The Stars Are Ours! a-1 Page 15

  “You can rub it on skin or hair and the scent lingers,” Petra told him eagerly.

  “And you’ll never guess where we got that one,” Trude broke in. “Tell him.”

  “I saw a hopper carrying it out in the grain field when I was gleaning yesterday. I thought it had been stealing from our food and chased it. Then when it wriggled through a hole in the brush fence it dropped the leaf. I picked it up and at first we thought it might be good to eat because the hopper wanted it. But it is just nice perfume.”

  “Sure, and if you want to get on the good side of the kitchen detail,” Trude twinkled at him “you just find out where you can get about a peck of those, Dard. We ain’t got the smell of that ship off: us yet-nasty chemicals. And we’d admire a chance to get some perfume. You do a little looking around when you’re off on this jaunt of yours and see what you can find us. Now-clear out. Take your lunch.”

  Dard gave the leaf back to Petra and picked up the carrier. But he went out of the kitchen puzzled. What had Trude meant by “this jaunt of yours?” As far as he knew he was not intending to leave the valley. Had some other plans been made?

  He started back to Kimber, determined to have an explanation.

  “Lunch, huh?” Cully crawled out from under the cylinder as Dard sat the carrier on the ground.

  The engineer wiped his hands on the grass and then on a piece of waste. “What do they have for us this time?”

  “Stew of apples for one thing,” Dard returned impatiently. “Listen, Kimber, Mrs. Harmon said something about my going on an expedition.”

  Sim Kimber pried the lid off a container of stew and poked into the depths of the savory mixture before he replied.

  “We have to earn our keep, kid. And not being specialists in anything but woodcraft and transportation, it’s up to us to do what we can along those lines. You knew the woods and mountains back on earth, and you have a feeling for animals. So Kordov assigned you to the exploration department.”

  Dard sat very still, afraid to answer, afraid to burst out with the wild exultation which surged in him now. He had tried, tried so hard these past few days to follow Harmon’s overpowering interest in the land, to be another, if unskilled, pair of hands in the work about the cave. But the machines they were assembling at top speed were totally unknown to him. The men who worked on them lapsed into a jargon of functions he knew nothing about, until it seemed that they jabbered a foreign tongue.

  For so long he had been responsible for others-for Lars and Dessie, for their food, their shelter, even their safety. And now he was not even responsible for himself. He was beginning to feel useless, for here he knew so little that was of any account.

  All his training had been slanted toward keeping alive, at a minimum level of existence, in a hostile world. With that pressure removed he believed he had nothing to offer the colonists.

  What he had dreamed and longed to do was to leave this compact group where he was the outsider, to go on into this new world, searching out its wonders, whether that meant trailing a hopper to its mysterious lair or flying above the cliffs into the unknown country beyond. Exploration was what he wanted, wanted so badly that sometimes just thinking about it hurt.

  And here was Kimber offering him that very thing! Dard could not say anything. But maybe his eyes, his rapturous face answered for him, as the pilot glanced up, met Dard’s wide happy eyes; and quickly looked away. Then the boy’s feelings were under control again, and he was able to say, in what he believed was a level and unmoved voice:

  “But what are you planning?”

  “Go up and over.” It was Cully who answered that before Kimber could swallow his mouthful of stew. “We load up this old bus,” the engineer patted the sled affectionately, “and take off to see what lies on the other side of the cliffs. Mainly to discover whether we need expect any visitors.”

  “We- who?”

  Kimber named those who would share in the adventure.

  “I’ll pilot. Cully goes along to keep the sled ticking. And Santee is to provide the strong right arm.”

  ” To fight-?” But Dard didn’t complete that question before Kimber had an answer.

  “Killing,” he said, staring thoughtfully down at the full spoon he balanced on its way to his mouth, “is not on the program if we can help it. Even such pests as-Cully! behind you!”

  The engineer slowed around just in time to snatch up a small wrench and so baffle the furry thief that tried to seize it.

  “Even those pests are safe from us,” Kimber continued before he added to the swearing engineer, “Why don’t you sit on everything, Jorge? That’s what I am doing.” He moved to let them see that all the smaller tools he had been using were now covered by his body. “It may not be comfortable, but they’ll still be here when I need them!

  “No,” he returned to his earlier theme, “we’re not going to kill anything if we can help it. To save our lives-for food, if it is absolutely necessary. But not for sport-or because we are unsure!” His lips twisted in a sneer. “Sport! The greatest sport of all is the hunting of man! As man finally discovered, having terrorized all of the rest of the living earth. Our species killed wantonly-now we have a second choice and chance. Maybe we can be saner this time. So-Santee is a crack shot-but that does not mean he is going to use the rifle.”

  Dard had only one more question. “When do we go?”

  “Tomorrow morning, early. On our last swing around the cliffs two days ago we sighted indications of a road leading eastward from the other side. It could be the guide we want.”

  They finished their work upon the sled in mid-afternoon and spent the remaining hours of work time stowing away supplies and equipment. Kimber made preparations for five days’ absence from the valley-flying east to the interior of the land mass on which the star ship had earthed.

  “That tube we found pointed in that direction. If it was a freight carrier for some city-and I am of the opinion that it was-that’s where we may find the remains of civilization.” Kimber’s voice came muffled as he checked dials behind the wind screen of the aircraft.

  “Yeah.” Santee added a small bag of his own to the supplies. “But-after what we seen at that there farmhouse-they played rough around here once upon a time. Better watch out that we don’t get shot down before we make peace signs.”

  “It’s been a long time since the farm was looted,” Dard ventured to point out. “And why didn’t the looters return-if they were the winners in some war. Harmon says this land is rich, that any farmer would settle here.”

  “Soldiers ain’t farmers,” said Santee. “Me, I’d say this was looting’ done by an army or somebody like them blasted Peacemen. They was out to smash and grab and run. Land don’t mean nothin’, to them kinda guys. But I see what Harmon means. If the war ended why didn’t somebody come back here to rebuild? Yeah, that’s sense.”

  “Maybe there was no one left,” Dard said.

  “Blew themselves up?” Kimber’s expressive eyebrows rose as he considered that. “Kind of wholesale, even for a big-time war. The burn-off took most of Terra’s cities and the purge killed off the people who could rebuild them. But there were still plenty of men kicking around afterward. Of course, they were ahead of us technically here-those things in the carrier point to that. Which argues that-if they were like us-they were way ahead in the production of bigger and more lethal weapons, too. Well, I have a feeling that tomorrow or the next day we’re going to learn about it.”

  The light was that gray wash which preceded sunrise when Dard sat up in his bedroll to answer the shadowy figure who roused him. He shivered, more with excitement than the morning chill, as he rolled his bag together and stole after Cully out of the cave to the sled.

  There the four explorers made a hasty breakfast on cold scraps while Kimber talked disjointedly with Kordov, Harmon and Rogan.

  “We’ll say five days,” he said. “But it may be longer. Give us a good margin for error. And don’t send out after us if we don’t m
ake it back. Just take precautions.”

  Kordov shook his head. “No man is expendable here, Sim, not any more. But why should we borrow trouble in such large handfuls? I will not believe that you won’t return! You have the list of plants, of things you are to look for?”

  Simba Kimber touched a breast pocket in answer. Cully took his place in the second seat of the sled and beckoned Dard to join him. When Kimber was behind the control Santee scrambled in, a stun rifle across his big knees.

  “I’ll listen for any broadcast,” Rogan promised. And Harmon mouthed something which might have been either reminder or farewell as Kimber took them up into the crisp air of the dawn.

  Dard was too excited to waste any time waving goodbye or looking back into the safety of the valley. Instead he was leaning forward, his body tense, as if by the sheer power of his will be could speed their flight into the unknown.

  They kept to a speed about equal to that of a running man as they followed the cliffs along to the narrow upper end of the valley. Close packed below to the edge of those stone wails was the woods the exploring parties had located earlier, only to be kept from penetration by the density of the growth.

  “Queer stuff,” Cully remarked now as they soared over the tree tops. “A limb grows long, bends over to the ground, touches, then takes root and another tree starts to grow out right there. That whole mass down there may have started with just one tree. And you can’t break or hack through it!”

  The sky before them was bannered with pink streamers. A flight of the delicately hued butterfly-birds circled them and then flew as escort until they were just beyond the valley wall. What the explorers saw beneath them now was a somber earth-covering blanket of blue-green, vaguely dismal and depressing with its unchanging darkness. An- other collection of the self-planting trees made an effective border along the eastern side of the cliffs, and this was not a small wood but a far-stretching forest.

  “There!” Santee pointed downward. “That there’s it! Them trees cover it some, but I say it’s a road!”

  A narrow ribbon of a light-colored substance, hidden for long distances by the invading trees ran due east. Kimber brought the sled into line over it.

  But it was a full hour before they reached the end of the forest and saw clearly the cracked and broken highway which was their guide. It threaded across open plains where now and again they sighted more of the dome dwellings standing alone and deserted, wreathed with masses of greenery.

  ” No people-the land is empty,” Dard commented as the sled crossed the fourth of these.

  “War,” Kimber wondered, “or diseases… Must have made a clean sweep in this section. And a long time ago-by the growth of the bushes and the appearance of the road.”

  It was more than two hours after they left the valley that they came upon what had been a village. And here was the first clue to the type of disaster which had struck the land. One vast pit was the center of the clustered domes. Crushed and shattered buildings ringed it, bearing the stains and melted smears of intense heat.

  “Air raid?” Cully asked of the silence. “They got it good -and for keeps; it was war then.”

  Kimber did not circle the damage. Instead he stepped up the speed of the sled, driven by the same desire that possessed them all, the longing to know what lay beyond the broken horizon.

  A second town, larger, brutally treated, its remaining structures half melted, its heart a crater, passed under them. Then again open country, beaded by deserted farms. The road ended at last in a city, shattered, smashed. A city planted on the shore of a bay, for here the sea curved in from the northwest to meet them once more.

  There were towers, snapped, torn, twisted, until those in the sled could not be sure of their original shape, looming beside dark sores of craters. And at the waterside there was literally nothing but a slick expanse of crystalline slag reflecting the sun’s rays.

  Sea waves lipped that slag, but its edges remained unworn by the touch of water and time alike. And beyond, in the bay, the waves also curled restlessly about other wreckage-ships? Or parts of the buildings blown there?

  Kimber cruised slowly across the spiderweb map of the ancient streets. But the wreckage was so complete they could only guess at the use or meaning of what they saw. Mounds of disintegrating metal might mark the residue of ground transportation devices, their weathered erosion testifying in part to the age of the disaster. And from the sled the explorers sighted nothing at all which might mark the remains of those who had lived there.

  They landed on a patch of grassy ground before a huge pile of masonry which had three walls still standing. The ruined farmhouse had pictured for them tragedy, fear and cruelty. But this whole city-it was impersonal, too much,. Such complete wreckage was closer to a dream.

  “Atom bomb, H-bomb, Null-bomb,” Cully recited the list of the worst Terra had known. “They must have had them here-all of them!”

  “And they were certainly men-for they used them!” Kimber added savagely. He climbed out of the sled and faced the building. Its walls reflected the sun as if they were of some metallic substance but softly, with a glow of green-blue-as if the blocks used in building had been quarried of sea water. A flight of twelve steps, as wide as a Terran city block, led up to a mighty portal through which they could see the sun glow bright in the roofless interior.

  Around that portal ran a band of colors, blending and contrasting in a queer way which might have had meaning and yet did net-for Terran eyes. As he studied the hues Dard thought he had a half-hint. Perhaps those colors did have a deliberate sequence-perhaps they were more than just decoration.

  6: DISASTER

  THEIR ATTEMPTS to explore on foot were frustrated by the mounds of debris and danger from falling rubble. Cully jumped to safety from the top of a mound which caved in under his weight, and so escaped a dangerous slide into one of the pits. Those pits were everywhere, dug so deeply into the foundations of the city that the Terrans, huddling on the rims, could look down past several underground levels to a darkness uncut by the sun.

  A little shaken by the engineer’s narrow escape, they retired to the sled and made an unappetizing meal on concentrates.

  “No birds,” Dard suddenly realized that fact. Nothing alive.”

  “Unhuh.” Santee dug his heel into the grass and earth.

  “No bugs either. And there’re enough of them back in the valley!”

  “No birds, no insects,” Kimber said slowly. “The place is dead. I don’t know how the rest of you feel, but I’ve had just about enough.”

  They did agree with that. The brooding stillness, broken only when debris crashed or rolled, rasped their nerves.

  Dard swallowed his last bite of concentrate and turned to the pilot.

  “Do we have any microfilm we can use?”

  “For what-a lot of broken buildings?” Cully wanted to know.

  “I’d like one of those bands of color around that doorway,” Dard answered. His idea that the bands had a meaning was perhaps silly but he could not push it away.

  “All right, kid.” Kimber unpacked the small recorder and focused it on a place where the sun was strong. “No pattern I can see. But, it just might mean something at that.”

  That was the only picture they took when on the ground. But once again in the air Cully ran the machine for a bird’s-eye view of as much of the ruined area as could be recorded.

  They were approaching the outer reaches of the city to the east when Santee gave an exclamation and touched Kimber’s arm. They were over a street less cumbered with rubble than any they had yet crossed, and there was a flicker of movement there.

  As the sled coasted down they disturbed a pack of grayish, four-footed things that streaked away into the ruins leaving their meal behind them on the blood-smeared pavement.

  “Whew!” Cully coughed and Dard gagged at the stench the wind carried in their direction. They left the sled to gather around the tangle of stripped bones and rotting flesh.

&nbs
p; “That wasn’t killed today,” Kimber observed unnecessarily.

  Dard rounded the stained area. The dead thing had been large, perhaps the size of a Terran draft horse, and the skeleton-tumbled as the bones now were-suggested that it was four-footed and hooved. But that skull, to which ragged and blood-clotted hair still dung, was what he had moved to see. He had been right-two horns sprouted above the eye sockets. This was the horned horse of the game set!

  “A duocorn?” mused the pilot.

  “A what?” Santee wanted to know.

  “There was a fabled animal mentioned in some of the old books on Terra. Had a single horn in the middle of the forehead, but the rest was all horse. Well, here’s a horse with two horns-a duocorn instead of a unicorn. But those things we saw feeding here-they were pretty small to bring down an animal of this size.”

  “Unless they carry a burper, they didn’t!” Dard, in spite of the odor, leaned down to inspect that stretch of spine beyond the loose skull. A section of vertebra had been smashed just as if a giant vise had been applied to the nape of the duocorn’s neck!

  “Crushed!” Kimber agreed. “But whatever could do that?”

  Cully studied the body. “Mighty big for a horse.”

  “There were breeds on earth which were seventeen to twenty hands high at the shoulder and weighed close to a ton,” returned Kimber. “This fellow must have been about that size.”

  “And what is big enough to crunch through a spine supporting a ton of meat?” Santee wanted to know. He went back to the sled and picked up the rifle.

  Dard back-trailed from the evil-smelling bones. Several paces farther on he discovered what he was looking for, marks which proved that the body had been dragged and worried for almost half of a city block. And also, plain to read in a drift of soil across the street, prints. The marks cut deeply by the hooves of the duocorn were half blotted out in places by another spoor-three long-clawed toes, with faint scuffed spaces between, as if they were united by a webbed membrane. Dard went down on one knee and flexed his own hand over the clearest of those prints. With his fingers spread to the fullest extent he could just span it.