A second try produced the same result, so they assumed that the inhabitants had died or moved on.
There was very little other vegetation in the immediate area, so starvation could well be the answer. No one was willing to put it to the test by going into the sand, but it was noted on the map, as Kal thought it would be a good supply of bone powder if they should ever need it.
There had been no sign of another massive tree, like the one that had tried to engulf the wagon earlier, and Kal wondered if it was just a collection of single trees that had grouped together to enhance their survival by using their total mass to overwhelm their prey.
The little people, and their way of life, still left a lot of questions which Kal would have liked answered. Where were their dead? He had not seen one who had died from old age, yet they must die sometime.
Where did the strange symbols they used for their maps come from? It was unlikely that they just made them up as they went along; the whole thing seemed too structured for that. Why did they not have a strong body odour after working hard, as all creatures that Kal had known did? But most intriguing of all was where did they come from in the first place?
It was difficult to ask some of these questions of them, as they only answered those which they wanted to, concealing the other answers from Kal by displaying a lack of understanding of the questions, or so it seemed to him.
The little people he was travelling with today were totally different to those timid, meek and mild little creatures which he had met at the pool rocks so many months, or was it years ago? These people were confident, outgoing, deliberate in their actions, and their reasoning power was advancing almost daily.
Emotions, which were almost absent when they first met, were now showing through, and Kal wondered what was causing such fast changes. It was a very speeded up development as far as he could see, and one which should have taken hundreds of generations to achieve, based on the development of other races he had known.
The other thing which took up a lot of Kal’s free thinking time was the other race which had been here. They had left behind a little of their science which was so totally different to anything that he had come across before.
The strange water recycling plant in the black mountains was a very odd way of doing a quite simple job, so was there something else involved? Where was the driving force for the wind that drew the water vapour from the hole in the ground and sent it to the cavern?
And after all that trouble, why let it just run in a stream to go back into the hole and cycle around again? There were too many things that didn’t add up, unless he was looking at them from the wrong angle.
His reverie was brought to a halt by the sudden lurch of the steam wagon. They must have hit something, or a wheel had dropped into a large hole.
It was neither of these, but what had caused the break in his thoughts would really take some thinking about. The wagon was stable again, but the driver had stopped the forward motion.
The ground beneath them was on the move, or so it seemed. Kal climbed up to the driving position and looked around the area.
A piece of ground about fifty metres across was wriggling along in a series of small undulating waves, and they were on top of it. From his vantage point beside the driver, it looked like a giant pancake.
The first thing to do was to get off it as fast as possible, so Kal grabbed the steam control lever and wrenched it into the backwards position.
The wagon shuddered, and the drive wheels slowly turned without any reverse motion of the wagon. Something was holding them back, and they couldn’t see what it was.
One of the crew jumped down to what looked like solid ground, and leapt up again a lot faster as a pseudo pod of flexible material left the surface of the pancake and tried to encircle his legs. This caused the first real sign of panic among the little people that he had seen as yet. They were really frightened, and showed it.
Everyone was leaning over the side trying to get a view of the massive creature which held them captive.
The lower half of the wheels were already covered in what looked like a writhing leathery complex of flattened tentacles, intent on covering as much of the wheels surface as possible.
If they didn’t get free soon, it would be too late for the steam wagon, although they may be able to run fast enough to evade the pseudo pods that erupted from the surface of the beast at the first sign of motion or pressure.
Kal sensed that the little people didn’t know what to do, and this was confirmed when the leader came to him with the sketch pad and a look of fear on his face.
Perhaps he did have a use after all, but this was no time for feeling important, and rubbing it in. Fire was a good choice to try, as there didn’t seem to be natural fire due to lightening or other causes here, at least as far as he knew as he had seen no evidence of it.
Kal instructed that thin kindling wood bundles be attached to spears.
Fortunately a good head of steam was up, as the wagon had been stationary for some minutes and they would need a lot of power to break loose from the tentacles which the fire couldn’t reach.
Everyone took up their stations, and the fire brands were lit. At Kal’s signal, the little ones leaned over the side of the wagon with their burning bundles of wood and applied the flaming sticks to the encircling growths around the steam truck’s wheels.
Again, that strange scream, felt, but not heard. The little people were affected by it directly, as some of them dropped their fire brands, clapping their hands to their ear holes.
But the unaccustomed intense heat had done the trick, and most of the pseudo pods withdrew to the main mass of the creature and Kal wrenched the lever to deliver full steam.
The wagon’s chimney gushed steam and smoke as the wheels started to turn, and they began to move back to the real ground they had been on before the lurch had signalled their present predicament.
The wagon was taken a good twenty metres clear of the moving ‘pancake’ to be on the safe side, and then Kal and a few of the more brave ones went over to the edge of it to see just what it was.
Although the edge of the thing was very thin, there was a definite rise in the middle of the pancake and the centre must have been at least a metre or more thick.
It seemed to be composed of a very tough rubbery outer skin that had taken on the appearance of the ground over which it travelled, or maybe that was just its natural look.
It moved slowly over the ground, but could exude the entrapping tentacles quite rapidly when needed.
Looking around, it would seem that the pancake moved across the ground, devouring everything that it covered in its travels and anything that was unfortunate enough to walk or land on its surface suffered a similar fate via the grabbing pseudo pods.
Behind the pancake there was a clear stretch of ground denuded of all vegetation for as far as the eye could see which bore out Kal’s theory of how it operated.
One of the little people fetched a bronze axe and tried to chop off a part of the edge, but the only result he got was that the edge curled away from him, and the axe bounced back nearly hitting the person standing next to him.
They lobbed a few stones onto the surface of the pancake, but it ignored them and continued its slow progress on towards the horizon.
‘Just how vigilant does one have to be not to get caught out?’ Kal asked himself. They checked the wheels of the wagon for any damage or corrosion, but could find none thankfully, and all piled back on board to continue their exploratory journey.
In the far distance they could see a band of green and brown vegetation, and it was decided that after restocking up on food and inspecting it for anything useful, they would turn for home.
Kal had no idea of how long they had been travelling, but in his time it must have been many months, if not a year, or did it just seem like that?
A pile of rocks came into view, the first they had seen for some time, and they stopped for a while to refresh themselves
and stretch their legs.
Kal wandered over to the rocks, accompanied by two guards with spears, and found that the ground around the rocks was devoid of all vegetation. That rang a bell somehow, and he then remembered the copper stained rocks he had found when he first landed.
Sure enough, these rocks had the same tell tale veins of copper ore in them, and rain had leached a little of it out, causing the vegetation to retreat as before.
Every now and again, something flashed like a bright light over to one side of them, and the impulse was to go and find out what it was.
This was agreed upon by one and all, as it would not take them very far out of their way, and they were off once more.
Kal was looking forward to the journey home, as it should prove to be quick and fairly safe, since they had plotted all the hazards they had met on their outward journey.
They had not gone very far before Kal recognized the flashes of light for what they were. He was up in the driving seat again and therefore had a better view than the others, so he called some of them up, and showed them the sea.
As they approached the great expanse of water, Kal was reminded of his first experience of this planet’s sea, and the very close shave he had had on the beach.
It looked as if there was going to be another very wide beach here also, and he told the others, via the sketch pads, what to expect.
It didn’t take long to reach the edge of the sands, although the water was some considerable distance ahead. They halted the wagon, and got down to take a closer look.
A similar bank of pebbles fringed the deadly sand, as it had done before, so long ago. They thought it should be safe to walk on, and so it proved to be.
It just had to be done, and one bright spark fetched a large fruit and threw it as far as he could over the sand. The sand erupted in the manner to which it was accustomed, and the fruit disappeared. No one was going to build sand castles today, that was for sure.
The vegetation began only a short distance away, so they all climbed aboard and headed for it, as there was nothing else to do at the sand’s edge, and they were not going to risk the wagon just to get down to the actual sea after Kal had told them what had happened to his escape shuttle.
All of a sudden Kal had a strange feeling, and he called a halt to their progress. The maps were brought out, and assembled into one continuous sheet for the first time. They had been going on a circular path all right, but no one had realized just how circular it had been.
Kal had to readjust one or two of the sketch boards, and then it all made sense. They were almost at the point where he had landed all that time ago.
This caused a lot of excitement, as they all realized that they were not all that far from home, and wouldn’t have to spend the next few ‘months’ retracing their outward journey.
Kal didn’t tell them of the deep and narrow gorge he had had to squeeze through, as he thought they might be able to go around it. Time would tell if they were successful, and he was feeling lucky anyway.
The wagon huffed and chuffed its way along the coast until the track that Kal had used came into view. He couldn’t believe their luck, as it was certainly against chance to have found it so easily.
They turned inland, and made very good progress, as the track was hard and the wagon was able to go at full speed, which actually didn’t amount to a breath taking velocity, but it was a darn sight quicker than walking, and a lot safer.
When they came to the section where the vegetation had almost covered the track, they put up the shutters to protect themselves from tree dwelling leather flaps and anything else they hadn’t discovered, and forced their way through.
As they went along, Kal pointed out all the odd things he had seen, or at least the places where he had seen them and what happened, so long ago.
The memories of his lone march through this strange land were as crystal clear as if they had only happened yesterday, and in an odd way, he felt at home here, despite the dangers.
They came at last to the point where the track would shortly go into the narrow gorge, and turned the wagon off to the right, hoping to find a way past the high cliffs, and so back to the compound.
To begin with it, looked as if they would have no difficulty in getting through, but as time went on the ground began to rise, and the engine was almost at the limit of its power.
In one place they all had to get off, leaving the smallest of them to steer, and the rest of them did their best to push the wagon on up the slope. They just about made it, but if a steeper slope was encountered, they would have to find another way around it.
The top of the plateau was gained at last, and they were back to full speed once more. But not for very long, as a rift in the ground ahead blocked their way.
It was only about two metres in width, but the wheels would have got jammed in it, and then they would be reduced to walking.
Kal took a good look at the situation, and suggested that they try to bridge the gap with rocks, but the others didn’t seem to think that it would be possible.
He gave up trying to persuade them after a while, and left them to chat among themselves as he went to see if there were any loose rocks in the area which they could move with the limited means they had.
By nightfall, the little ones had not come up with a solution to the problem, and Kal just kept quiet.
‘Let ’em stew in their own juice for a while’ he thought, as he tucked into his evening meal. There were no ball games that night, and they all retired to the wagon in a rather sombre mood, with of course the shutters firmly up.
In the depth of night, something big and hungry rattled the bronze safety boards, and caused the wagon to rock a little, which woke everyone up, and that was the end of their sleep for that night.
In the early light of dawn they all went outside to see what the commotion in the dark hours was about. And wished they hadn’t.
In the soft sand just over from the wagon there were paw prints of something very big, probably a relation of, or even an adult version of, the cat creature which had brought them all together in the first place.
Every one hurried back to the wagon, and looked to Kal for advice. Although they hadn’t seen it, they could guess its size, and to them it would be a monster of a thing.
‘Once again I’m useful’ he thought, and tried not to look too smug, although he suspected that facial expressions were wasted on them. If it did not go away, they would be trapped in the wagon, and would not be able to bridge the gap in the rift, and eventually they would run out of water and food.
Kal didn’t like the idea, but if it persisted in staying in the vicinity, they would somehow have to kill it. But how?
It was big, even by Kal’s standards, and quite likely proportionately mean with it, so he was going to have to use cunning to outwit the cat, and draw it into a trap.
The rift itself might be the answer, if he could only get the cat near enough to it, and then topple it in.
The first thing to do was to persuade the rest of the crew that the plan was worth looking at, and then decide just how to go about it.
The meeting was held with the screens up, and every one looking a bit apprehensive, or so he liked to think. What they really felt was only known to them, and they weren’t telling just yet.
The idea of using the rift was accepted as the only way, as it would take a lucky spear at close range to dispatch the beast, and no volunteers came forward for that one.
The tricky bit was how to bait the creature to come close enough to the edge to be of any use. Using the drawing pad, Kal sketched out his plan.
The wagon would be backed up to the edge of the rift, so that they could operate from the comparative safety of its bulk. Some bronze sheets would have to be removed from the back of the vehicle, laid down next to the rift’s edge and attached to some powerful means of lifting them quickly.
The cat would then, after being baited to the edge, hopefully lose its footing and topple int
o the rift, and they could then dispatch it.
But what to use for bait? No one offered their body, but unfortunately someone would have to, as the cat was obviously a carnivore and wasn’t going to take much interest in the fruits of the forest.
They would have to catch something which the cat would normally eat. The first team to go out hunting for the bait came running back and shot into the wagon.
The cat was prowling around in the trees not far away, and picking up their scent, came crashing after them. They were reasonably safe behind the screens, and waited for the cat to give up, and return to whatever it was doing before they evoked its interest in them.
Once the cat had gone, they placed two of the safety screens side by side and close to the rift edge, and ran a couple of ropes back to the wagon, first running them over a pulley hung from the roof.
Kal had reckoned that if enough of them, while holding the rope, jumped off the other side of the wagon, it should be enough to topple the cat over the edge as the plates were lifted up by the rope, and if it failed, would give some of them a good chance of climbing back up to the safety of the wagon before the cat could get around from the other side.
Volunteers for this were naturally going to be a bit shy, but he would handle that when he came to it.
The bronze sheets were covered with a scattering of earth and a few bits of pulled gross, so that it looked like natural ground and the scent of those who had handled them would be masked.
All was ready for the great cat now, except the cat itself. It was decided to have their evening meal a little early, so that they could concentrate on the job of getting the cat, which was more likely to come snooping around at dusk.
Everyone was waiting that evening, and the tension, which Kal hadn’t noticed as a natural part of the little people’s make up, was beginning to show. The light level dropped, and a hush descended over the scene.
Somewhere, something large and hungry was looking for a meal, and the meal was waiting, standing on the edge of the bronze plates with a rope tied around his waist.
The Inosculation Syndrome Page 17