Star Hunter (11 page)

Those mewling cries were louder, he was sure of it. Now he heard the
thump of the beast's blundering pursuit behind him. But its bulk and
hurts slowed it. In the open he could find cover behind a rock, use
the ray again.

The trees began to thin. Vye summoned power for a last burst of speed,
came out of the shadow of the wood as might a dart expelled from a
needler. Before him, up slope, was the closed door of the valley. And
moving in from the left was another of the blue beasts.

He could not retreat to the trees. But the newcomer was moving with
the same ponderous self-confidence its fellow had shown earlier. Vye
dodged right, headed for the rocks by the gap. As he pulled himself
into that temporary fortification, the wounded beast dragged out of
the woods below. He thought it was blind, yet some instinct drove it
after him.

Shaking from fatigue, Vye steadied his forearm on the top of the rock,
brought up the ray tube. Less than two yards away now was the
deceptively open mouth of the gap. If he threw himself at that, would
the elasticity of the unseen curtain hurl him back into the claws of
the enemy?

He fired his blast at the head of the unwounded beast. It screeched,
threw out its arms, and one of those paws struck against its wounded
fellow. With a cry, that one flung itself at its companion in the
hunt, and they tangled in a body-to-body battle terrible in its utter
ferocity. Vye edged along the cliff determined to reach the cave and
Hume. And the two blue things seemed intent on finishing each other
off.

The one from the wood was done, the fangs of the other ripping out its
throat. Tearing viciously the victor made sure of its kill, then its
seared head came up, swung about to face Vye. He guessed it was aware
of his movements whether it could see or not.

But he was not prepared for the speed of its attacking lunge.
Heretofore the creatures had given the impression of brute strength
rather than agility. And he had been almost fatally deceived. He
jumped backwards, knowing he must elude that attack, for he could not
survive hand-to-hand combat with the alien thing.

There was a moment of dazed disorientation, a weird sensation of
falling through unstable space in which there had never been and never
would be firm footing again. He was rolling across rock—outside the
curtain of the gap.

He sat up, the feeling of being adrift in unmeasurable nothingness
making him sick, to watch mistily as the blue beast came to a halt.
Whimpering it turned, but before it reached the level of the woods, it
sagged to its knees, fell face forward and was still, a destructive
machine no longer controlled by life.

Vye tried to understand what had happened. He had somehow broken
through that barrier which made the valley a prison. For a moment all
that mattered was his freedom. Then he looked apprehensively behind
him along the road to the open, more than half expecting to see a
gathering of the globes, or of the less impressive lowland beasts that
acted as herders. But there was nothing.

Freedom! He dragged himself to his feet. Free to go! He slipped Hume's
ray tube back into his belt. Hume was still in the valley!

Vye rubbed his shaking hands across his face. Through the barrier and
free—but Hume was back there, without a weapon, defenseless against
any questing beast able to nose him out. Sickly, without water and
protection, he was a dead man even while he still breathed.

Keeping one hand against the wall of the gap in support, Vye started
to walk, not out of the gap towards the distant lowlands, but back
into the valley, forcing himself to that by his will alone and
screaming inside against such suicidal folly. He put out his hand
tentatively when he reached the two points of rock where that curtain
had hung. There was no obstruction—the barrier was down! He must get
back to Hume.

Still keeping his wall hold, Vye lurched through the gate, was once
more in the valley. He stood swaying, listening. But once again there
was silence, not even the wind moved through trees or bushes. Placing
one foot carefully before the other he went on towards Hume's cave.
The haze which had clouded his thinking processes since that first
morning's awakening in this bowl was gone now. Except for the physical
weakness that weighted his body, he felt once more entirely alive and
alert.

Wriggling in the cave's entrance was the Hunter. He had freed the
bonds Vye had put on his legs, but his hands were still tied. His
face, grimy, sweat-covered, was turned up to the sunlight, and his
eyes were again bright with reason.

Vye found the strength to run the last few feet between them. He was
fumbling with those ties about Hume's wrists as he blurted out the
news. The barrier was out—they could go.

Then he was bringing one of those precious bulbs, raising it to Hume's
eager mouth, squeezing a portion of its contents between the man's
cracked and bleeding lips.

Somehow they made that trip back to the valley gate. When they saw
their goal, Hume broke from Vye's hold, tottered forward with a cry
not far removed from a sob. He rebounded to slip full length to the
ground and lie there. Sobbing dryly, his gaunt face, eyes closed,
turned up to the sky. The trap had snapped shut once again.

"Why—why?" Vye found he was repeating the same words over and over,
his gaze blank, unfocussed, yet turned to the woods of the lake.

"Tell me what happened again."

Vye's head came around. Hume had pulled himself up so that his
shoulders rested against the rock wall. His plasta-hand was out-flung,
slipping up and down what seemed empty air, but which was the barrier
against freedom. And now his eyes seemed entirely sane.

Slowly, hesitating between words, Vye went over the full account of
his visit to the lake, his retreat before the beasts, his fortunate
stumble through the gap.

"But you came back."

Vye flushed. He was not going to try to explain that. Instead he said:

"If it went away once, it can again."

Hume did not press the subject of his return. Rather he fastened upon
the end of that action with the wounded beast, made Vye go through it
verbally a third time.

"There is just this," he said when the other was done. "When you fell
you were not thinking of the barrier at all—and your wits were
working again. You had come out of the daze we both had."

Vye tried to remember, decided that the Hunter was correct. He had
been trying to elude the charge of the beast, only, fear and that
desperate desire had occupied his mind at that moment. But what did
that signify?

To test just what he did not know, he crawled now to Hume's side, put
up his own hand to the space where the plasta-flesh palm slid back and
forth on nothingness. But he almost fell on his face, forward into the
gap. Where he had been expecting the resistance of the unseen curtain
there had been nothing at all! He turned to Hume with the expression
of a man who had been stunned by an unexpected blow.

"It is open for you!" Hume broke the quiet first. His eyes were very
bleak in his bony face.

Vye stood up, took one step and was on the other side of the curtain
where Hume's hand still found substance. He came back with the same
lack of hindrance. Yes, to him there was no longer a barrier. But
why—why him when Hume was still a prisoner?

The Hunter raised his head so his eyes could meet Vye's with the
authority of an order. "Go, get away while you can!"

Instead Vye dropped down beside the other. "Why?" he asked baldly. And
then the most obvious of all answers came.

He glanced at Hume. The Hunter's head lolled back against the rock
which supported him, his eyes were closed now, and he had the look of
a man who had been driven to the edge of endurance and was now willing
to relinquish his grip and let go.

Deliberately Vye brought up his right hand, balled his fingers into a
fist. And just as deliberately he struck home, square on the point of
that defenseless chin. Hume sagged, would have slipped down the
surface of the rock had Vye's hands not caught in his armpits.

Since he had not the strength left to get to his feet with such a
burden, Vye crawled, dragging the inert body of the Hunter with him.
And this time, as he had hoped, there was no resistance at the gap.
Unconscious, Hume was able to cross the barrier. Vye stretched him as
comfortably flat as he could, used a portion of their water on his
face until he moaned, muttered, and raised his hand feebly to his
head.

Then those gray eyes opened, focussed on Vye.

"What—"

"We're both through now, both of us!" The younger man saw Hume glance
around him with waking belief.

"But how—?"

"I knocked you out, that's how," Vye returned.

"Knocked me out? I crossed when I was unconscious!" Hume's voice
steadied, strengthened. "Let me see!" He rolled over on his side,
threw out his arm, and this time the hand found no wall. For him, too,
the barrier was gone.

"Once through, you are free," he added wonderingly. "Maybe they never
foresaw any escapes." He struggled up, sitting with his hands hanging
loosely between his knees.

Vye turned his head, looked down the trail. The length of distance
lying between them and the safari camp now faced them with a new
problem. Neither of them could make that trek on foot.

"We're out, but we aren't back—yet," Hume echoed his thought.

"I was wondering, if
this
door is open—" Vye began.

"The flitter!" Again Hume's mind matched his. "Yes, if those globes
aren't hanging around just waiting for us to try."

"They might act only to get us here, not to keep us once we're in."
That might be wishful thinking, they wouldn't know until they tried to
prove it.

"Give me a hand." Hume held out his own, let Vye pull him to his feet.
Weak as he was, he was clear-eyed, plainly clear-headed once more.
"Let's go!"

Together they went back through the gap, then tested the absence of
the barrier once more, to make sure. Hume laughed. "At least the front
door remains open, even if we find the back one closed."

Vye left him sitting by that entrance while he made a quick trip to
the cave to pick up the small pack of supplies left them. When he
returned they crammed tablets into their mouths, drank feverishly of
the lake water, and, with the stimulation of the new energy, set off
along the cliff face.

"This wall in the lake," Hume asked suddenly, "you are sure it is
artificial?"

"Runs too straight to be anything else, and those projections are
evenly spaced. I don't see how it could be natural."

"We'll have to be sure."

Vye thought of that attacking water creature. "No diving in there," he
protested. Hume smiled, a stretch of skin far too tight over his jaw
now.

"Not us, at least not us now," he agreed. "But the Guild will send
another survey."

"What could be the reason for all this?" Vye helped his companion over
the loose debris of a cliff slide.

"Information."

"What?"

"Someone—or something—picked our brains while we were out of our
heads. Or—" Hume paused suddenly, looked directly at Vye. "I have a
vague feeling that you were able to keep going a lot better than I
was. That so?"

"Some of the time," Vye admitted.

"That checks. Part of me knew what was going on, but was helpless
while that other thing," his smile of moments earlier was wiped away,
there was a chill edge in his voice, "picked over my brains, sorted
out what it wanted."

Vye shook his head. "I didn't feel that way. Just thick-headed—as if
I were sleep walking and yet awake."

"So it took me over, but didn't go all the way with you. Why? Another
question for our list."

"Maybe—maybe Wass' techs fixed it so I couldn't be brain-picked, as
you call it," Vye offered.

Hume nodded. "Could be—would well be. Come on." He pressed the pace
now.

Vye turned to look down the slope suspiciously. Had Hume another
warning of menace out of the wood? He could sight no movement there.
And from this distance the lake was a topaz sheet of calm which could
hide anything. Hume was already several paces ahead, scrambling as if
the valley monsters were again on their track.

"What's the matter?" Vye demanded, as he caught up.

"Night coming." Which was true. Then Hume added, "If we can reach the
flitter before sunset, we'll have a chance to fly over the lake down
there, to make a taping of it before we go."

The energy of the tablets strengthened them so that by the time they
reached the crevice door they were moving with their former agility.
For a single second Hume hesitated before that slit, almost as if he
feared the test he must make. Then he stepped forward and this time
into freedom.

They reached the ledge where the flitter perched just as they had seen
it last. How long ago that had been they could not have told, but they
suspected that days of haze hung in between. Vye searched the sky. No
globes winking there—just the flyer alone.

He took his old seat behind the pilot, watched Hume test the relays
and responses in the quick run down of a man who has done this chore
many times before. But the other gave a little sigh of relief when he
finished.

"She's all right, we can lift."

Again they both looked aloft, half fearing to see those malignant
herders wink into being to forbid flight. But the sky was as serenely
clear of even a drifting cloud as they could hope. Hume pressed a
button and they arose vertically with an even progress totally unlike
the leap which had taken them out of Wass' camp.

Well above the cliff wall they hovered, and were able to see below the
round bowl of the valley prison. Hume touched controls, the flitter
descended slowly just above the center of the lake. And from this
position they were able to sight the other peculiarity of that body of
water, that it was perfectly oval in shape, far too perfect to be an
undeveloped product of nature. Hume took a round disk from his
equipment belt, fitted it carefully into a slot on the control board
and pressed the button below. Then he sent the flitter in a weaving
zigzag course well above the surface of the water, so that eventually
the flyer passed over every foot of its surface.