The X Factor Read online

  III

  Diskan feared the insidious chill as the night wore on. He crawled at intervals from the crevice to stamp his numbed feet and beat his arms across his chest. To sleep in this creeping cold was perhaps not to wake again. And each time he so emerged from his poor shelter, he strove to view by the light of those hurrying moons just what lay about him.

  The rocky point rose in a series of outcrops back and up in a miniature mountain chain. As far as he could tell, the rest was bog. Twice he heard a howling from the path the rolling ship had blasted, and once a snarling, growling tumult, as if two fairly, well-matched opponents struggled. Perhaps the flamed land held food that attracted scavengers. Food— Diskan's middle reacted to the thought. He had often known the bite of hunger in the past, his big frame requiring more substance than had been allowed on several work projects, but he could not remember ever feeling this empty!

  Food, water, shelter, covering against the wind and the cold—and all must be found in a world where even one mouthful of an alien plant or animal could mean sudden death for an off-worlder. The rations that might have sustained him, the immunity shots meant to carry the shipwrecked through such a disaster—all were gone.

  Howling again—and closer. Diskan stared out across the mud pool to that shore where the embers smoldered. There were shadows there, too many of them, and they could hide anything. How long did night last on this world? Time had no meaning when one could not measure it by any known rule.

  It began to snow—first in a few flakes that filtered into his crevice to melt on his skin, then more thickly, until Diskan could not see much but a curtain of white. But with the coming of the snow, the wind died. He watched the storm dully. If this drifted, it would cover the bog and make a treacherous coat to hide the mud.

  A sharp cry jerked Diskan out of a half stupor. That— that had come from the outcrops behind his refuge! He listened. The swish of the falling snow seemed deafening, as deafening as his fingers had been in his ears back on Vaanchard. Moments passed. The cry was not repeated. But Diskan knew that he had not been mistaken—he had heard a living thing give voice out there. A hunter—or the hunted? Had that been the death cry of some prey?

  Panic was colder in him than the chill born of the rock walls about his shivering body. Every nerve cried, "Run!" And yet his mind fought down that fear. Here he had to face only the narrow opening to the white world; he could defend that opening with his two hands if necessary, whereas in the open he might speedily be pulled down.

  Time can dull even the sharpest fear, Diskan discovered. There was no second cry. And, though he listened, there were no more sounds out of the night. Finally, before he realized it, there was a slow end to night itself.

  Diskan knew it first when he was aware he could see farther. The snow was spread in a wide cover, broken by patches of dark which must mark the liquid surface of the mud. That rocky far shore lost some of its shadows and was growing clearer by the moment. Though no sun showed, day was coming.

  He pulled at the tattered stuff of the cocoon. It was as white, save for a mud stain here and there, as the snow. And he thought he could knot it into a kind of cloak. His fingers were cold and twice as clumsy as usual, but he persisted until he had a crude rectangle he could pull about his shoulders, anchoring the ends under his belt. The mud through which he had wallowed on his escape from the ship had dried on skin and clothing into a harsh blue shell, which cracked and scaled as he moved but which might give him additional protection against the cold.

  Most of all he needed food. Recklessly, he had scooped snow from about the crevice and sucked it so that its moisture relieved his thirst. But, as he wavered out of his crack of shelter and down to the edge of the mud pool in a very faint hope of seeing some part of the ship, he faced only a blue surface rimmed with brittle ice-coated stalks of vegetation on one side and a blackened smear on the other.

  It was a small thing to catch the eye, a wisp of yellow-white from that black scar. Smoke! Diskan took a quick step forward and then paused. There might be a still-burning coal over there, but traps lay in between.

  "Steady—" he told himself, and the spoken words somehow were as comforting as if they had come from lips other than his own chapped ones. "Slow—steady—"

  Mud cracked and fell from his shoulders as he turned his head, tried to assess what lay to the right and how far toward the burned ground his present solid footing extended. Stiffly, forcing himself to study each step before he advanced, Diskan climbed around the rocks. The cold of the stone was searing to his hands until he halted, worried loose some strips of the cocoon material, and tied them about his palms. Meant to insulate, it served for protection, though it made his hands more bulky and threatened his holds.

  He pulled to the top of one of the rocky pillars and had his first less limited view of his present surroundings. The spine became part of a larger ridge, perhaps the main body of land. Diskan could see the blackened scar of the ship's crash ahead of him. There were spots of the ominous blue mud and tangles of frozen vegetation, but there were also scattered rocks, which provided stepping stones.

  "Slow—" Diskan warned himself. "To the right—that block there—that mat of brush—it ought to hold. Then that other rock— Easy now! Hand hold here—put the foot there—"

  He could not have told why it was easier to move when he gave himself such orders, as if his body were apart from his mind, but it was. So he kept on talking, outlining each footstep before he took it.

  The patches of white snow, he learned, marked more solid footing, but caution made him test each. And once a stone, hurled ahead, proved that caution wise, for the rock cracked through the surface and a blue earth mouth sucked it down.

  He had set foot on the black crisp of the burn, felt and smelled the powdery black ashes his weight disturbed, when a cry startled him, brought his attention to the sky. A winged thing swooped and fluttered, the morning light making its coloring a vivid streak, for it was rawly red, with a long neck that turned and twisted in a serpentine fashion, a head with a sharply peaked comb or topknot. And it was big. Diskan estimated that wing spread to equal his own height.

  With a second screech, it planed down—but not at him. It headed on into the heart of the burn smear. Then there came another cry, and a second red flier appeared, to settle at the same spot. Diskan hesitated. The smoke lay in that direction, but he did not like the look of those birds, if birds they were. And several of them together could offer trouble.

  More squawking ahead. There was a small ridge between Diskan and where they had landed. Now a squall—the same as he had heard earlier in the night—sounds of what could only be a fight. Diskan went on, and from the top of the ridge he looked down into a battlefield from which the morning wind brought a stench that made him gag.

  Things lay there where the flames had struck them down. The bodies had been so crisped that he could not tell more than that they were the bodies of large creatures. On the side of the biggest, one of the red fliers had taken a stand, its long neck writhing as it strove to strike with a sword-sharp beak at a smaller four-footed creature that snarled, squalled, showed teeth, and refused to be driven from its feasting. There were four, five—eight at least of its kind—and they moved with a rapidity that seemed to baffle the birds.

  Then one of the defenders grew too bold or too reckless. That rapier beak stabbed and stabbed again. The creature fell back in a limp curl, between the bones where it had been tearing at charred flesh. The victory appeared to hearten the red flier. Its neck curved, and it opened its beak to voice an ear-splitting honk. From the air it was answered. Three, four more of its kind flapped into view.

  The animals about the carcasses snarled and complained, but they retreated, their rage apparent in every move. With two of the fliers, they had been ready to contend, but a flock they dared not confront.

  As they withdrew under the fire of the now attacking fliers, Diskan got a better view of them. But whether they were warm-blooded animals
or reptiles, he could not decide. There was certainly a growth of what seemed coarse yellow-green fur down their backbones and the outer sides of their legs, and a bush of it upstanding on their heads, but their projecting snouts, their strongly clawed feet, and their whipping tails were sleekly bare, as if naked of fur but covered with small scales. They were as vicious in appearance as the fliers, and though they were small in size, Diskan had no wish to face a pack of them.

  Luckily, their path of sullen retreat was in the opposite direction, up the other side of the cup that held the burned bodies. But though the darting fliers barred them from the ridge on which he stood, Diskan also edged back. He stumbled down through the powdery ash to the hollow from which the smoke still ascended. A handful of what seemed to be stones lay there, and two of them showed a red tinge. Diskan stooped and blew gently. The red deepened—a mineral that the fire had ignited and that continued to hold the heat? He sat back on his heels. Here was the means of fire—warmth—not only to be used here and now, but to be taken with him to a less populated section of the country, if he could find the means to transport one such coal. His resources in that direction were limited.

  Under a coat of cracking mud, he wore the tight breeches and ornamented tunic of Vaan festival dress. That did not even permit a ceremonial hunting knife at the belt, as was the fashion on Nyborg. All he had was two belt pockets, one of them empty since he had used the tape.

  Pocket! Diskan pulled open the pocket covering. Then he plucked at the raveling patches that served him as gloves, bringing loose a fluff of broken threads. Insulation—of one kind—and there was that of another, too. He went to the edge of the mud pool, worked his threads into the evil-smelling substance of that quaking earth, and, with care, smeared the mixture into the interior of the belt pocket, making sure all of its surface was thickly covered.

  Moments later he was ready to go, his hand cupped over the now bulging pocket where that glowing bit of mineral was safe. He had fire, the first weapon of his species, now at his command. And he wanted to get away, as sounds from over the ridge suggested that the ground pack of scavengers had been reinforced and was once more giving battle.

  Diskan made his way back to the rock spine. Food—he might have been lucky enough to knock over one of the scale-fur things or a flier—but he was not too sure. And to arouse the rage of either species, presenting himself as a possible meal, would have been folly. But judging by the numbers he had seen, he realized this was not an empty land. He could find other prey.

  He passed the crevice of his night camp and began to climb to the promise of wider land beyond. As he crested a slope, he caught a strong scent—not the stench of the scavengers' feast, but certainly not that of vegetation either. It was not disagreeable, and it attracted him enough to want to learn its source.

  Diskan's kind had long since lost their dependence on the sense of smell—if they had ever possessed it to the extent of the other mammals that had shared their first home world. What might have been a quickly identified beacon to one of those was an illusive trace for his questing nostrils. But he continued to sniff as he went.

  He found the source at a narrow cut between two leaning rocks. On the gray surface of both those pillars was a silvery smear, which glistened in the now strong sunlight. Diskan thought a liquid had been sprayed there, to trickle for an inch or so in fast freezing drops. But between the rocks lay something to capture his attention at once.

  The creature was dead, its throat ripped wide, the frozen blood a clot of red crystals. Unlike the scavengers, it was entirely furred, the fur as gray as the rocks about it, so that it was the wound he had first seen. That it was a hunter was manifest by the fangs in its gaping mouth, the claws on its feet. The head was long and narrow, with ears pointed and extending backward. It was short of leg but long of body, well adapted to the rocky country in which it had died. And it was meat!

  Diskan jerked the body loose from the ground, finding it lighter than he had thought it would be. He had his meal, thanks to the unknown hunter who apparently had not lingered to consume the kill. With a strip of the cocoon material, he tied two of the limp legs to his belt and went on in search of a camping spot.

  It was not too long before he found that. A stiff pull up through a small gorge brought him to an ice-encased stream. And along the bed of that grew the brittle winter-killed growth of more than one small bush and struggling tree.

  The withered leaves that clung to a few branches were silvery in color. Diskan wondered as he broke up wood for his fire if that were the normal shade of vegetation on this planet. He coaxed flame from the smoldering mineral and then examined the body of the animal. He had no knife, no way of cutting or cleaning it, of even skinning the creature. There was no resource but to toss the whole thing into the blaze and let the fire work for him.

  It was a grim and nasty business, but hunger drove him. And he licked his fingers afterwards, the pain in him stilled for a while—though he wondered if his system could assimilate the alien flesh or if illness and death would come from that eating. From the fire he raked the blackened skull and studied it. The strong, slightly curved teeth caught his attention, and with a rock he smashed the charred bone, breaking out the largest teeth. Two were the length of his little finger, all were sharp, and he thought that they might have future possibilities. Diskan opened the second pocket on his belt and brought out its contents.

  A flash writer—he smiled wryly—just what he needed now. His name check plate—for a moment he fingered that, half inclined to toss it away. The code on this thin strip of metal would have brought him food, clothing, lodging, and transportation anywhere on Vaanchard; here it was useless. But he would not discard anything until he was sure. A ring—; Diskan turned that around. Its deep purple gem did not flash fire in the sun; it was somber and dark, Diskan's own choice of adornment, though he had hardly looked at it when he had taken it from the box back on Vaanchard. Custom dictated that he wear it. He had squeezed it onto his little finger, the only one the loop would fit, and then dragged it off again, too aware of how incongruous it had looked on his hand. It was as useless here as all the rest.

  Now he could add to his treasure six teeth, blackened by burning, which might or might not be more serviceable in his present plight than all the other things. He put them back in his pocket, the teeth on top.

  His clothing, under the coating of stains and mud, appeared to be standing up well to the rough travel of the morning. Diskan inspected his calf-high boots carefully. There were scuff marks, a scoring or two, but the soles were surprisingly intact. And his cocoon cloak, while a thing of dangling tatters, was still protection.

  He was alive; he had food and fire, and he was free. Diskan leaned his back against a piece of water-worn rock and looked at the drift, which suggested that this ice-bound stream had a turbulent past. The riverlet's valley appeared an easier path into the interior of the higher land, and there was plenty of firewood here. He had put aside a haunch of the late meal to provide food for later. And the sun, while not really warm, seemed to concentrate in this cut so that a few of the snow patches were melting.

  Save for the dead animal, Diskan had seen no sign of life in this part of the country. Perhaps the feast by the burn scar had drawn most of the hunters. So much on the hopeful side.

  On the other hand, this climate was hard, since he was unequipped for it. And this could be only the beginning of a far more severe season, with a long period of steadily worsening weather to be faced. He had no weapons, no knowledge of how long his lump of mineral would continue to smolder or of how much native fauna there was to protest his invasion of hunting territory they considered their own.

  Dwelling on the worst would get him nowhere, and the more one permitted one's imagination to summon up difficulties, the darker all shadows became. Diskan began to search through the driftwood about him. It was all bleached, but one piece was enough different in color to attract his attention. He knelt and worked it loose from the froz
en soil.

  He held a barkless length of what might have been a branch. Thick as his wrist, it had a smooth surface that was not gray-white but a dull green, with the grain marking showing up in a darker emerald. One end was a thickened, knoblike projection, from which stubs of other small growths jutted. The other end was splintered into a sharp point.

  Diskan swung it experimentally. Somehow it balanced well in his hand. The knob head could be a club, the splintered end a short, thrusting spear. With a little work, say some way to fasten the teeth to those stubs and a little honing and sharpening of the spear end, he would have a weapon—outlandish and very far removed from a blaster, a stunner, or any of the arms known to stellar civilization, but still a weapon.

  Knotting the seared meat to his belt, the bulb-spear in his swathed hand, Diskan strode away from his dead fire. He walked firmly, his head up, his eyes searching the country around him. There was no fumbling in his hold of that weapon, no shambling uncertainty about his pace.

  IV

  Though there were no clouds to screen off the sun's rays, shadows laced the cleft through which the stream issued, and Diskan saw that the walls of that cut rose slowly on either hand. It grew more chill between those barriers, and the frozen growth was scarcer. He had a choice, to halt here for the night where there was still fuel for a fire, or to go on into the unknown on chance. Finally, he decided in favor of the halt.

  He had his fire going and was gleaning more fuel for its night feeding when he straightened, his hand going to the club he had thrust through his belt. The sensation of being watched was so sharp that he was disconcerted when he swung about to perceive nothing but the rocks, the frosty earth, and the broken brush. As far as he could tell, there was no hole in the surface of either cleft wall large enough to hide a sizable enemy in ambush.