by Andre Norton
9
SEA GATE
"What is it?" Dalgard asked his question as Sssuri, his attention stillon their back trail, stole along cautiously on a retracing of theirpath.
But that retreat ended abruptly with the merman plastered against thewall, his whole shadowy form a tense warning which stopped Dalgardshort. In that moment the answer flashed from mind to mind.
"There are those which follow--"
"Snake-devils? Those Others?" The colony scout supplied the only twoexplanations he had, sending his own thought out questing. But asusual he could not hope to equal the more sensitive merman whose racehad always used that form of communication.
"Those who have long haunted the darkness," was the only reply hecould get.
But Sssuri's actions were far more indicative of danger. For themerman turned and caught at Dalgard, pulling the larger colonist alonga step or two with the urgency of his grip.
"We cannot return this way--and we must travel fast!"
For Sssuri who would face and had faced up to a snake-devil with aspear his sole weapon, this timidity was new. Dalgard was wise enoughto accept his verdict of the wisdom of flight. Together they ran alongthe underground corridor, soon putting a mile between them and thepoint where the merman had first taken alarm.
"From what do we flee?" As the merman began to slacken pace, Dalgardsent that query.
"There are those who live in this darkness. By one, or by two, wecould speedily remove them from life. But they hunt in packs and theyare as greedy for the kill as are the snake-devils scenting meat. Alsothey are intelligent. Once, long before the days of burning, theyserved Those Others as hunters of game. And Those Others tried to makethem ever more intelligent and crafty so they might be sent to huntwithout a huntsman. At last they grew too knowing for their masters.Then Those Others, realizing their menace, tried to kill them all withtraps and tricks. But only the most stupid and the slowest were sodisposed of. The others withdrew into underground ways such as this,venturing forth only in the dark of night."
"But if they are intelligent," countered the scout, "why can they notbe reached by the mind touch?"
"Through the years they have developed their own ways of thought. Andthese are not the simple creatures of the sun, or such as the runners.Once they were taught to answer only to Those Others. Now they answeronly to each other. But"--he spread out his hands in one of his quick,nervous gestures--"to those who are cornered by one of their packs,they are sudden death!"
Since they could not, by Sssuri's reckoning, turn back, there was onlyone course before them, to follow the passage they had chanced upon.The merman was certain that it underran the river and that eventuallythey would reach the sea--unless some side turn before that pointwould make them free in the countryside once more.
Dalgard doubted if it had ever been a well-used way. And the presenceof earth falls here and there, over which they stumbled and clawedtheir way, led him to consider the wisdom of keeping on to what mightbe a dead end. But his trust in Sssuri's judgment was great, and asthe merman plowed forward with every appearance of confidence, hecontinued to trot along without complaint.
They snatched moments of rest, taking turns at guard. But the wallsabout them were so unchanging that it was hard to measure time ordistance. Dalgard chewed at his emergency rations, a block of driedmeat and fruit pounded together to an almost rocklike consistency, andtried to make the crumbs he sucked loose satisfy his growing hunger.
The passageway was growing damper; water trickled down the walls andgathered in fetid pools on the floor. Dalgard's dislike of the placegrew. His shoulders hunched involuntarily as he strode along, for hisimagination pictured the rock above them giving away to dump tons ofthe oily river water down to engulf them. But though Sssuri avoidedsplashing through the pools wherever he might, he did not appear tofind anything upsetting about the moisture.
At last the human could stand it no longer. "How much farther to thesea?" he asked without any hope of a real answer.
As he had expected him to do, Sssuri shrugged. "We should be close.But having never trod this way before, how can I tell you?"
Once more they rested, choosing a stretch which was reasonably dry,munching their dried food and drinking sparingly from the stopperedduocorn horns which swung from their belts. A man would have to bedying of thirst, Dalgard thought, before he would palm up any of thestagnant water from the passage pools.
He drifted off into a troubled sleep in which he fled beneath a skywhich was a giant lid in the hand of an unseen enemy, a lid which wasslowly lowered to crush him flat. He awoke with a start to findSssuri's cool, scaled fingers stroking his shoulder.
"Dream demons walk these roads." The words drifted into his half-awakemind.
"They do indeed," he roused to answer.
"It is always so where Those Others have been. They leave behind themthe thoughts which breed such dreams to trouble the sleep of those whoare not of their kind. Let us go. I would like to be out of this placeunder the clean sky, where no ancient wickedness hangs to poison theair and thought."
Either the merman had miscalculated the direction of their route orthe river mouth was much farther from the inland city than they hadbelieved, for, though they pushed on for what seemed like weary hours,they came to no upward slope, no exit to the world they knew.
Instead Dalgard began to realize that just the opposite was true. Atlast he could stand it no longer and broke out with what he feared,hoping that Sssuri would deny that fear.
"We are going downhill!"
To his disappointment the merman agreed. "It has been so for the lastthousand of our paces. It is my belief that this leads not to the sunbut out under the sea."
Dalgard missed a step. To Sssuri the sea was home and perhaps thethought of being under its floor was not disturbing. The land-bornhuman was not so prepared. If he had experienced discomfort under theriver, what would it be like under the ocean? His terrifying dream ofa lid being pressed down upon him flashed back into his mind. But hiscompanion was continuing:
"There will be doors, perhaps into the sea itself."
"For you," Dalgard pointed out, "but I am no dweller in the depths."
"Neither were Those Others, yet they used these ways. And I tellyou"--in his earnestness the merman laid his hand once more onDalgard's arm--"to turn back now is out of the question. The deathwhich haunts the darkness is still sniffing out our trail."
Dalgard glanced involuntarily over his shoulder. By the faint andlimited light of the purple disks he could see little or nothing. Anarmy might creep there undetected.
"But--" His protest was in answer to the merman's seeming unconcern.
Sssuri at the first intimation that the hunters were behind them hadshown wariness. Now he did not appear to care.
"They had fed," he replied. "Scouts follow because we are somethingnew and thus suspect. When hunger rises once more in them, and theirscouts report that we are meat, then is the time to draw knives andprepare for battle. But before that hour we may have won free. Let ussearch for the gate we now need."
However confident the merman might be, Dalgard could not match thatconfidence. In the open air he would have faced a snake-devil fourtimes his size without any more emotion than a hunter's instinctivecaution. But here in the dark, unable to rid himself of the beliefthat thousands of tons of sea water hung over his head, he foundhimself starting at any sound, his knife bare and ready in hissweating hand.
He noted that Sssuri had stepped up the pace, passing into hissure-footed glide which made Dalgard exert himself to keep up. Beforethem the corridor stretched without a break. The merman's promisedexit, if it existed, was still out of sight.
It was difficult to gauge time in this dark hall, but Dalgard thoughtthat they were at least an hour farther on their way when Sssuripaused abruptly once more, his head cocked in a listening attitude, asif he caught some whisper of sound too rarefied for his humancompanion.
"Now--" the thought hissed as if he sp
at the words, "they hunger--andthey hunt!"
He bounded forward with a spurt, which Dalgard copied, and they ranlightly, the dust undisturbed in years puffing up beneath the merman'sbare, scaled feet and Dalgard's hide boots. Still the unbroken walls,the feeble patches of violet in the ceiling. But no exit. And whatgood would any exit do him, Dalgard thought, if it opened under thesea?
"There are islands off the coast--many islands--" Sssuri caught himup. "It is in my mind that we shall find our door on one of those.But--run now, knife brother, for those at our heels awake and thirstfor flesh and blood. They have decided that we are not to be fearedbut may be run down for their pleasure."
Dalgard weighed his knife in his hand. "They shall find us withfangs," he promised grimly.
"It will be better if they do not find us at all," returned Sssuri.
A burning arch of pain encased Dalgard's lower ribs, and his breathcame in gusts of hastily sucked air as their flight kept on, down theendless corridor. Sssuri was also showing signs of the grueling pace,his round head bent forward, his furred legs pumping as if only hisiron will kept them moving. And the determination which kept him goingwas communicated to the scout as a graver warning than any thoughtmessage of fear.
They were passing under one of the infrequent violet lights whenDalgard got something else--a mental thrust so quick and sharp it wasas if a sword had cut through the daze of fatigue to reach his brain.Yet that had not come from Sssuri, for it was totally alien, waveringon a band so near the extreme edge of his consciousness that itpricked, receded, and pricked again as a needle might.
This was no message of fear or warning, but of implacable stubbornnessand ravening hunger. And in that instant Dalgard knew that it camefrom what was sniffing out their trail, and he no longer wondered thatthe hunters were immune to other mental contact. One could not reasonwith--that!
He spurted forward, matching the merman's acceleration of speed. Butto Dalgard's horror he saw that his companion now ran with one handbrushing along the wall, as if he needed that support.
"Sssuri!"
His thought met a wall of concentration through which he could notbreak. In a way he was reassured--for a moment, until another of thosestabs from their pursuers struck him. He longed to look back, to seewhat hunted them. But he dared not break stride to do that.
"Ahhhh!" The welcoming cry from Sssuri brought his attention back tohis companion as the merman broke into a wild run.
Dalgard summoned up his last rags of energy and coursed after him.Sssuri had halted before a dark lump which protruded from the side ofthe corridor.
"A sea lock!" Sssuri's claws were clicking over the surface of thehatch, seeking the secret of its latch.
Panting, Dalgard leaned against the opposite wall. Just as a protestformed in his mind he heard something else, the pad of feet, manyfeet, echoing down the corridor. And somehow he was able now to look.
Round spots of light, dull, greenish, close to the ground, as ifsomeone had flung a handful of phosphorescence into the dark. But thiswas no phosphorescence! Eyes! Eyes--he tried to count and knew it wasimpossible to so reckon the number of the pack that ran mute butready. Nor could he distinguish more than a very shadowy glimpse offorms which glided close to the ground with an unpleasant sinuosity.
"Ahhhhh!" Again Sssuri's paean of triumph.
There was the grate of unwilling metal forced to move, a puff of airredolent with the sea striking their bodies in chill threat, thebrightness of violet light stepped up to a point far beyond the lampsin the corridor.
With it came no rush of drowning water as Dalgard had half expected,and when the merman clambered through the hatch he prepared to follow,well aware that the eyes, and the pattering feet which bore them, werenow almost within range.
There was a snarl from the passage, and a black thing sprang at thescout. Without clear sight of what he was fighting, he struck downwith his knife and felt it slit flesh. The snarl was a scream of rageas the creature twisted in midair for a second try at him. In thatinstant Sssuri, leaning halfway out of the hatch, struck in his turn,thrusting his bone knife into shadows which now boiled with life.
Dalgard leaped for the lock door, kicking out swiftly and feeling thetoe of his boot contact with a crunch against one of those dartingshades, sending it back end over end into the press where its fellowsturned snapping upon it. Then Sssuri grabbed at him, bringing him in,and together they slammed the hatch, feeling it shake with the shockof thudding bodies as the pack outside went mad in their frustration.
While the merman fastened the locking bar, bringing out of thelong-motionless metal another protesting screech, Dalgard had a chanceto look about him. They were in a room some eight or nine feet long,the violet light showing up well tangles of equipment hanging frompegs on the walls, a pile of small cylinders on the floor. At the farend of the chamber was another hatch door, locked with the same typeof bar as Sssuri had just lowered to seal the inner one. The mermannodded to it.
"The sea--"
Dalgard slid his knife back into its sheath. So the sea lay beyond. Hedid not welcome the thought of passing through that door. Like all ofhis race he could swim--perhaps his feats in the water would haveastonished the men of the planet from which his tribe had emigrated.But unlike the mermen, he was not sea-born, nor equipped by naturewith a secondary breathing apparatus to make him as free in the worldof water as he was on land. Sssuri might crawl through that hatchwithout fear. For Dalgard it was as big a test as to turn and facewhat now raged in the corridor on the inner side.
"There is no hope that they will go now," Sssuri answered his vaguequestion. "They are stubborn. And hours--or even days--will meannothing. Also they can leave a guard there and rove at will, to returnupon signal. That is their way."
This left only the sea door. Sssuri padded across the chamber andreached up to free one of the strange objects dangling from the wallpegs. Like all things made of the marvelous substance used by ThoseOthers for any article which might be exposed to the elements, itseemed as perfect as on the day it had first been hung there, thoughthat date might be a hundred or more Astran years earlier. The mermanuncoiled a length of thin, flexible piping which joined a two-footcanister with a flat piece of metallic fabric.
"Those Others could not breathe under the water, as you cannot," heexplained as he worked deftly and swiftly. "Within my own memory wehave trapped their scouts wearing aids such as these so that theymight spy upon our safe places. But their last foray was some yearsago and at that time we taught them such a lesson that they have notdared to return. Since they are not unlike you in body and since youbreathe the same air aboveground, there is no reason why this shouldnot take you out of here."
Dalgard accepted the apparatus. A couple of elastic metal bandsfastened the canister to the chest of the wearer. The fabric moldedinto a perfect, tight face mask as it touched the skin.
Sssuri went to the pile of cylinders. Choosing one he tinkered withits pointed cone, to be rewarded with a thin hiss.
"Ahhhh--" again his recognition of the rightness of things. "Thesestill contain air." He tested two more and then brought all three backto where Dalgard stood, the canister strapped into place, the maskready in his hand. With infinite care the merman fitted two of thecylinders into the canister and then was forced to set the otheraside.
"We could not change them while under water anyway," he explained. "Soit will do little good to take extra supplies with us."
Trying not to speculate on the amount of air he could carry in thecylinders, Dalgard fastened on the mask, adjusted the air tube, andsucked. Air flowed--he could breathe! Only--for how long?
Sssuri, seeing that his companion was fully provided for, worked atthe bar locking the sea hatch. But in the end it took their combinedstrength to spring that barrier and win through to a small cubby whichwas the actual sea lock.
Dalgard knew one moment of resistance as the merman closed the hatchbehind them. For an instant it seemed that the dubious safety of thedressing
chamber and a faint hope of the hunters' giving up theirvigil was better than what might lie before them now. But Sssuripushed shut the hatch, and Dalgard stood quietly, without offering anyvisible protest.
He tried to draw even breaths--slowly--as the merman activated thelock. When the water curled in from hidden openings, rising from ankleto calf and then to knee, its chill striking through flesh to bone, hekept to the same stolid waiting, though this seemed almost worse thana sudden gush of water sweeping them out in its embrace.
The liquid swirled about Dalgard's waist now, tugging at his belt, hisarrow quiver, tapping on the bottom of the canister which held hisprecious air supply. His bow, shielded from the wet by its casing,was swallowed up inch by inch.
As the water lapped at his chin, the outer door opened with a slowinward push which suggested that the machinery controlling it hadgrown sluggish with the years. Sssuri, perfectly at home, darted outas soon as the opening was large enough to afford him an exit. And histhought came back to reassure the more clumsy landsman.
"We are in the shallows--land rises ahead. The roots of an island.There is nothing to fear--" The word ended abruptly in what was like amental gasp of either astonishment or fear.
Knowing all the menaces which might lie in wait, even in the shallowsof the sea, Dalgard drew his knife once more as he plowed throughwater--ready to rescue or at least to offer what aid he could.