“Your turn,” Rand said to Leswick.
The philosopher didn’t object. Rand strapped the bundled-up sleeping bags on his back, and added a load of fruit. Then he hoisted the rest of their gear onto his own back, and Leswick lashed it in place.
Rand was carrying the detector that would lead them to the distant beacon.
“Onward and upward,” Rand said. “Let’s march!”
CHAPTER 9
RAND CHECKED his detector and his compass and set out to the east — toward the rescue beacon. Leswick fell in behind him, and Dombey brought up the rear.
They marched silently for nearly an hour. The path they were following took a twisting route through the jungle, and sometimes it swerved toward the south or north. Once it even seemed to double back on itself and head west. Despite all the curves and turns, though, it still went mainly toward the east. It was a well worn path, lined with stamped-down leaves and twigs.
Rand wondered how long it would be before they met the people who had made the path.
The jungle was tropical, heavy with fog and warm mist. Humming yellow-winged insects circled their heads, and they marched forward through clouds of red gnats. The borders of the path were lined with tall, narrow trees that had scaly bark.
The trees shot up straight for hundreds of feet. They had no branches at all close to the ground. High above the jungle floor they sprouted long branches that bore thick, heavy leaves. Each leaf was the size of a man. The tops of the trees were close together, forming a green canopy.
Every half hour or so there was a light rainfall. But very little of the rain reached the men walking through the jungle. The big leaves of the high canopy caught most of the moisture. Rand could hear the sounds of drizzle pattering against the leaves, even when he felt no raindrops.
Long snaky vines dangled from the high branches. They were like thick ropes, some as thick as a man’s arm. Closer to ground level grew shrubs and small trees. The low twisted trees that bore the green fruits seemed to grow all over the jungle.
Leswick was the first to point that out. “I should have known it,” he complained. “These fruits are everywhere — and here I am, carrying ten pounds of them on my back!”
“Keep them there,” Rand said. “For all we know, this is the last grove of those trees between here and the beacon. We may be sorry later if we throw away the ones you’re carrying.”
“They grow everywhere,” Dombey said suddenly. “He can throw ’em away, boss.”
Rand chuckled. It wasn’t often that Dombey sounded so sure of anything.
“Oh? Have you made a study of the botany here, Tarzan? Are you certain the fruit trees grow all over? How can you know?”
Dombey made an annoyed-sounding grunt. “I just know, is all. Boss, he can throw those things away, honest. He’s only gonna get tired from carrying ’em. Believe me, there’s plenty more where these came from.”
“You hear that, Rand?” Leswick said. “If I don’t need to carry them, I don’t want to carry them!”
Rand shook his head. “Listen, Leswick, maybe Dombey knows what he’s talking about, and maybe not. But until I’m sure that the fruit trees are common all around here, I don’t plan to scrap our supply. Ten pounds more or less won’t kill you.”
“He ain’t so strong, boss,” Dombey put in. “He don’t need to carry them things.”
This time Rand got sore. He whirled around and said sharply, “That’s enough from you, Dombey! When I need your suggestions I’ll come asking for them!”
The big man shrugged and didn’t reply. Rand turned front again, and stepped up his pace. Up to now, Dombey hadn’t had much to say, and had never put up much of a fuss over anything. Rand couldn’t understand why Dombey was being so stubborn over the business of the green fruits.
But Rand didn’t like it. If the husky jetmonkey started getting troublesome now —
Rand didn’t care for the idea that they were quarreling like this. The way they were going, they’d be at each other’s throats in another half an hour. And it was going to take days or weeks or months to reach that beacon.
No one spoke again during the next hour. Rand plodded forward, looking back now and then to make sure the other two were keeping up with him. The path had some rough patches, but it still trended toward the east. He checked the detector near noon. They were heading the right way.
The next bit of trouble came when Rand called a halt for lunch.
“This looks like a good place to take a break,” he said. “We’ll stop here.”
They were in a little natural clearing. A sparkling stream wound down from a low hill not far away. A small tree with fur-covered branches was full of fat round fruits that looked like juicy purple apples. It was a beautiful spot.
But Dombey began to shake his head.
“No, boss,” the jetmonkey rumbled. “Don’t stop now. Not here.”
“Huh? Aren’t you hungry?”
“Sure,” Dombey said.
“Then why shouldn’t we stop now?” Rand demanded, annoyed.
Dombey seemed to search for words. He frowned. His nostrils flickered as he sniffed the air. Then he shook his head again, stubbornly. “Bad to stop here, is all. I don’t like it here. I don’t know why.”
Rand folded his arms and looked around the lovely little clearing. He wondered why Dombey was making all this trouble. He said to Leswick, “Do you want to stop and eat here, professor?”
Leswick nodded. “But if Dombey thinks there’s something wrong here, maybe we ought to listen to him.”
“Let’s go, boss,” Dombey said, sounding worried. He walked around nervously in a little circle. “We ought to get out of here. It smells bad.”
Rand told himself not to get angry. He forced a grin and said, “All right, Tarzan. We’ll humor you. We’ll keep hiking until you decide you want to stop. How’s that?”
“Just don’t like it here,” Dombey repeated dimly.
They moved on. After they had gone some thirty feet into the underbrush, Rand turned and looked back into the clearing. A slender, gentle-looking animal had come down into it from the little hill. The creature was something like an antelope, except that antelopes don’t usually have six legs. This animal did.
It capered around the clearing for a moment. Then it stretched upward, standing on its hindmost pair of legs, to nibble fruits from the tree with furry branches.
Suddenly Rand gasped.
“Look at that!” he said to Leswick.
An arm was silently slithering out of the innocent-looking little stream. The arm was green and narrow and long. It had two sharp claws at one end, like yellow spikes, and some sucker-pads. It stretched like rubber, getting longer and longer and longer as it slid across the ground toward the antelope.
The antelope didn’t notice. It was concentrating on knocking a fruit from the lowest branch. The branch was a couple of feet above its head, and it wasn’t having much luck.
For a last try, the antelope gathered its six legs together to make a jump at the dangling fruit. And in that moment, the long green arm from the water reached it. The arm wrapped itself tightly around all six of the antelope’s hooves. Then it began to pull the antelope toward the stream.
The antelope gave a soft, frightened cry. It was helpless in the green thing’s grip.
“Can’t we do something?” Leswick asked.
“Not a thing,” said Rand unhappily.
They watched as the arm got closer to the stream. With a motion like the cracking of a whip, it roughly yanked the animal along and hoisted it over a big rock at the stream’s edge. It pulled the antelope down into the water and out of sight.
The jungle became terribly quiet.
Rand turned away. His lips were dry and his legs felt shaky.
Leswick said hoarsely, “It’s a good thing we didn’t stop to eat lunch in that clearing.”
“Yeah,” Rand said. “Very lucky.”
He could see how it might have been. The three o
f them sitting under that tree, relaxing, eating. And that awful arm quietly sliding toward them along the ground —
Rand glanced at Dombey. The big man hadn’t said anything, not even, “I told you so!” Yet his stubbornness had saved their lives.
How had Dombey known that the clearing was dangerous, Rand wondered. How could he possibly have known?
There was only one answer, Rand decided, as they hiked onward. It was idiot’s luck — just a foolish hunch, nothing more. It was only a coincidence that Dombey had felt uneasy in a place of hidden danger. They were lucky they hadn’t stopped there, of course. But that didn’t mean that Dombey had really known why he was warning them to get away from the place.
It didn’t make sense to run this expedition on hunches.
In twenty minutes or so they came to another clearing. “Okay,” Rand said. “This isn’t as pretty as the other place, but it’ll do. We’ll eat lunch here.”
“Don’t want to eat here either,” Dombey said. He sounded like a cranky child trying to make trouble for his parents.
“Cut it out,” Rand said. “I admit you were right not to want to stop back there. But you can’t pull the same stunt everywhere, or we’ll never get lunch.”
“Sorry, boss. I just don’t feel good about staying here.”
“Can you tell me why? What’s likely to happen?”
“How do I know? I just got this feeling.”
“No,” Rand said. “That isn’t enough. We need a real reason for not stopping, or else we’re going to stop. Can you give me a reason — something more solid than just a feeling?”
Dombey shook his head.
“Then we eat here,” Rand said. He slipped his knapsack off and sat down beside it. Dombey remained standing.
“Do we have to eat here boss?”
“Yes,” Rand said. “Even if you don’t want to.”
Shrugging, Dombey sat down, looking worried and unhappy. They unpacked and got out some food. Rand found that he was a little worried, too. After all, Dombey had seemed to know that the last clearing was dangerous. And here — maybe —
No — it’s nonsense, Rand thought.
But he kept glancing off into the jungle to make sure nothing was sneaking up on them. Crackling twigs made him jump. When the wind rustled through the branches, he got up and looked around.
He felt edgy and tense. The picture of that slimy green arm creeping out of the pretty little stream still haunted him.
He didn’t see anything in the bushes, though. Except a vine that wound like a snake from bush to bush. Shiny little berries, about the size of grapes, grew on the vine. They were light blue in color and looked juicy and sweet.
Rand picked a few of the berries and said to Dombey, “You don’t mind if I try some of these, do you? I have your permission, I hope?”
Dombey said nothing. He just stared.
Rand put one in his mouth. It tasted even better than it looked. “Mmm,” he said. “That’s good! Sweet as honey! Dombey, you want some?”
“I got the other fruits, boss.”
“Suit yourself. Leswick, want to try a few?”
Leswick didn’t. Rand ate five or six more. Dombey watched him in an unhappy way, as though the big man thought something might be wrong with the berries. Rand didn’t care. He wasn’t going to put faith in every one of Dombey’s wild hunches.
He had to prove his point about stopping to eat here. He had to operate by logic and common sense, not by hunches and mysterious “feelings.” This place was turning out all right, no matter what Dombey said. It would have been a mistake not to stop here, Rand thought. Even eating the berries — that would show Dombey this place was okay.
By the time lunch was over, Rand was sure he’d been right. Nothing unusual had happened to them in the clearing. They finished eating, packed up, and went back to the path. Dombey’s second hunch hadn’t been as good as his first. Rand was glad about that.
They started marching again. Not for long, though.
When they were about half a mile from the place where they had eaten lunch, Dombey called out, “Hold it!”
Rand looked back. “What’s the matter now?”
“We got to get off the path here,” Dombey said. “Fast!”
CHAPTER 10
THIS WAS starting to be a nuisance. Dombey wasn’t a silent man any more. Now he seemed to be trying to run the show.
“What did you say?” Rand asked.
Dombey jerked his thumb toward the edge of the jungle. “We gotta get off the path here. Into the woods.”
“Are you going to make trouble every step of the way?” Rand asked. “This is the third time in the last two hours that you’ve stopped us, Dombey. We’re never going to get there if —”
“No, boss!” A look of sheer agony passed like a cloud across Dombey’s face. He struggled hard to find words and get them out. “Boss, we gotta get off the path! Right now!”
“You said that when we stopped for lunch. Both times.”
“The first time he was right,” Leswick pointed out.
“That was the first time. A lucky hunch, nothing more. But if he’s going to get itchy about something mysterious every little while — “ Rand said.
It was a matter of principle, he realized. His leadership of the group was at stake. Either he made the decisions, using his intelligence, or Dombey did — using guesswork.
Rand glanced at Leswick to find out where the philosopher stood in the argument. But Leswick’s face completely hid his feelings.
“We aren’t getting off the path,” Rand said firmly. “And I’ll give the orders in this party, Dombey. Remember that. I’ll give the orders.”
A new expression entered Dombey’s eyes. It was one that Rand had never seen there before. The big man didn’t look easy-going and good-natured any more.
“You ain’t giving the orders no more,” Dombey said in a low growl of a voice. “We get off this path. Right now.”
He moved toward Rand. He was as agile as a big cat, in spite of the heavy load of gear strapped to his back.
“Get away, Dombey!” Rand ordered. “Keep back!”
But the huge man kept approaching. His fist was clenched, and he was swinging his arm around to throw a punch. Rand brought an arm up to block the blow. Dombey’s punch caught him just below the elbow. Rand’s arm went numb.
“Leswick!” Rand yelled. “Pull him back! Get him away from me!”
It was foolish to think that Leswick could be of any use against Dombey, Rand knew. Leswick didn’t offer help. He stepped back instead. And Dombey closed in.
A punch slammed into Rand’s stomach. He tried to fight back, but it was like fighting off a hurricane. Dombey grazed Rand’s jaw with a flat-handed slap that left him spinning dizzily. He followed with a head-rattling swipe to Rand’s right shoulder.
He’s gone crazy, Rand thought. He’s running wild!
But there was a strange look in Dombey’s eyes, and it wasn’t a look of insanity. In the middle of the struggle, Rand saw that look. It was the look of a man who knew what he was doing.
“Stop it!” Rand cried. “Dombey, cut it out!”
He tried to back away, but Dombey wasn’t letting him go anywhere. The jetmonkey grabbed him with one hand. Rand managed to land a weak punch on Dombey’s chest, and then Dombey slapped him again, just once, very hard, on his left cheekbone.
Rand’s head wobbled and his knees went out from under him.
He started to sag toward the ground. Dombey caught him. Rand felt as if he had begun to fly. Dombey was lifting him, swinging him through the air, dumping him over his broad shoulder.
Then Rand blanked out completely.
He woke up feeling as if a steamroller had hit him. He was lying on a thick carpet of sweet-smelling leaves, under a canopy of branches far overhead. The knapsack he had been carrying was sitting beside him.
Leswick and Dombey stood nearby. Dombey was completely calm, showing no hint of his earlier rage. Leswick l
ooked away guiltily when Rand glared at him.
Slowly, painfully, Rand got to his feet. He was aching in a dozen places. His two companions watched him without saying a word.
“Where are we?” he asked.
Leswick said, “About fifty feet from where you and Dombey had the fight.”
“I feel like I’ve been out cold for days.”
“About five minutes, no more,” the Metaphysical Synthesist said. “Dombey tried to be careful when he hit you.”
“Nice of him,” Rand muttered.
Leswick said, “You might want to take a look through the underbrush. There’s a very interesting sight back there out on the path.”
Rand turned. He squinted through the tangled bushes in the direction Leswick was pointing. For a moment he saw nothing unusual. Then he did, and he shivered at the sight.
“They aren’t pretty, are they?” Leswick asked.
They were hideous. They were four-legged animals the size of wolves, lean and grim. Their heads and rumps were held high; their backs curved down in the middle. They were padding along silently, one after another in a long row.
There must have been hundreds of the vicious-looking beasts in the parade. Each one grasped in his mouth the tail of the one just in front, to keep the pack close together.
Their lips were drawn back in a terrifying grin. Teeth like daggers were on display. Each beast had four long fangs with needle-sharp points. At the side of their mouths jutted yellow-green tusks, broad and flattened like shovels, but sharp as razors along the edges.
The animals were dirty white in color, with bulging blue-rimmed eyes. Their heavy fur was filthy, matted, stinking. Even at this distance, Rand could sense their overpowering rotten odor.
They were killers — a pack of hunters, parading through the jungle. Rand shuddered at the thought of what might have happened to him and Leswick and Dombey, if they had been out there and on the path when the parade came by.
“What if they pick up our scent?” Rand whispered.
“No worry,” Dombey said. “They stick to the path. We’re okay in here, I bet. They been passing for a couple minutes now, and nobody’s even looked at us.”
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