by Andre Norton
“ . . . forty-eight—forty-nine—fifty! Fifty doors up and down that ramp at least.” Ross kept his voice to a murmur and yet that echo of a whisper carried eerily back to them. “Where do we start?” Now his tone was definitely louder in challenge to that echo and the stillness which deadened it. Ashe left them and crossed the expanse of hall, stretching out his hands to a niche. When they hurried after him they discovered he was holding a small statuette carved of a dusky violet stone. Like the blue flyers, the subject bore baffling resemblances to living things they knew, and yet its totality was alien.
“Man?” Ross wondered. “Animal?”
“Totem? God?” Travis added out of his own knowledge and background.
“All or any,” conceded Ashe. “But it is a work of art.”
That they could all recognize, even if the subject still puzzled them. The figure was posed erect on two slender hind limbs, both of which terminated in feet of long, narrow, widely separated, clawed digits. The body, also slender but with a well-defined waist and broad shoulders, was closer to the human in general appearance, and there were two arms held aloft, as if the creature was about to leap outward into space. But it would have a better chance of survival in such a leap than those now passing the statuette from hand to hand. For the arms supported skin wing-flaps, extended on ribs not unlike those possessed by bats on Earth.
The head was the least human, almost grotesque in its ugliness to the time agents’ eyes. There were sharply pointed ears, overshadowing in their size and extension the rest of the features which were crowded together in the forepart of the face. Eyes were set deep within cavities under heavy skull ridges, the nose was simply a vertical slit above a mouth from which thin vestiges of lips curled back to display a frightening set of fangs. And yet its ugliness was not repulsive, nor horrifying. There was no clothing to suggest that it represented an intelligent being. Yet all of them were certain, the longer they examined the figure, that it had not been meant to portray an animal.
To the touch the violet stone was smooth and cool, and when Travis held it out into a patch of light from the dome, the statuette sparkled gemlike. The careful detail of the figure contrasted with the abstraction of the murals on the outer walls, more akin to the carvings on the dome and about the doorways.
Ross drew his finger along the interior of the niche where Ashe had found the image. Dust piled there dribbled out to the floor. How long had the winged one stood there undisturbed?
Ashe carried it in the crook of his arm as they went on—not up the spiral of the ramp, but into the first of the open doorways on ground level. But the room beyond was empty, lighted through slits high on the wall. They wandered on. More empty rooms, no trace of those who had once lived here—if this indeed had been a dwelling place and not a building for public use. It was as if the inhabitants had stripped it bare when they had at last withdrawn, forgetting only the little statue in the hall.
As they came from the last bare chamber, Ross sighed and leaned against the wall.
“I don’t know how you feel about it,” he announced. “But I’ve swallowed more than my share of dust this past hour or so. Also breakfast was a long time back. A coffee break right now—providing we had coffee—might be heartening.”
They didn’t have coffee, but they had come provided with the foam drink from the ship. So, sitting in a row across the ramp, they sucked in turn from containers of that and ate some of the “corn” cakes they carried for trail rations.
“Be good to have some fresh food,” Travis said wistfully. The rather monotonous diet from the ship’s stores satisfied hunger but did not appeal to his taste. He allowed himself the luxury of visualizing a sizzling steak and all that would accompany it back at the ranch.
“Maybe some on the hoof—out there.” Ross, his hands full, pointed with his chin toward the riot of greenery they could sight from their present perch. “We could go hunting . . .”
“How about that?” Travis roused and turned to Ashe eagerly. “Dare we try?”
But the older agent did not warm to the suggestion. “I wouldn’t kill—until I knew what I was killing.”
For a moment Travis did not understand, and then the meaning of the rather ambiguous statement sank in. How could they be sure that the prey was not—man! Or man’s equivalent here? But he still wanted that steak, with a longing which gnawed at him.
“Do we climb?” Ross stood up. “This’ll be an all-day job right here, if we stick to it. I’d say the cupboard’s bare, though.”
“Maybe.” Ashe cradled his bat-thing in his arm. “We can take a quick look through the ground floor of that big red block to the north.”
They fought their way through the thick wall of brush, grass, tree and vine to the monolithic building. Here again they faced an open door, this one narrow as the window slits, as if grudging any entrance at all.
“I’d say the guys who built this one didn’t like their neighbors too well,” Ross commented. “This could make a pretty good fort if you had to have one. That domed place is wide open.”
“Different peoples . . .” Travis had been a little in advance, lingering for a moment before he took the step which would bring him over the threshold. Once inside he froze.
“Trouble!” His weapon was out, ready to fire.
There was a wide hall before him, as there had been in the dome building. But where that had been clean and bare, this one was different.
A series of partitions some five or six feet high cut back and forth, chopping the floor space into a crazy quilt of oddly shaped and sized spaces, with little chance to see from one to the next. But that did not bother Travis so much as the message recorded by his nose.
The odor of the night creatures had been something like this. It was the taint of a lair—a lair long in use. It smelled of decay, alien body reek, dried and rotted vegetation, and animal matter. Something denned here and had used this place freely for a long time.
It was the eagerness of the strange hunter which betrayed it. A low, throaty murmur, such as a cat might utter when intent upon unsuspecting prey, carried across the shadows.
Travis spun around. He saw the hunched shape balancing on top of a partition, knew it was about to launch straight for him. And he pressed the firing button of the weapon as he brought it up.
The attacker was caught in mid-air. A terrible yowl of rage, and pain, echoed and re-echoed about the massive walls. A flailing limb, well provided with claws, raked across Travis’ body from the waist down, sending him reeling from the door into the greater gloom. Just then Ross and Ashe burst in, to center the full beams of their weapons on the rolling, caterwauling thing making a second attempt at Travis.
Whatever it was, the creature possessed abnormal vitality. It was not until their blast rays met and crossed in its body that it lay still. Travis scrambled to his feet, shaken. He knew that if he had not had that split second of warning, he would be dead—or so badly mauled he would have longed for death.
He limped back toward the door, his thigh and leg feeling numb from the force of that smashing stroke. But under his questing hand the fabric of the suit was untorn, and there seemed to be no open wound.
“Did it get you?” Ashe came to meet him, pushing aside his hands to look at his body. Travis, still shaken, winced under the exploring probe of the other’s fingers.
“Just bruised. What was it?”
Ross arose from a gingerly inspection of the remains. “After the blasting we gave it, your guess is as good as mine. But it is sure sudden death on six legs—and that’s no overstatement.”
The weapons had not left too much to identify, that was true. But the thing had been six-legged, furred, and carnivorous—and it was about eight feet long with fangs and claws in proportion to the size.
“Sabertooth, local variety,” Ross remarked.
Ashe nodded to the outside world. “I suggest we make a strategic withdrawal. These may be nocturnal, too, but I’d rather not tangle with another in t
he jungle.”
13
“Did you think we’d find no nasty surprises?” Rossdrummed on the mess table with his scarred hand, his eyes showing amusement, even if his lips did not curve into a smile. “Let me share with you a small drop of good common sense, fella. It’s just when things look smoothest that there’s a big trap waiting ahead on the trail.”
Travis rubbed his bruised thigh. The other’s humor grated. And since he had had time to consider the late battle, he began to suspect that he had been a little too sure of himself when he had entered the red-walled building. That didn’t make him more receptive to Ross’s implied criticism, though—or what he chose to believe was criticism.
“You know”—Renfry came in from the corridor talking to Ashe—“those blue flying things came back twice while you were gone. They flew almost up to the port, but not inside.”
Travis, recalling the claws with which those were equipped, grunted. “Might be just as well,” he commented.
“Then,” Renfry said, paying not attention to his interruption, “just before you came back I found this—inside the outer lock.”
“This” was clearly no natural curiosity left on their doorstep by some freak of the wind. Three green leaves possessing yellow ribs and veins had been pinned together with two-inch thorns into a cornucopia holder, a holder filled with oval, pale-green objects about the size of a thumbnail.
They could be fruit, seeds, a form of grain. Oddly enough, Travis was sure they were food of a sort. And plainly, too, they were an offering—a gesture of friendship—an overture on the part of the blue flyers. Why? For what purpose?
“You didn’t see a flyer leave it?” questioned Ashe.
“No. I went to the port—and there it was.”
One of the seed things had dropped out of the packet, rolled across the table. Travis put a fingertip to it and the globe promptly burst as an over-ripe grape does when pressed. Without thinking, he raised his sticky finger to his mouth. The taste was tart, yet sweet, with the fresh cleanness of mint or some similar herb.
“Now you’ve done it,” observed Ross. “Well, we can watch while you break out in purple spots, or turn all green and shrivel up.” His words were delivered in his usual amused tone, but there was a heat beneath that Travis did not understand. Unless once more Ross believed the Apache had taken too much on himself in that unthinking experiment.
“Good flavor,” he returned with stolid defiance. And deliberately he chose another, transferring it to his mouth and breaking the skin with his teeth. The berry, or seed, or whatever it was, did not satisfy his desire for fresh meat, but it was not a concentrate or something out of one of the aliens’ cans and the taste was good.
“That is enough!” Ashe swept up the leaf bag and its contents. “We’ll have no more unnecessary chances taken.”
But when Travis experienced no ill effects from his sampling, they shared out the rest of the gift at the evening meal, relishing the flavor after their weeks of the ship’s supplies.
“Maybe we can trade for some more of these,” Ross had begun almost idly. Then he gave a start and sat straighter in the uncomfortable mess seat.
Ashe laughed. “I wondered just when that possibility was going to dawn on you.”
Ross grinned. “You may well ask. You’d think nothing stuck long between my ears, wouldn’t you? All right—so we set up as traders again. I never did get a good chance to try out my techniques when we were on the Beaker run—too many interruptions.”
Travis waited patiently for them to explain. This was another of those times when their shared experiences from the past shut him out, to remind him that only chance had brought him into this adventure, after all.
“There ought to be some things among all that stuff we routed out to study which should attract attention.” Ross wriggled around Ashe to leave the mess cabin. “I’ll see.”
“Trade, eh?” Renfry nodded. “Heard how you boys on the time runs play that angle.”
“It’s a good cover, one of the best there is. A trader moves around without question in a primitive world. Any little strangeness in his speech, his customs, his dress, can be legitimately accounted for by his profession. He is supposed to come from a distance, his contacts don’t expect him to be like their fellow tribesmen. And a trader picks up news quickly. Yes, trade was a cover the project used from the first.”
“You were a trader, back in time?” Travis asked.
Ashe appeared willing enough to talk of his previous ventures. “D’you ever hear of the Beaker Folk? There were traders for you—had their stations from Greece to Scotland during the early Bronze Age. That was my cover, in early Britain, and again in the Baltic. You can really be fascinated by such a business. My first partner might have retired a millionaire—or that period’s equivalent to one.” Ashe paused, his face closing up again, but Travis asked another question.
“Why didn’t he?”
“The Russians located our station in that era. Blew it up. And themselves into the bargain because they gave us our fix on their own post when they did that.” He might have been discussing some dry fact in a report—until you saw his eyes.
Travis knew that Ross was dangerous. He thought now that Ashe probably could surpass his young subordinate in ruthless action, was there any need to do so. Ross came back, his hands full. He set out his selections for their appraisal.
There was a length of material—perhaps intended for a scarf—which they had found in one of the crew lockers. A small thread of a vivid purple barred the green length, both colors bright enough to rivet attention. Then there were four pieces of carved wood, a coral-shaded wood with flecks of gold. They were stylized representations of fern fronds or feathers, as far as the humans could tell, and Ashe believed they might be part of some game, though playing board and other pieces had not been located. Lastly was the plaque which could so mysteriously reproduce a picture of home for the one holding it. That Ashe pushed aside with a shake of his head.
“That’s too important. We needn’t be too generous the first time, anyway. After all, we’ve only a small offering to top. Try the scarf and two of these.”
“Put them in the port?” Ross asked.
“I’d say no. No use encouraging visitors. Use your judgment in picking out some place below.”
Ashe might have told Ross to take the initiative in that venture, but he followed him out. Travis, his leg having given him a sudden severe twinge, retired to his bunk, to try out the healing properties that resting pad had to offer in the circumstances. He stripped off his suit, stretched out with a grimace or two, and relaxed.
He must have gone to sleep under the narcotic influence of the healing jelly which seeped out and over him, triggered by his need. When he roused, it was to find Ross pulling at him.
“What’s the matter?”
Ross allowed him no time for protest. “Ashe’s gone!” His face might be schooled and impassive, but twin cold devils looked out of his eyes.
“Gone?” The drowsiness induced by the healing of the bunk did not make quick thinking easy. “Gone where?”
“That’s what we have to find out. Get moving!”
Travis, his bruises and aches gone, dressed and buckled the arms belt Ross pushed into his hands. “Let’s have the story.”
Ross was already in the corridor, every line of his taut body expressing his impatience.
“We were out there—fixed up a trading stone. There were a couple of flyers watching us and we waited to see if they would come down. When they didn’t, Ashe said we had better take cover, as if we were going on to the buildings. Ashe detoured around a fallen tree—I saw him go. I tell you—I saw him! Then he wasn’t there—or anywhere!” Ross was clearly shaken well out of his cultivated imperviousness.
“A ground trap?” Travis gave the first answer probable as he followed Ross to the air lock. Renfry was there making fast two lengths of silky cord barely coarser than knitting yarn but which, as they had discovered earli
er, was surprisingly strong. Thus hitched to the ship, they could prowl the vicinity and yet leave a guide to their whereabouts.
“I crawled over that ground inch by inch,” Ross said between set teeth. “Not so much as a worm or ant hole showing. He was there one minute—the next he wasn’t!”
Making fast their lines and leaving Renfry as lookout, they descended into the trampled and blasted area about the globe where the green was now withering under a late afternoon sun. Darkness would complicate their search. They had better move swiftly, find some clue before they were hampered further.
Ross took the lead, balancing along a fallen tree trunk to its crown of dropping fern fronds, now crushed and broken. “He was right here.”
Travis swung down into the crushed foliage. The sharp smell of sticky sap, as well as the heavy scents of flowers and leaves, was cloying. But Ross was right. The vegetation on the ground had been pulled away in a wide sweep, and there was no sign that the dank earth beneath had been disturbed. He sighted a round-toed track, but it was twin to the ones he was leaving in the mold and could have been pressed there by either Ashe or Ross. But, because it was the only possible trace, he turned in the direction it pointed.
A moment or two later, at the very edge of the clearing Ross had made during his search, Travis saw something else. There was another tree trunk lying there, the remains of a true forest giant. And it had not been brought down by the landing of the ship, but had lain there long enough for soil and fallen leaves to build up around it, to grow a skin of red-capped moss or fungi.
Across that moss there were now two dark marks, ragged scars, suggesting that someone or something had clawed for a desperate hold against irresistible force. Ashe? But how had he been captured without Ross’s seeing or hearing his struggles?
Travis vaulted the tree trunk. There was his confirmation—another footprint deep in the mold. But beyond it—nothing—absolutely nothing! And no living creature could have continued along that stretch of soft earth without leaving a trace. From this point it did appear that Ashe had vanished into thin air.