"Think of price," said Sara Foster, "then double it. There'll be no quibbling."
"But why?" I asked. "Does money have no meaning for you?"
"Of course it has," she said, "but having it also has taught me that you must pay for what you get. And we need you, Captain Ross. You've never traveled the safe spaceways, all marked out and posted. You've been out there ahead of all the others, hunting for your planets. We can use a man like you."
A robot stepped through the doorway. "Dinner is ready to be served, Miss Foster."
She looked at me, challenging me.
"I'll think on it," I promised.
THREE
And I should have thought on it much longer, I told myself as I stood on that moon-washed desert; I never should have gone.
Smith still was crawling around on his hands and knees and whimpering. His blind-white eyes, catching the moonlight, glinted like the eyes of a hunting cat. Tuck was getting his legs unwound from the ridiculous robe he wore, stumbling toward the moaning Smith. What was it, I wondered, that made the two of them such pals? Not homosexuality, for that would have been apparent in the close confines of the space trip out from Earth; there must be within them some sort o spiritual need that reached out and touched the other. Certainly Smith would be glad of someone to look after him and Tuck might well regard the blind man and his voice in the head as a good sort of investment, but their friendship must be something more than that. Two fumbling incompetents, perhaps, who had found in each other's weaknesses a common bond of compassion and of understanding.
The desert was almost as bright as day and, looking at the sky, I saw it was not the moon alone that accounted for the brightness. The entire vault of sky was ablaze with stars, more stars and bigger stars and brighter than I had ever seen before. The stars had not been apparent in the quick glance we had gotten of this place before the hobbies bucked us into it, but now they were—stars that seemed so close it seemed a man could reach up his hand and pick them, like the apples off a tree.
Sara was on her feet by now, still grasping her rifle, carrying it at port arms across her body.
"I managed to keep the muzzle up," she told me.
"Well, hurrah for you," I said.
"That's the first rule, always," she told me. "Keep the muzzle up so it doesn't clog. If I hadn't, the barrel would be full of sand."
George still was wailing and now his wailing took the form of words "What happened, Tuck?" he screamed "Where are we? What happened to my friend? He has gone away. I don't hear him anymore."
"For the love of Christ," I said to Tuck, disgusted, "get him on his feet and dust him off and wipe his nose and tell him what has happened."
"I can't explain," growled Tuck, "until someone tells me what is going on."
"I can tell you that," I said. "We got took. We've been had, my friend."
"They'll come back," howled George. "They'll come back or us. They won't leave us here."
"No, of course they won't," said Tuck, hauling him to his feet. "They'll come back when the sun is up."
"The sun ain't up now, Tuck?"
"No," said Tuck. "The moon. And a—lot of stars."
And I was stuck with this, I thought. Heaved into a place where I had no idea where I was and loaded down with a couple of nincompoops and a white Diana who could only think about how she had kept he muzzle up.
I took a look around. We had been dumped on the lower slope of a dune and on either side of us the dunes heaved up to meet the night-time sky. The sky itself was empty of everything but the moon and stars. There was not a cloud in sight. And the land was empty of anything but sand. There were no trees or bushes, not a blade of vegetation. There was a slight chill in the air, but that, I figured, would be dissipated as soon as the sun came up. More than likely we had a long, hot day ahead and we hadn't any water.
Long furrows in the sand showed where our bodies had plowed through it, pushing up little mounds of sand ahead of us. We had been thrown from the direction of the other dune, and knowing exactly from where we had been thrown, it occurred to me, might have some importance. I walked out a ways and with the butt of my gun drew a long line in the sand and made some rough arrows pointing from it.
Sara watched me closely. "You think we can get back?" she asked.
"I wouldn't bet on it," I told her, shortly.
"There was a doorway of some sort," she said, "and the hobbies bucked us through it and when we landed here there wasn't any doorway."
"They had us pegged," I said, "from the minute we set down. They gave us the business, from the very start. We never had a prayer."
"But we are here," she said, "and we have to start to think how we can get out."
"If you can keep an eye on those two clowns," I said, "and see they cause no trouble, I'll go out for a look."
She regarded me gravely. "Have you anything in mind, captain? Anything in particular?"
I shook my head. "Just a look around. There could be a chance I might stumble on some water. We'll need water badly before the day is over."
"But if you lost your way . . ."
"I'll have my tracks to follow," I told her, "if a wind doesn't come up suddenly and wipe them out. If anything goes wrong, I'll fire a beam up into the sky and you loose off a shot or two to guide me back."
"You don't think the hobbies will come back to get us?"
"Do you think so?"
"I suppose not," she said. "But what's the point of it? What did they gain by it? Our luggage couldn't be worth that much to them."
"They got rid of us," I said.
"But they guided us in. If it hadn't been for that beam . . ."
"There was the ship," I said. "It could have been the ship that they were after. They had a lot of ships out on the field. They must have lured a lot of other people."
"And all of them on this planet? Or on other planets?"
"Could be," I said. "Our job right now is to see if there's any place better than this desert we can go.. We haven't any food and we have no water."
I settled the strap of my rifle on my shoulder and started to plod up the dune.
"Anything else I can do?' asked Sara.
"You might keep those two from tracking up that line I made. If a wind comes up and starts to blot it out, try to mark it somehow."
"You have a lot of faith in that line."
"Just that it's a good idea to know where we are."
"It mightn't mean a thing," she said. "We must have been thrown through some sort of space-time null-point and where we wound up wouldn't mean . . ."
"I agree," I said, "but it's all we have to go on."
I plodded up the dune and it was heavy going. My feet sank deep into the sand and I kept sliding back I could make no time. And it was hard work. Just short of its crest I stopped to rest a moment and looked back down the slope.
The three of them stood there, looking up at me. And for some reason I couldn't explain, I found myself loving them—all three of them, that creepy, soft fool of a Smith and that phony Tuck, and Sara, bless her, with her falling lock of hair and that ridiculous oldtime rifle. No matter what they were, they were human beings and somehow or other I'd have to get them out of here. For they were counting on me. To them I was the guy who had barnstormed space and rode out all sorts of trouble. I was the rough, tough character who technically headed up the expedition. I was the captain and when the chips were down it was the captain who was expected to come through. The poor, damn, trusting fools, I thought—I didn't have the least idea of what was going on and I had no plans and was as puzzled and beaten and hopeless as any one of them. But I couldn't let them know it. I had to keep on acting as if at any moment I'd come up with a trick that would get us all home free.
I lifted a hand and waved to them and I tried to keep it jaunty, but I failed. Then I clambered up the dune and over the top of it and the desert stretched before me. In every direction that I looked, it was all the same—waves of dunes as far as I could see, e
ach dune like the other and no break at all—no trees that might hint water, absolutely nothing but a sweep of sand.
I went plunging down the dune and climbed another and from its crest the desert looked the same as ever. I could go on; I admitted to myself, climbing dunes forever and there might never be a difference. The whole damn planet might be desert, without a single break. The hobbies, when, they'd bucked us through the gate or door or whatever it might be, had known what they were doing, and if they wanted to get rid of us, they could not have done a more efficient job of it. For they, or the world of which they were a part, hadn't missed a lick. We had been tolled in by the beam and hustled off the ship and the ship been sealed and then, without the time to think, with no chance to protest, we had been heaved into this world. A bum's rush, I thought, all worked out beforehand.
I climbed another dune. There always was the chance, I kept on telling myself, that in one of those little valleys which lay between the dunes there might be something worth the finding. Water, perhaps, for water would be the thing that we would need the most. Or a path that might lead us to better country or to natives who might be able to give us some sort of help, although why anyone would want to live in a place like this was more than I could figure.
Actually, of course, I expected nothing. There was nothing in this sweep of desert upon which a man could build much hope. But when I neared the top of the dune—near enough so that I could see over the top of it—I spotted something on the crest of the dune beyond.
A birdcage sort of contraption was half buried in the crest, with its metallic ribs shimmering in the moon and starlight, like the ribcage of some great prehistoric beast that had been trapped atop the dune, bawling out its fright until death had finally quieted it.
I slipped the rifle off my shoulder and held it ready. The sliding sand carried me slowly down the dune, whispering as it slid. When I had slid so far that I could no longer see over the crest of the dune, I set off at an angle to the left and began to climb again, crouching to keep my head down. Twenty feet from the top I got down and crawled flat against the sand. When my eyes came over the crest and I could see the birdcage once again, I froze, digging in my toes to keep from sliding back.
Below the cage, I saw, was a scar of disturbed sand and even as I watched, new blobs of sand broke loose beneath the, cage and went trickling down the slope. It had not been long ago, I was sure, that the cage had impacted on the dune crest—the sand disturbed by its landing had not as yet reached a state of equilibrium and the scar was fresh.
Impacted seemed a strange word, and yet reason told me that it must have impacted, for it was most unlikely that anyone had placed it there. A ship of some sort, perhaps, although a strange sort of ship, not enclosed, but fashioned only of a frame. And if, as I thought, it were indeed a ship, it must have carried life and the life it carried was either dead within it or somewhere nearby.
I glanced slowly up and down the length of the dune and there, far to the right of where the birdcage lay, was a faint furrow, a sort of toboggan slide, plunging from the crest downward into the shadow that lay between the dunes. I strained to penetrate the shadows, but could make out nothing. I'd have to get closer to that toboggan slide.
I backed off down the dune and went spidering across it, angling to the right this time. I moved as cautiously as I could to keep down the sound of the sliding sand that broke free and went hissing down the dune face as I moved. There might be something over on the other side of that dune, listening for any sign of life.
When I thrust the upper part of my head over the dune crest, I still was short of the toboggan slide, but much closer to it and from the hollow between the dunes came a sliding, scraping sound. Straining my ears, it seemed to me that I caught some motion in the trough, but could not be sure. The Sound of sliding and of scraping stopped and then began again and once more there was a hint of movement. I slid my rifle forward so that in an instant I could aim it down into the trough.
I waited.
The slithering sound stopped, then started once again and something moved down there (I was sure of it this time) and something moaned. All sound came to an end.
There was no use of waiting any longer.
"Hello down there!" I called.
There was no answer.
"Hello," I called again.
It could be, I realized, that I was dealing with something so far removed from my own sector of the galaxy that the space patois familiar to that sector was not used by it and that we would have no communications bridge.
And then a quavering, hooting voice answered. At first it was just a noise, then, as I wrestled with the noise, I knew it to be a word, a single hooted question.
"Friend?" had been the word, "Friend," I answered.
"In need am I of friend," the hooting voice said. "Please to advance in safety. I do not carry weapon."
"I do," I said, a little grimly.
"Of it, there is no need," said the thing down in the shadows. "I am trapped and helpless."
"That is your ship up there?"
"Ship?"
"Your conveyance."
"Truly so, dear friend. It have come apart. It is inoperative."
"I'm coming down," I told it. "I'll have my weapon on you. One move out of you . . ."
"Come then," the hooter croaked. "No move out of me. I shall lie supine."
I came to my feet and went across the top of that dune as quickly as I could and plunging down the other slope, crouched to present as small a target as was possible. I kept the rifle trained on that shadowed area from which the voice came.
I slid into the trough and crouched there, bending low to sight up its length. Then I saw it, a hump of blackness lying very still.
"All right," I called. "Move toward me now."
The hump heaved and wallowed, then lay still again, "Move," it said, "I cannot."
"OK, then. Lie still. Do not move at all."
I ran forward and stopped. The hump lay still. It did not even twitch.
I moved closer, watching it intently. Now I could see it better. From the front of its head a nest of tentacles sprouted, now lying limply on the ground. From its rather massive head, if the tentacle-bearing portion of it actually was its head, its body tapered back, four feet or so, and ended in a bluntness. It seemed to have no feet or arms. With those tentacles, perhaps, it had no need of arms. It wore no clothing, upon its body was no sign of any sort of harness. The tentacles grasped no tool or weapon.
"What is your trouble?" I asked. "What can I do for you?"
The tentacles lifted, undulating like a basketful of snakes. The hoarse voice came out of a mouth which the tentacles surrounded.
"My legs are short," it said. "I sink. They do not carry me. With them I only churn up sand. I dig with them a deeper pit beneath me."
Two of the tentacles, with eyes attached to their tips, were aimed directly at me. They looked me up and down.
"I can hoist you out of there."
"It would be a useless gesture," the creature said. "I'd bog down again."
The tentacles which served as eye-stalks moved up and down, measuring me.
"You are large," it croaked; "Have you also strength?"
"You mean to carry you?"
"Only to a place," the creature said, "where there is firmness under me."
"I don't know of such a place," I said.
"You do not know . . . Then you are not a native of this planet."
"I am not," I said. "I had thought, perhaps, that you . . .
"Of this planet, sir?" it asked. "No self-respecting member of my race would deign to defecate upon such a planet."
I squatted down to face him.
"How about the ship?" I asked. "If I could get you back up the dune to it . . ."
"It would not help," he told me. "There is nothing there."
"But there must be. Food and water . . ."
And I was, I must admit, considerably interested in the water.
For the love of God, I asked myself, what was going on? He was in his second self and while I wondered what it might be all about, I was hesitant to ask. I knew how these things went. First surprise or horror or amazement that there could exist a species so ignorant or so inefficient that it did not have the concept, the stammering attempt to explain the basics of it, followed by a dissertation on the advantages of the concept and the pity that was felt for ones who did not have it Either that or the entire thing was taboo and not to be spoken of and an insult to even hint at what it might entail.
And that business about his living tissues. As if there might be more to him than simply living tissues.
It was all right, of course. A man runs into some strange things when he wanders out in space, but when he runs into them he can usually dodge them or disregard them and here I could do neither.
I had to do something to help this creature out, although for the life of me I couldn't figure just how I could help him much. I could pick him up and lug him back to where the others waited, but once I'd got him there he'd be no better off than he was right here. But I couldn't turn about and walk away and simply leave him there. He at least deserved the courtesy of someone demonstrating that they cared what happened to him.
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