Time Traders Part 22

"Yes?" Ashe prompted.

"Well-I think that comes from just plain filthiness, sir. Or, part might be because the hairs are from a creature we don't know."

"Alien metabolism." Ashe nodded. "Each human group has a distinctive body odor far more apparent to others than to one of his own breed. But what are you getting at, Travis?"

"Well, if that does come from some-some man," he used the term because he had no other-"and not from an animal, then I'd say he was living in a regular sty. And that means either a pretty low type of primitive, or a degenerate."

"Not necessarily," Ashe pointed out. "Bathing entails water, and we haven't seen any store of water here."

"Sure, there's no water we can see. But they must have some. And I think-" Only there were few proofs he could offer to bolster his argument.

"Might be. Anyway, tonight we'll watch and see what does does come out of the b.o.o.by-trapped box over there." come out of the b.o.o.by-trapped box over there."

They napped during the day, Renfry in the control cabin as usual. None of them could see any reason why the s.h.i.+p had earthed on this sand pile, and the very barrenness of the place reinforced Renfry's belief that this could not be their ultimate goal. It was only logic that the s.h.i.+p must have originally voyaged from some center of civilization-and this was not that.

The glare of the sun was gone and dusk clothed the mounds of creeping sand when they gathered again at the door in the outer skin to watch the building and the stretch of ground lying between them and that enigmatic block.

"How long do you suppose we'll have to wait?" Ross s.h.i.+fted position.

"No time at all," Ashe answered softly. "Look!"

From behind the dune which marked the low doorway Travis had discovered, there showed a very faint reddish glow.

11.

Had the flaming display of the late evening before been in progress, they could not have spotted that. And now, in the dusk, with the shapes of the dunes distorting vision, it was difficult to see. Ashe was counting slowly under his breath. As he reached "twenty" the glow vanished with a sudden completeness which suggested the slamming of a door.

Travis strained his eyes, watching the end of that masking dune. If the thing which had spied upon them the night before was coming back to the old position, the shortest route to take would cross that point. But he had seen nothing so far.

There was a very thin sound, but that came from the opposite direction, a whispering from the open country. Then a pat of arid air touched his cheek, wind rising with the coming of night. And the whispering must be sand grains moving under its first tentative stir.

"We could ambush one scout," Ross observed wistfully.

"Their senses may be more acute than ours. Certainly if they are nocturnal, their night sight will be. And we can believe that they are already suspicious of us. Also, I'd like to know a little more about the nature of something or someone I'm going to lay a trap for."

Travis only half heard Ashe. Surely he had seen a flicker of movement out there. Yes! His fingers closed on the older man's arm in swift warning pressure. A blob of shadow had slipped from the end of the dune, skidded quickly into hiding, heading straight for the hollow behind the upended block of masonry. Was the spy now settled in for a long spell of duty in that improvised observation post? Or tonight would he, she or it venture closer to the s.h.i.+p?

The dusk deepened and with the coming of true dark the tongues of fire danced in the sky. Though the light afforded by that display was not steady, it did illuminate the smoother ground immediately about the globe. Any attack on the part of the unknown natives could be sighted by the men on guard above. The humans knew, though, that with the ladder up and open port some dozen feet removed from ground level, they had little to fear from any actual attempt to force their stronghold. Unless the creatures out there possessed weapons able to cut down the distance advantage.

"Close the inner-lock door," Ashe said suddenly. "We'll shut off the s.h.i.+p's light, make it hard for them to spot us here."

With the lock shut and the blue light of the s.h.i.+p blanked out, they lay flat on the floor of the cramped s.p.a.ce, trying not to hamper each other, awaiting the next move on the part of the lurker or lurkers below.

"Something there," Ross warned softly. "To the left-right at the end of that last dune."

The lurker was impatient. A blob of dark, which might have been a head, moved against the white sand. Wind sang around the s.h.i.+p, gathering up grit. The men snapped down their helmets in protection against that. But those whirls of sand devils did not appear to bother the native.

"I think there are more than one of them," Travis said. "That last movement came too far away from the first I sighted."

"Could they be getting ready to rush us?" Ross wondered.

Oddly enough, none of the humans had drawn his weapon. Their perch was so high above the surface over which the attackers must advance, and the smooth rounding of the unclimbable globe was so apparent, that both gave them a sense of security.

The dark thing made a dart toward the globe. And it either ran bent almost double-or else on all fours! One of the startling jumps of the sky's light spotlighted the form, and the watchers exclaimed.

Man or animal? The thing had four long limbs, and two more projections at mid-body. The head was round, down-held as it darted, so that they could not sight any features. But the whole body was matted with hair-dark hair, not light to match the tuft Travis had found. There was no sign of clothing, nor did the creature appear to be carrying weapons.

For a single moment that flitting shadow paused, facing the s.h.i.+p. Then it scurried back into hiding among the dunes once more. There was another flash of movement which the watchers could hardly detect, as this time the body of the runner merged in color with the sand about it.

"That might have been your hair shedder," remarked Ashe. "It certainly was lighter in color than the first one."

"They come in different colors-but all about the same size," Ross added. "And what in the world are they?"

"Nothing in our world." Ashe was definite about that. "We can believe, though, that they are interested in this s.h.i.+p and that they are trying to find some way of getting to it undetected."

"The way they move," Travis said, "as if they feared attack . . . They must have enemies."

"Enemies to be a.s.sociated with such a s.h.i.+p as this?" Ashe jumped to the point with his usual speed of understanding. "Yes, that could be. Only I don't believe that there has been a s.h.i.+p here for a long, long time."

"Memories pa.s.sed down-"

"Memories would mean they are men!" Travis was not aware until he voiced those words out of a sense of outrage that he abhorred a.s.sociation with those half-seen creatures in the dunes.

"To themselves they may be men," Ashe returned, "and we might represent monsters. All relative, son. At any rate, I believe that they do not regard us with kindness."

"What I wouldn't give for a flashlight now," Ross said wistfully. "I'd like to catch one of them in a beam for a really good look."

They were treated to a wealth of half glimpses of the natives moving through the sand hills as the minutes crawled on, but never did they have a chance really to study one.

"I think they're working their way around to come in behind the globe-on our blind side," Travis offered, having traced at least two in that possible direction.

"Won't do them any good-this is the only opening." Ross sounded close to smug.

But the thought of the natives coming in behind the globe could not be accepted so easily by Travis. Every buried instinct of hunter and desert warrior argued that such a chance threatened his own security. Reason told him, though, that there was only this one door to the s.h.i.+p, and that it was easily defended. They need only close it and nothing could reach them.

"What was the reason for this port anyway?" Ross pursued the big question a few seconds later. "There must have been some purpose for stopping here. Do we have to find something-or do something-before we can leave again?"

That thought had ridden all their minds, but Ross had brought fear into the open. And what if the solution lay over there, in that building to which there was no entrance-unless one could be forced at night? A nighttime entrance guarded by the flitting hairy things which could see in the dark and whose home hunting-ground it was . . .

"The building-?" Travis made a question of it. He felt Ashe stir beside him.

"Might just be," the other a.s.sented. "If we are hung up here much longer, we can try burning our way in by day. These weapons pack a pretty hefty charge when set at maximum."

Travis' hand shot out, clamped down on Ashe's shoulder. His helmet was locked against the grit drift in the wind, but his hand had been resting on the edge of the door casing and had caught that thud-thud transmitted by the outer skin of the globe. Below the bulge which kept the humans from viewing the ground directly under the curve of the side, something was beating on the metallic outer casing of the vessel-for what purpose and with what result, he could not guess. He groped for Ashe's hand, drew it out beside his own and pressed the palm flat to get the same message.

"Pounding, I think." He realized that the messages in helmet coms could not reach the ears of lurkers below. "But why?"

"Trying to hole the s.h.i.+p?" Ross hung over the other two. "They've no chance of getting through the hull-or have they?" His concluding flash of anxiety was shared by the rest. What did they know of the resources of the natives?

Coiled beside Travis was the ladder. Dare he push that out, climb over to see what the night creepers were doing below? The thud of the pounding appeared to him to be taking on both speed and intensity. Suppose by some miracle, or the use of some unknown tool, the hairy things could pierce the outer skin of the globe? Then there would be no possible hope of escape from this forgotten desert.

He began to edge the ladder forward. Ashe made a grab which the younger man fended away.

"We have to see," he said, "we have have to!" to!"

Ross and Ashe moved together and in that narrow s.p.a.ce blocked each other long enough for Travis to squeeze through the door, swing over the lip and climb down the length of his own body. Then he felt the ladder catch tight and knew that the other two were preventing its descent to ground level.

Gripping the rungs tightly, holding his body as close as he could to the surface of the s.h.i.+p, Travis looked down. The play of red flashes against the sky furnished a weird light for the activity below, for there was was activity. He had been right. The hairy things had crept in unseen from behind the s.h.i.+p, and a group of them were now cl.u.s.tered about the base of the globe. But what they were doing he could not make out in the constant flickering of the light. Then one reared from its usual quadrupedal stance, and raised its forearms over its hump of head. The appendages at its midsection gave a twist, writhed out in a manner which suggested bonelessness, and clasped tight to the s.h.i.+p. activity. He had been right. The hairy things had crept in unseen from behind the s.h.i.+p, and a group of them were now cl.u.s.tered about the base of the globe. But what they were doing he could not make out in the constant flickering of the light. Then one reared from its usual quadrupedal stance, and raised its forearms over its hump of head. The appendages at its midsection gave a twist, writhed out in a manner which suggested bonelessness, and clasped tight to the s.h.i.+p.

The creature gave a bound into the air and then hung, its hind feet now a foot or so off the ground. Apparently it held on by the grip of waist tentacles against the globe, while the fists or paws on its forelimbs pounded vigorously against that surface. There was something about that hitching climb, squirming upward as Travis watched, that spelled purposeful malevolence.

Now a second creature had hitched itself to the hull by midsection tentacles and was beginning to ascend. Travis could sight no weapons, nothing but those steadily pounding fists. But neither did he have any wish to battle the slow climbers. He reported to Ashe and was ordered back into the s.h.i.+p. They closed the port, took the precaution of sealing it as if making ready for flight, and then loosened their helmets.

Neither the pounding nor the sound of the climbers could reach them now. But Travis did not believe that the creatures had ceased their efforts to win into the s.h.i.+p, futile as those efforts might seem. The humans climbed to the control cabin to watch the outer world on the limited view of the screen. Renfry looked puzzled.

"I don't get it. I still say that I'm sure this isn't the end of the flight. But I can't tell you why, or the why of this port, either. If the answer lies in that building, you'll have to crack it open. But we may have a better cracker than just those hand weapons."

Ross caught his meaning first. "The s.h.i.+p's guns!"

"Might be."

"Can we use them?" Ashe wanted to know. we use them?" Ashe wanted to know.

"Well, they're less a top secret than the rest of the stuff around here. Remember this?" He pressed a lever. Lights winked, that word from a vanished language spoke out of the thin air. It was all as it had been on their exploration of the s.h.i.+p.

"And you can fire them?"

"The chief-my chief-doped out that this does that"-Renfry fingered another switch he did not depress. "As far as I deduce, one of those king-sized blasters should just about clip across the roof of your strongbox. We can try it on for size any time you're ready."

But Ashe was rubbing his jaw in that absent-minded way which meant he had not yet come to a decision. "Too much guessing in all of this. We don't know that we have to crack that place open in order to lift s.h.i.+p again. In fact, if we did crack it and couldn't find what we needed-we wouldn't be any better off. These natives must depend upon that shelter for their lives. Break it open and they're just as dead as if we mowed them down with guns. They may not be anything or anybody we'd care to live with, but this is their world and we're intruders. I'd like to wait a little before I try anything as drastic as blowing up the place."

None of them was inclined to push him into action. Outside the flames beat into the night sky, and the white of the moon they had noted the night before was marred by a more yellow gleam from a smaller satellite trailing behind the larger. But of the activity of the dune skulkers the screen gave them no clue.

That came not by sight but by a startling s.h.i.+fting of the s.h.i.+p itself. How had the creatures outside achieved that movement? Perhaps, Travis imagined, by the sheer weight of many creeping bodies plastered to the hull. The globe canted from its landing position. And maybe that triggered the flying controls. For the now-familiar warnings of a take-off alerted them all.

"No!" Renfry protested, "we can't-not yet-not until we know why."

But the engines the humans did not understand, and could not hope to control, had no ears for that feeble defiance. Perhaps only a time limit had governed their visit, a full day and night of planetary time. Or maybe it was the strange attack of the hairy things.

And those creatures-would they free themselves in time, drop to the ground as the s.h.i.+p lifted, warned by the vibrations? Or would they cling in stupid concentration upon their attack, to be carried out into the freezing blackness of the eternal night?

The unwilling crew of the s.h.i.+p followed the old routine of strap down and wait for the wrench of blast-off, the break into hypers.p.a.ce. Again they were being carried into the unknown with perhaps a long voyage ahead.

But it was not to be the same this time. Travis noticed the first departure from the usual routine. The take-off was not so severe-or else he had adjusted to it far better than he ever had before. He did not black out completely, nor did he have to undergo that terrible inner twisting. And he heard Renfry's voice exclaim in wonder: "I don't think we went into hyper! What happened?"

They were up and about, watching the screen of the s.h.i.+p. Renfry's guess was right. For instead of the complete blackness which closed in upon them when they made a big inter-system jump, they saw now the receding orb of the desert planet, its face a ma.s.s of s.h.i.+fting color as they withdrew from it.

"Must be heading for another planet in this same system," Ashe supplied one answer. And, as the hours wore on, they believed that was the right one. The s.h.i.+p now appeared to be on course for the third planet of that unknown sun.

"Do we visit them all?" inquired Ross with some of his old flippancy. "If so-why? Parcel delivery?"

Three days went by, four. They ate the alien food and moved restlessly about the s.h.i.+p, unable to pay attention for any length of time to anything but the screen in the control cabin. Then on the sixth day, came the signals of an approaching landing.

On the screen the goal showed a vivid blue-green, patched here and there with orange-red under clouds. They had drawn lots for the occupancy of the three seats in the control cabin, and the odd man to be relegated to the bunk below. So Travis now lay alone and unseeing in the heart of the throbbing globe, wondering what new future they must confront.

The s.h.i.+p set down this time in the planet's day. The Apache freed himself from his straps, stumbled in the return clutch of gravity to the ladder and climbed up to share the others' view of the new world.

"No-!"

The ruined towers standing starkly to portion off the expanse of the fueling port had speared as straightly into the sky-but they had not been like this one. Against a background of cloudless, delicate pink, was an opaline dome. It curved in flowing lines which spiraled up in turn to a fragile frosting of lace. It was nothing like a human construction.

Torn lace . . . As he studied those lifting spans, Travis could mark the breaks which spoiled the perfect pattern. Yet in spite of that damage there was still the fantastic beauty of form and light and play of rainbow color. It rose out of dark foliage tinged with blue unlike the green of his own world's leaves.

And those leafy branches stirred almost languidly as if light breezes pulled at them, showing here and there a touch of other colors. Fruit? Flowers?

Renfry brought their attention away from the scene which was so ethereal as to seem unreal.

"Look!"

He was on his feet before the main control board, his hands grasping the back of the pilot's seat so tightly that the muscles stood out on his taut arms. For the board had taken on life. They had witnessed the flickers of light which had heralded the readying of the s.h.i.+p's guns. This was something else-a line of small winks of brilliance flowing unevenly down the rows of levers and b.u.t.tons. And where each flashed a lever arose, a b.u.t.ton sank or snapped above the level of the board. There was a final burst of light from a spot Travis could have covered with his thumb. And there a lid opened and a cavity beneath disgorged a small, coin-shaped bit of red metal that tinkled out, to roll across the floor.

Renfry came to life, dove to catch it up. He held it in his hand as if the disk was something very precious indeed.

"Home port!" He swung about to face them, his eagerness lighting a flame in his eyes. "This is the home port! And I think I am holding the course tape!"

There could be no other explanation for what they had just witnessed. The journey plotted by a dying man had come to its full conclusion. That small b.u.t.ton of metal Renfry had closed his fist upon, held now not only the secret of their arrival-but of their return. If they were ever to regain their own world, it would be because they had solved the workings of that disk.

Yet Travis' eyes went from the technician's clenched hand and what it held, back to the screen. The picture there showed a gentle wind lifting flowering branches about a tower of opal against a sky of palest rose. And the immediate future seemed at that moment more entrancing than the more distant one.

Perhaps Ashe shared that feeling at the moment. For the senior time agent moved toward the inner ladder. He paused at the well and looked back over his shoulder, to say with a strange simplicity: "Let us go out-now."

12.

If there had once been a wide landing strip here, the s.p.a.ce was long since swallowed by a cover of green. From the ma.s.s crushed by the landing of the s.h.i.+p came the scent of growing things, some spicy, some rank.

The humans had not worn their helmets, nor did they need to here. A sunlight no stronger than that of early summer in the temperate zone of their own world greeted them. And there was no burden of sand in the soft wind which whirled flower petals and torn leaves from the wreckage under their feet.