Sargasso of Space (Solar Queen Series) (6 page)

“They may have hidden from the flitter,” remarked Ali. “And they could be watching us from cover right now.”

Dane turned in a full circle, scanning with wary eyes not only the cliff walls, but the clumps of brush and the taller stands of coarse grass.

“They must be small,” he muttered half to himself. “Those fields are so limited in area.”

“Plants,” Tau returned to his own pet theory. But Dane was not yet ready to agree.

“We’ve contacted eight X-Tee races so far,” he said slowly. “The Sliths are reptilian, the Arvas remotely feline, the Fifftocs brachiopod. Of the rest, three are chemically different from us, and two—the Kanddoyds and the Mimsis—are insects. But a vegetable intelligence——”

“Is perfectly possible,” Tau finished for him.

They made a careful inspection of the nearest field. The quivering plants stood about two feet high, their lacy foliage in constant flickering motion. They had been carefully spaced apart by the planters and between them the ground was bare of any weed or encroaching spear of grass. The Terrans could see no fruit or seeds on the slender stems, though, as they stooped for a closer look they became aware of a strong spicy scent.

Ali sniffed: “Clove—cinnamon? Somebody’s herb gar-denr

“Why herbs and nothing else?” Dane squatted on his heels. What was the most puzzling to him was the absence of paths. These miniature gardens were carefully tended, yet there were no roads connecting them, no indication that the invisible farmers approached them on foot. On foot——! Was that a clue, a winged race? He mentioned that.

“Sure,” Ali used his usual deflating tactics, “a bunch of bats and they only come out at night. That’s why there’s no greeting committee on hand——”

Nocturnal? It was entirely possible, Dane thought. That meant that the Terrans must establish a contact station and man it through the dark hours. But if the farmers went about their work in utter darkness they were going to be difficult to watch. All the men from the
Queen
could do was to set up the station and look after it for the rest of the day, hoping it was only that their strange presence was what had terrified the inhabitants of the valley into hiding.

But, though Tau and Dane concealed themselves thoroughly in the shadow of tall rocks while Ali lifted the flitter to the top of the cliff well out of sight, the hours crawled on and there was nothing to be seen but the shivering spicy plants and their wild cousins along the stream.

Whatever life did exist on Limbo must be limited both in numbers and varieties. Along with samples of water and vegetation, Tau captured an earth colored insect bearing a close resemblance to a Terran beetle, imprisoning it in a small tube for transportation to the
Queen
, and future study. And another insect with pale, wide wings dipped toward the water an hour later. But animals, birds, reptiles, all were missing.

“Anything which survived the burn-off,” Tau half whispered, “must have been far down the scale——”

“But the fields,” protested Dane. He had been trying to figure out a possible lure for the mysterious Lim-bians, if and when they appeared. Having no idea as to their nature, he was faced with a real problem in contact. What if their eyesight differed—the brightly colored trifles designed to attract the usual primitive races would then be worthless. And- if their auditory sense was not within human range the music boxes which had been used to such excellent advantage in establishing friendly relations with the Kanddoyds could not be brought out. He was inclined to dwell on the scent of the field plants. Their spiciness, which was so strong that it was thick to notoriously dull human nostrils, was the only distinctive attribute he had to follow. A contact baited with scent-spicy scent—might just work. He asked Tau a question:

“Those plants are aromatic. Do you have anything like that scent in your medical stores? I’ve some perfumed soap from Garatole in my trade kit, but that’s pretty

strong——”

Tau smiled. “The problem of bait, eh? Yes, scent might just bring them in. But, look here, I’d try Mura’s stores instead of the medical ones. Get some pinches of his spices——”

Dane leaned back against the rock. Now why hadn’t he thought of that! Flavors used in cooking—sure, Mura might have some substance in the galley which would attract a people who raised the lacy leaved herbs. But he’d have to go back to the
Queen
to see——

“I’d say,” the Medic continued, “that we’re not going to make contact today. It’s my guess they’re nocturnal and we should rig a contact point on that theory. Let’s go—”

As the senior officer of the scouting party, Tau had the right to make such a decision. And Dane, eager to start his own preparations for contact, was ready to agree. They waved the flitter down and reported back to the
Queen
, getting orders to return.

They were received in the Captain’s office and the Cargo-Master and Jellico heard them out, allowing Dane to state his suggestion concerning the use of spice to draw the Limbians from hiding. When he had spilled it out in eager enthusiasm, the Captain turned to Van Rycke.

“What about it, Van? Ever use spices in a contact?”

The Cargo-Master shrugged. “You can make contact with anything which will attract an X-Tee, Captain. I’d say this is worth a try—along with the rest of the usual stuff.”

Jellico picked up his com-mike. “Frank,” he said into the phone, “come up here and bring samples of all your spices—anything with a strong, pleasant odor.”

Two hours later Dane studied his handiwork with what he hoped was the necessary critical appraisal. He had selected a broad rock mid-way between two of the small fields. On the stone he had arranged materials from a basic trade kit. There was a selection of jewelry, small toys, metallic objects, which would easily catch the eye, then a music box arranged to be triggered into tune if handled. And last of all three plastic bowls, each covered with a fine gauze through which came the aroma of mixed spices.

Behind a bush was concealed the contact visa-view which would record any approach to that rock for the benefit of those in the flitter on the cliffs above—where he, Tan, and Kamil would spend the night on watch.

He was still a trifle amazed that he had been allowed to take over this presentation—but he had discovered that the creed of the
Queen
was just—the idea was his, he was to carry it out—the success or failure would depend on him. And he was uncertain within as he climbed into the flitter for the rise to the cliff tops.

6
   
SINISTER VALLEY

A
GAIN DANE
was conscious of the thick quality of the Limbian night. Since the planet possessed no satellite, there was nothing to break the dark but those cold pin points which marked the stars. Even the visa-screen they had set up below could hardly pierce the gloom, though it was equipped with a tri-strength delve-ray.

Tau stretched and shifted in his seat, inadvertently nudging Dane. Although they were wearing double-lined winter outer tunics and the temperature of the closed flitter was supposedly akin to the interior of the
Queen
, an insidious chill caught at them. They had divided the night into watches, the two off duty at the tiny receiving screen trying to nap. But Dane found rest beyond him. He stared out at the dark which folded about them like a smothering curtain.

He did not know what time it was that he saw the first flash—a red sword of light striking up into the sky in the west. At his exclamation Ali on duty at the screen glanced up and Tau stirred into wakefulness.

“Over there!” They might not be able to follow his pointing finger but by now they needed no such guide. The flashes of light were multiplied—then they were gone—leaving the night darker than ever.

It was Ali who spoke first: “Blaster fire!” His fingers were already busy on the keys, flashing a message to the
Queen.

For an instant Dane felt a prick of panic and then he realized that the disturbance was far westward of the
Queen.
The ship had
not
been attacked in their absence.

Ali reported the evidences of distant battle. From the ship the flares had not been sighted and the men there knew nothing of any trouble. Nor had they seen, across the barrens, any disturbance at the ruins where Rich was encamped.

“Do we stick here?” Ali asked a last question. And the reply came promptly that they should—unless forced to withdraw. It was more than ever necessary to discover the nature of any native Limbian life.

But the screen which connected them with the valley below remained obstinately dark. There was the rock, the trade goods, and nothing else.

They kept two watches now, one for the screen and the other westward. But no more flares split the night. If a battle had been in progress it was now over.

By Dane’s reckoning it was close to dawn and it was his trick at the screen when the first hint of change came. The movement on the plate before him was so slight that at first he thought he had been mistaken. But a bush to the right of the rock below provided a dark background for something so weird he could not believe he was seeing aright. Luck alone, and reflex action, pressed his finger down on the button of the recorder at the right moment.

For the thing was not only unsubstantial, it was also fast, moving at a speed which blurred its already wispy outline. Dane had seen something, he was sure of that. But what it had been, even its general form, he could not have sworn to.

With both Ali and Tau breathing down the back of his neck, Dane hung over the screen, alert to the slightest movement on its surface. But, though dawn was upon them, and the light was growing better all the time, they could see nothing now but leaves fluttered by the wind. Whatever had passed that way had had no interest in the trade display. They would have to depend upon the film from the recorder to discover what it was.

Limbo’s sun began the upward climb. The rime of nightborn frost which had gathered on the stones of the heights was lapped away. But the valley remained deserted, Dane’s visitor did not return.

The other flitter arrived with a fresh crew to take over the post. Rip walked over to speak to the yawning crew of the first.

“Any luck?” he wanted to know.

“Got something with the recorder—I hope,” Dane replied, but he was feeling more apologetic than triumphant. That faint shadowy thing might not be the owner of the fields—just some passing animal.

“Captain says for you to take a look-see down west before you check in,” Rip added to Tau. “Use your own judgment, but don’t run into anything serious if you can help it.”

The Medic nodded. Ali was at the controls and they took to the air, leaving the relieving crew of the other flitter to take over their watch. Below them spread the now familiar pattern of small, narrow valleys, two or three showing squares of fields. But though Ali buzzed at a low altitude over these, there was no life but vegetation below. The Terran flitter was perhaps five miles on to the west before it came down over a scene of horror,

Smoke still curled sluggishly from smoldering brush and the black burns of high voltage blaster fire crossed and re-crossed the ground, cutting noisome paths through greenery and searing soil and rock.

But it was not that which attracted their attention. It was the
things
, three of them, huddled together in a rock pocket as if they had tried to make a last stand there against a weapon they did not understand. The contorted, badly burned bodies had little recognizable form now, but the three in the flitter knew that they had once been living creatures.

Ali went for a short run above the valley floor. There was no sign of any life. He maneuvered for a landing close to that pocket. But it wasn’t until they had left the flitter and started to cross a rocky outcrop that they came upon the fourth victim.

He—or it—had been singed by the flame, but not killed at once. Enough will to live had remained to send the pitiful wreckage crawling into a narrow crevice where it must have clung until death loosened its hold and allowed it to tumble slackly into sight again.

Tau went down on one knee beside the twisted body. But Dane, his nostrils filled with a sickening stench which was not all born of the smoldering green stuff, took only one quick look before he closed his eyes and fought a masterly engagement with his churning stomach.

That hadn’t been a man! It resembled nothing he had ever seen or heard described. It—it wasn’t real—it couldn’t be! He gained a minor victory, opened his eyes, and forced himself to look again.

Even allowing for the injuries which had killed it, the creature was bizarre to the point of nightmare. Its body consisted of two globes, one half as large as the other. There was no discernible head at all. From the larger globe protruded two pair of very thin, four jointed limbs which must have been highly flexible. From the small globe another pair which separated at the second joint into limber tentacles, each of which ended in a cluster of hair-fine appendages. The globes were joined by a wasp’s slenderness of waist. As far as Dane could see, and he couldn’t bring himself to the close examination which absorbed Tau, there were no features at all—no eyes, ears, or mouth.

But the oddest sight of all were the globes which formed the body. They were a grayish-white, but semi-transparent. And through the surface one could sight reddish structural supports which must have served the creature as bones, as well as organs Dane had no wish to explore.

“Great space!” Ali exploded. “You can look right through them!”

He was exaggerating—but not so much. The Limbians—if this were a Limbian—were far more tenuous than any creature the Terrans had found before. And Dane was sure that the record film would show that it was a thing such as this which had passed the contact point in the other valley.

Ali stepped around the body to examine the scars left by the blast which had driven the creature into the crevice. He touched a finger gingerly to a blackened smear on the rock and then held it close to his nose.

“Blaster right enough.”

“Do you think Rich——?”

Ali gazed down the valley. Like all the others they had yet sighted it ran from the towering mountains to the blasted plain, and they could not be too far from the ruins where the archaeologists had gone to earth.

“But—why?” Dane asked a second question before his first had been answered.

Had the globe things attacked Rich and his men? Somehow Dane could not accept that. To his mind the limp body Tau was working over was pitifully defenseless. It held not the slightest hint of menace.

“That’s the big question.” Ali tramped on, past the hollow where lay those other dreadfully contorted bodies, down to the edge of the stream, which this valley, as did all the cultivated ones, cradled in its center, the fields strung out along it.

Plain to read here was the mark of the invader. No feet had left that pair of wide ruts crushed deep into the soft ground of the fields. Dane stopped short.

“Crawler! But our crawlers—”

“Are just where they should be, parked under the
Queen
or in their storage compartments,” Ali finished for him. “And since Rich couldn’t have brought one here in a kit bag, we must believe that Limbo is not as barren of life as Survey certified it to be.” He stood at the edge of the stream and then squatted to study a patch of drying mud. “Track’s odd though—”

Although his opinion had not been asked, Dane joined the Engineer-apprentice. The tread marks had left a pattern, clear as print, for about four inches. He was familiar with the operation of crawlers as they pertained to his own duties. He could even, if the need arose, make minor repairs on one. But he couldn’t have identified any difference in vehicles from their tread patterns. There he was willing to accept Ali’s superior learning.

Kamil’s next move was a complete mystery to Dane. Still on his knees he began measuring the distance between the two furrows, using a small rule from his belt tool kit for a gauge. At last Dane dared to ask a question:

“What’s wrong?”

For a moment he thought that Ali wasn’t going to answer. Then the other sat back on his heels, wiped dust from the rule, and looked up.

“A standard crawler’s a four-two-eight,” he stated didactically. “A scooter is a three-seven-eight. A flamer’s carriage runs fiye-seven-twelve.”

The actual figures meant very little to Dane, but he knew their significance. Within the Federation machinery was now completely standardized. It had to be so that repairs from one world to the next would be simplified. Ali had recited the measurements of the three types of ground vehicles in common use on the majority of Federation planets. Though, by rights, a flamer was a war machine, used only by the military or Patrol forces, except on pioneer worlds where its wide heat beam could be turned against rank forest or jungle growth.

“And this isn’t any of those,” Dane guessed.

“Right. It’s three-two-four—but it’s heavy, too. Or else it was transporting close to an overload. You don’t get ruts like these from a scooter or crawler traveling light.” He was an engineer, he should know, Dane conceded.

Then what was it?”

Ali shrugged. “Something not standard—low, narrow, or it couldn’t snake through here, and able to carry a good load. But nothing on our books is like it.”

It was Dane’s turn to study the cliffs about them. “Only one way it could go—up—or down——”

Ali got to his feet. “I’ll go down,” he glanced over at the busy Tau engrossed in his grisly task, “nobody’s going to drag him away from there until he learns all he can.” He shuddered, perhaps in exaggeration, perhaps in earnest. “I have a feeling that it isn’t wise to stay here too long. Any scout will have to be a quick one——”

Dane turned upstream. “I’ll go up,” he said firmly, it was not Ali’s place to give orders, they were equal in rank. He started off, walking between the tracks without looking back.

He was concentrating so on his determination to prove that he could think properly for himself that he made a fatal slip, inexcusable in any Trade-explorer. Though he continued to wear his helmet, along with all the other field equipment, he totally forgot to set his personal corn-unit on alert, and so went blindly off into the unknown with no contact with either of the others.

But at the moment he was far more intent on those tracks which lured him on, up a gradually narrowing valley toward the mountain walls. The climbing sun struck across his path, out there were pools of purple shadow where the cliffs walled off its rays.

The trail left by the crawler ran as straight as the general contour of the ground allowed. Two of the lacy winged flying things they had glimpsed in the other valley skimmed close to the surface of the stream and then took off high into the chill air.

Now the greenery was sparser. He had not passed a field for some time. And underfoot the surface of the valley was inclining up in a gentle slope. The walls curved, so that Dane walked more warily, having no desire to round a projection and meet a blaster user face to face.

He was certain in his own mind that Dr. Rich had something to do with this. But where did this crawler come from? Had the Doctor been on Limbo before? Or had he broken into some cache of Survey supplies? But there was Ali’s certainty that the vehicle was not orthodox.

The trail ended abruptly and in such a manner as to stop Dane short, staring in unbelief. For those ruts led straight to a solid, blank wall of rock, vanishing beneath it as if the machine which had made them had been driven straight through!

There is always, Dane hastily reminded himself, some logical explanation for the impossible. And not Video ones about “force walls” and such either. If those tracks went into the rock, it was an illusion—or an opening—and it was up to him to discover which.

His boots crunched on sand and gravel until he was in touching distance of the barrier. It was then that he became aware of something else, a vibration. It was very silent there in the cramped pocket which was the end of the valley, no wind blew, no leaves rustled. And yet there was something unquiet in the air, a stirring just at the far edge of his sensitiveness to sound and movement.

On impulse he set the palms of his hands against the stone of the cliff. And he felt it instantly, running up his arms into his body until his flesh and bones were only a recorder for that monstrous beat-beat-beat—relayed to him through the stuff of Limbo itself. Yet, when he passed his fingers searchingly over the rough stone, studied each inch of it intently, he could see no break in its surface, no sign of a door, no reason for that heavy thump, thump which shook his nerves. The vibration was unpleasant, almost menacing. He snatched his hands away, suddenly afraid of being trapped in that dull rhythm. But now he was sure that Limbo was not what it seemed—a lifeless, dead world.