Jamieson's glow of honest admiration faded. His eyes had accidentally scanned above the trees and caught a movement in the sky. As he jerked his head up for a better look, a gray spaceship nosed out of the mists that plumed the skies of Eristan II.
A Rull warship!
In spite of himself, the recognition flashed clearly in his mind. As he watched with speculative chagrin, the great ship, as cruel-looking as a swordfish with its finely pointed nose, sank toward the rim of the jungle ahead and disappeared. There was little doubt it was going to land. And no use trying to hide his surprise—it was too complete. The appearance of the great Rull ship was too potentially disastrous.
The ezwal's thought came with overtones of triumph. "I am aware of the thought in the back of your mind. Rather than be handed over to the Rull and have useful information extracted from your brain by force, you would destroy that brain with your own gun. I gather this sort of heroics is fairly common on both sides of the Rull-human conflict. I warn you: do not try to draw your gun. I'll smash you if you do."
Jamieson swallowed the hard lump in his throat. There was a sickness in him and a vast rage at the incredibly bad luck of the ship's coming here—now!
Miserable, he gave himself to the demanding rhythm of the ezwal's smooth gallop; and for a while there was only the odor-tainted wind, and the pad of six paws, a dull, flat flow of sound. Around them was the jungle, the occasional queer lap, lap of treacherous waters. And it was all there—the strangeness, the terribleness, of this wilf ride of a man on the back of a blue-tinted beastlike being that hated him—and knew about the ship.
"You're crazy," he said at last in a flat voice, "if you believe the Rull mean any advantage to you or your kind." The theme was so familiar, and the truth of it too self-evident to him, that he had no trouble pursuing it with only the forepart of his attention. Meanwhile, he tensed his body ever so carefully, with his eyes casually on an outstretched limb just ahead. He summed up his argument with a vehemence that was quite genuine. "The Rull are the most treacherous, racially self-centered—"
At the last instant, in gauging the distance for the hazardous leap, his purpose concerning that limb must have leaked from his mind. In a single convulsion of movement the ezwal reared and twisted; Jamieson was slammed forward against the metal-hard surface of a thrusting, mighty shoulder. Stunned, he fought blindly for balance and held on precariously as the animal turned and plunged through a mass of branches and vines that whipped his head and shoulders painfully. A moment later they emerged onto the beach of an emerald-green ocean bay. On the hard-packed, brown sand along the water's edge, the ezwal resumed its tireless, swift pace.
As if the incident just past were too trivial to discuss, it projected a casual thought. "I gathered from your mind that you think those creatures landed because they detected the minute energy discharge of the antigravity raft."
It took a while for Jamieson to recover his breath. He spoke at last, breathlessly, "There must be some logical reason, and unless you shut off the power as I did on the spaceship—"
The ezwal's thought was meditative. "That must be why they landed. If their instruments also registered your use of the gun on the snake, they also know someone here is still alive. My best course, then, is to head straight for them before they find and attack us both as enemies."
"You're a fool!" said Jamieson with harsh emphasis. "They will kill us both as enemies. We are their enemies, and for but one reason: because we are not Rull. If you could understand that single point—"
"You would be expected to say that," the ezwal cut in sardonically. "Actually, I am somewhat indebted to them already. First, for the bolt of energy that twisted your ship and strained open one edge of my cage. Then for the distraction that enabled me to approach the crew of human beings undetected and destroy them all. I see no reason," the ezwal's thought concluded, "why the Rull would not welcome the offer I shall make on behalf of my own kind—to help them drive man from Carson's Planet. And it is to be hoped that the knowledge they take from your mind will contribute to that purpose."
Jamieson felt a black fury rising within him. He fought it down only because of the great urgency. He must not give up, even though the task seemed hopeless. He must convince this proud, unheeding ezwal of the utter folly of its plan. He held his voice to a grating monotone. "And when you have accomplished this, do you imagine that the Rull will quietly go away and leave you in peace?"
"Just let them dare remain!"
The sheer blind arrogance of this remark was almost too much. Again Jamieson fought to stem his anger. He must not forget, he told himself firmly, that this basically intelligent creature spoke from the relatively ignorant viewpoint of a non-technological culture—and with no previous knowledge of mankind's archenemy. He spoke slowly, with great emphasis. "It's time you became aware of some facts. Man beat the Rull to Carson's Planet by a matter of a few months only. Even as you ezwals made it as difficult as you could for us to establish a base, we were fighting long, delaying actions in space, protecting you from the most ruthless, unreasonable beings the galaxy ever spawned. Man's best weapons are on a par with the Rull's best, but in some respects we've found they have the edge on us. For one thing, their technology is older, more evenly developed than ours. For another, they possess the amazing ability to alter and control certain electromagnetic waves, including the visible spectrum, with the cells of their bodies—an inheritance from the chameleonlike worms from which they are believed to have evolved. This faculty gives them a mastery of disguise and personal camouflage which has made their spy system a perpetual menace."
Jamieson paused, painfully conscious of the obstinate barrier between his own and the ezwal's minds. He went on doggedly. "We have never been able to dislodge the Rulls from any planet where they have become established. On the contrary, they drove us from three important bases, within a year of our first contact, a century ago, before we fully realized the deadliness of the danger and resolved to stand firm everywhere, regardless of losses. And these are the beings you plan to ally yourselves with, against Man?"
"In a very few minutes now—yes" came the ezwal's flintlike thought. The response was the more shocking because of its complete disregard of everything Jamieson had said.
"We are nearly there."
The time for argument was past. The realization came suddenly—so suddenly that Jamieson acted almost without conscious thought. Because of that circumstance, he was able to jerk out his blaster unsuspected and jam its muzzle hard against the ezwal's back. Triumphantly, he pressed the trigger; there was a blaze of white fire that passed unobstructed from the gun— and struck nothing!
A moment
passed before he could grasp the startling fact that he was flying through the air, flung clear by a single, whiplike contortion of that great, supple body.
He struck brush. Bristling vines wrenched at his clothes, ripped his hands and tore savagely at the gun. His clothes shredded, blood came in red, ugly streaks—everything yielded to the clawing jungle but the one, all-important thing. With a bitter tenacity, he clung to the gun.
He landed on his side, rolled over in a flash and twisted up his gun, finger once more on the trigger. Three feet from that deadly muzzle, the ezwal drew up with a hideous snarl on its great square face, jumped thirty feet to one side and vanished among the tiers of matted foliage.
Dazed and trembling, almost ill, Jamieson sat up and surveyed the extent of his defeat, the limits of his victory.
3
Close around stood the curious, thick-boled trees of this alien jungle—curious because they were not really trees at all but mottled, yellow-brown fungi lifting with difficulty to a height of thirty or forty feet through the encumbering mass of thorn-studded vines, green lichens and bulbous, reddish grass. The ezwal had raged through other such dense wilderness with irresistible strength. For a man on foot—especially one who dared not waste the waning power of his gun—it was a nearly hopeless obstacle to any progress. The narrow strand of beach they had been traveling along was not too far, but it had veered off sharply in the wrong direction a short way back, and the ezwal had turned inland again.
One thing alone could be said for the present situation: at least he was not being borne helplessly along to a warship loaded with Rulls.
Rulls!
With a gasp, Jamieson leaped to his feet. There was a treacherous sagging of the matted grass under him, and he shuffled hastily to firmer ground; there he spoke swiftly in a low monotone, knowing that his thoughts, if not his sounds, would reach the keen intelligence lurking somewhere in that crazy quilt of light and shadow that enveloped him. "We've got to act fast. The discharges of my gun must have registered on Rull instruments, and they'll be here in minutes. This is your last chance to change your mind about the Rulls. I can only repeat that your scheme of enlisting the Rulls as allies is madness. Listen to the simple truth: Spy ships of ours lucky enough to return from their part of the galaxy have reported that every planet of the several hundred they have visited was inhabited by ... Rulls. No other creatures of sufficient intelligence to offer organized resistance were to be found. There must have been some. What happened to them?"
War Against the Rull Page 2