The Killer Thing Page 9

  He knew he could walk no farther than three miles in an hour, probably less than that, and he had only about three hours until the winds would make it unsafe to be outside at all, so he planned that first day to go no farther from his base than two miles; he would increase the distance in the days to follow. What he sought was the cliff of basalt where he had stood that first day, when he had realised that the robot was not dead. He would find the cliff, climb it, and re-locate the spot where the robot had been. After that it would be simple, a matter of getting close enough to the invisibility shield to let his radiation detector find the hidden dinghy.

  He walked away from the sun, his shadow distorted ahead of him, flowing over rocks, merging with other blacker shadows, emerging again, more elongated and inhuman. He wondered if the robot would cast a shadow, and thought of the stories the boys in the bunks had exchanged after lights out so long ago. Stories of ancient horrors: living-dead things that cast no shadows, had no mirror reflections. He had been frightened by the stories, and sometimes he couldn’t sleep as he lay with the cover over his head, afraid to remove it, for fear of what he might see standing over his bed.

  The land at the end of the mountain chain was more harshly used; there were fewer cliffs to absorb the shock of the continuous blows, and those rock masses that were there had been cut into stark, unrelieved peaks with razor-like edges. Jumbles of tumbled, split, broken rocks lay in unnatural piles, deposited there by the wind. Only occasionally did he see a rounded boulder, such as one would expect to see where the sand was the lapidarist. Here giant rocks had done the rough hewing, smashing against the sides of the cliffs. The sand was not trapped here, but blew on through the rocks, out the other side to become part of the ever-growing desert. There was an occasional natural bridge or arch where soft material had yielded to the wind.

  The silent cliffs rose, reflecting the sun in his eyes, flashing brilliant colours that would vanish when the sun was at another angle, or when he shifted his position to examine one closely. Streaks of quartz in the granite flashed like diamonds; feldspar became rubies, a faceted face of quartzite shone like emeralds. Mica specks were like small mirrors signalling in response to the white sky. Basalt cuts appeared to be oiled and wet; they were hot when he touched them. The flashing, glaring rocks hurt his eyes, even though they were protected by the face mask. Somewhere along the way he turned slightly, and didn’t notice it until he caught himself wondering where the swaying, unfamiliar shadow had gone.

  Fear came then; he whirled about and stared behind him. Would he recognise the right cliff this time? The one that meant the dinghy and safety? How long had he been walking with his shadow off to the right of him? He didn’t know. He had been walking for one hour and ten minutes when he turned back. The sun dipped behind a peak that abruptly turned midnight black against the white spotlight, and everywhere the shadows deepened and some of them looked like bottomless pits that suddenly yawned on all sides of him. This time he walked with the shadow following slightly to his left, and he looked back at it again and again. Once when he failed to see it among the deeper shadows of a peak, he almost cried out, but then it was there, moving with him. When to turn so that it was directly behind him, pointing him in the right direction? He didn’t know.

  The cliffs rose all about him, two hundred feet, five hundred feet, but none of them was the basalt cliff on which he had stood that first day; none of them was the one that so cunningly concealed the slit of a chimney, the passage to the safety of his dinghy.

  He looked behind him again, and now the shadows had grown so that the strips of white now were the narrow, strange shapes that defied recognition. Motionless, silent when he gazed at them, they grew in quiet leaps when his eyes were averted. The white was turning grey, its edges no longer sharply defined. The sky above his head was violet; away to the east it was deep purple; to the west it was yellow still. Wherever he fastened his gaze the land and sky were unmoving, changeless, but everywhere else the changes were hastening without sound. He walked faster. He had walked an hour from the time he had turned back, and still he had not found the slit, nor even the right cliffs. As though from a great distance he could hear a howling sound; he thought of the distant wolves that appeared with regularity in some of the stories the boys had told when he had been twelve or so. This time it wasn’t wolves. The wind was starting.

  Another ten minutes. The face of the cliffs changed with each new alignment of the sun and the peaks, changed with each new configuration of shadow and light. With every step, every turn of his head the scene before him shifted, became less and less familiar. The valley had to be to his left, somewhere in the granite cliffs that towered high over him with a weight and massiveness that was terrifying. If only there were birds, or insects, or anything on this world. Something to break the silence and the motionlessness. Nothing moved except the wind. It started to swirl sand in small funnels, no more than five feet high, as yet swirling, then dropping, then starting again, rising higher each time, higher and denser. They were like nightmare figures, the threatening black shapes coming up from the earth, whirling about, and then collapsing while the wind sang a maniacal song.

  He groped along the cliff wall searching for the slit, and found nothing. The first tornado formed, howling like a rocket motor. The wind was lifting rocks now, no larger as yet than eggs; tornadoes whipped them around faster and faster, suddenly letting go, and they hit the walls of the skeleton mountains with explosive force, sounding like a steady barrage of small arms.

  Then the size of the rocks increased, and one that weighed at least ten pounds was hurled past Trace’s head, missing him by three feet. The noise was deafening now. He fell to the ground and lay there panting. He had to have shelter. Cautiously, creeping low against the ground, he made his way around a column of rocks where only sand blew, striking him with force, but not penetrating his suit. He could see only a few feet before him now; the wind was increasing minute by minute. It was coming from behind him, but suddenly he was hit in the face by a strong current of airborne sand. He staggered backwards, bewildered. Then, sobbing with relief, he realised that he had found the chimney, that the wind was whistling through it from the valley side of the cliffs.

  He groped for it with his hands. It would be rough going back through it with the wind in his face, driving sand and stones against him, but either that or stay outside to be pulverised…

  He got to his knees and started to crawl, keeping his head low, not even looking up when he heard the crash of a large rock near his right shoulder. He realised then why he had felt uneasy about the smooth walled valley where he had left his dinghy. The valley was shaped like a giant mixer, and nothing in it had not been rounded and smoothed by the twice-daily assault of the vicious wind. Ahead of him in the darkness he could hear the din of continuous thunder as tornadoes roared in the valley.

  Ten

  The grade was twenty degrees, and he fell flat out with his face pressed against the hot dry rocky earth. He hadn’t remembered it as being so far through the passage of the chimney, or so steep and treacherous. The roar of compressed air filled his ears, and he turned off the audio control in his helmet, immediately turning the world into a silent place where even the sound of his heart-beat was missing. It was worse than the wind had been. He turned it on again.

  He had to keep going. Minute by minute the wind was increasing its speed, the size of the flying rocks growing. He had to turn around, go down feet first in order to protect his head. The chimney was two and a half feet wide here, narrowing at the top of the cleft to a scant foot; the light coming in through the top was dirty, grey-yellow. He brought his feet up under him, presenting a larger target for the hurled rocks. One caught him on the thigh and he cried out. Hurrying, he turned, getting his feet out before him, keeping his face down against the earth, one hand over his head, the other extending out behind him as he went down the passage, pushing, helping to lift his weight, easing it over the next few inches. Slowly, he approach
ed the end of the chimney; the rocks that were blowing about were larger, not going straight through at this end, but skipping about in a circular motion, banging thunderously against the sides of the cut. At the end he tried to see his dinghy and could not find it in the swirling debris. The valley echoed with the repeated crashes of boulders against valley walls, and the wind’s roar here was deafening.

  The dinghy had to be to his left, about twenty-five feet away from the cliff wall; he would be going directly into the wind. Suddenly everything was swept away in a blaze of pain and when it passed he could not move his left arm at all. There was the feel of sticky warmth on his shoulder, but no pain then. He knew the pain would come again. He had to get to the dinghy before one of the rocks caught him in the head, or broke a leg…

  He closed his eyes hard, visualising the dinghy and the rounded boulder, fighting back the hysteria that was overcoming him at the thought of leaving the inadequate shelter of the cut into the mountain. The boulder had been trailed by a whole string of lesser rocks… He should have realised what they meant when he first saw them… If he could make it to the rocks and use them for protection…

  There was nothing else he could do. His left arm dangled uselessly, numbed, as if it were not even a part of him. He stood for another moment, pressing himself hard against the side of the cleft, and then he ran out, hunched as low as he could get, and he tripped and fell over one of the series of rocks. He threw himself down full length, gasping; he felt as if he had been caught in an avalanche; his whole body was bruised and hurting. But he was still alive. He heard his own laugh and choked it off. Creeping along the ground, pressing against the rocks that would take him back to the easter egg boulder and his own craft, he was hit again and again by pebbles, rocks, sand, and then he had reached the big one. He could see nothing now, the air completely filled with the driving sand. His hands found the smooth side of the dinghy, and somehow he wrenched the hatch open, fell inside and pulled it closed again. The wind probably was seventy miles an hour, gusts of ninety, and tornadoes whose wind velocity could only be estimated. It would not reach its peak for another half-hour at least. He drew in gasping, sobbing breaths, closed his eyes when the dinghy seemed to be tilting crazily, and waited for the dizziness to pass. He wasn’t finished yet. He still had to move the dinghy to safety.

  It seemed to take him months, or years, to reach the controls of the dinghy. He watched his right hand reach for the switch and before it touched, he slept and wakened, forgot about the wind, and remembered once more. Then his hand was on the switch and his mind was the thing apart as reflexes took over guiding his hand, seeing that the craft was turned in the right direction, that it hovered enough off the ground to clear the jutting rocks, and then controlled it in a fast dart into the cut in the cliff, taking it back as far as it would go, turning it so that it presented the smallest possible area to the bombardment. When the switch was turned off again, the man slumped down in the seat-bed unconscious.

  Hey, Trace, wake up! A whisper in his ear that grew more insistent. Come on, Trace! You ought to see… What’s the matter?

  He floated away from his hammock, coming down to earth as lightly as a feather. He looked down at himself, tasting the strangeness of his own body. He was very young, fifteen or sixteen… Where was he? It was all new and unfamiliar, a forest of tents, small geodesic patterns in a bright moonlight scene. A far sound of singing, a nearer sound of pacing feet ― the sentry. He remembered, they were on Tarbo for their first actual encounter with an enemy. Trace felt frightened, yet excited at the thought of joining in combat with the older, experienced men. They were so matter of fact about it, so disdainful of death.

  The other boy was plucking at his sleeve.

  Come on, Trace, this way. Dream-like, they drifted along the lower branches of the trees that surrounded the camp, eluding the sentry with no trouble, until they had come to a clearing, a slope that went down to the edge of a large lake, a silvery reflection that rippled now and again with its own secret life. Trace and the other boy—who had he been?—drifted to the top of a mammoth conifer and perched there, almost a hundred feet over the ground below. They could see far across the lake valley, a meadow in the distance where a long line of figures was moving. There were some lights, enough so that the boys could make out what was happening. Fleet men were shepherding natives in a straggly line, placing them among the trees at the edge of the lake, stationing some of them in a cave that was a black hole at the foot of a hill, putting others at the edge of the clearing, making them lie flat. A handful of the natives broke into a run and a laser cut them down, silently vaporising them. There were no more attempts to escape. Mystified, Trace watched until the soldiers were finished and took up guard positions.

  One of them screamed, the other boy said. I got up and wandered out this way to see what was going on. What are they doing?

  Haven’t you figured it out? Come on, we’ve got to get back before someone misses us. Use your head, Trace. You figure it out.

  Time telescoped; dawn, and the general giving final orders.

  It’s serious, men. They learned of our presence and massed thousands of warriors overnight, armed men, the elite of their fighting corps. Breznev will take the first battalion in…

  Trace would be in the fourth wave. His hand trembled when he received the laser gun; it would be virtually hand-to-hand combat, man against man, soldier against soldier…

  Gene! That was his name, Gene Connors. His eyes met Trace’s, and his face was ghastly, stark white with a pale green tinge around his mouth. Trace turned away from him.

  Brunce, take a detachment around to the left, pincers movement…

  Trace fell in behind Brunce, the laser hot in his hand, the trembling all on the inside now. In there, men, a detachment, take what cover you can; fire at anything that moves… Go! Three trainees to each officer. Moving behind Brunce…

  The laser held in both hands, touching with fire, the smell of burning brush, flesh, stones… the smell and sound of bullets from ancient guns, the natives’ weapons… And once more there was Gene, staring open-mouthed at Trace, his own laser hanging unused from his hand:

  You’re fishing in stocked waters!

  The sound of a bullet and Gene falling, running past his body, the laser a deadly light guiding him on, pulling him after it… One brief flashing glimpse of Brunce, a revolver in his hand…

  Celebration, drinking, the drugs that brought a fantasy world into reality, medals for meritorious action in the face of danger… His mother on his return to Venus:

  You’ve been to Tarbo; you’re a man now. You should marry and conceive a son… Corrine… You’ve been to Tarbo… She knew. Corrine knew. Gene had known… You’ve been to Tarbo…

  “Tarbo!” Trace sat upright, and moaned in pain. Tarbo? He repeated it aloud, “Tarbo?” It meant nothing to him. He had dreamed of his mother saying to him, “You’ve been to Tarbo,” but it meant nothing to him then. There was nothing that went with it, only the meaningless words, you’ve been to Tarbo. He listened. The wind was gone, the night completely still. He moved and groaned again. He hadn’t reclined the seat, and he was stiff; his shoulder was agonising. How much had it bled? With stiff fingers he peeled off the suit and he clenched his teeth when the material pulled away from the scraped place on his shoulder. Tears ran down his cheeks and he was unaware of them until the salt touched a scrape on his hollow cheek.

  He found a cleanser in the first aid supplies and as thoroughly as he could he cleaned off the skinned area on his shoulder; it was four inches long, two inches wide. Blood oozed from it and he quickly put an adhering bandage over it. Bruises covered most of his body, and there was another cut on his upper leg; he had not been aware of it until he saw it. He cleaned it and bandaged it also. He was reeling with fatigue and fever when he finished, and he took more of the anti-fever capsules and another swallow of water and fell again to the seat. Sand ground into his body; wearily he arose and brushed off the seat, but
he couldn’t tell if he had got it clean or not, and finally he fell into the other seat, Duncan’s seat.

  Sorry, Duncan, he thought, but you’ll just have to stand, or squat, or take my seat. Dirty seat, blood and sand… no urine, too dry for that… should drink more water. What, Duncan? Yeah, it hurts when I move. Like you said.

  S’funny, Trace. Can’t feel anything, but I know it hurts like hell, something knows, like it’s sending the same message again and again and never getting through, not in my head. But I know how much it hurts, God, I know how much it hurts…

  Yeah, Duncan, I know. Take it easy, okay? Get some sleep. We have to plan what we’re going to do. It’s here with us, Duncan, and it knows we are alive…

  Not me, Trace. Not me. This part of me that is free feels so sorry for the rest… Know what I mean, Trace?

  Sure, I know. But it’s going to be all right. They’ll be here soon and get a medic for you. It’ll be all right.