Deathworld (11 page)

“A toy,” he said. “What is it good for?”

“Well, when you press this button you get a light.” A flame appeared through a hole in the top. Krannon started to hand it back.

“What do I need a little fire for? Here, keep it.”

“Wait a second,” Jason said, “that’s not all it does. When you press the jewel in the center one of these comes out.” A black pellet the size of his fingernail dropped into his palm. “A grenade, made of solid ulranite. Just squeeze it hard and throw. Three seconds later it explodes with enough force to blast open this building.”

This time Krannon almost smiled as he reached for the case. Destructive and death dealing weapons are like candy to a Pyrran. While he looked at it Jason made his offer.

“The case and bombs are yours if you move the date of your next delivery up to tomorrow — and let me go with you.”

“Be here at 0500,” Krannon said. “We leave early.”

The truck rumbled up to the perimeter gate and stopped. Krannon waved to the guards through the front window, then closed a metal shield over it. When the gates swung open the truck — really a giant armored tank — ground slowly forward. There was a second gate beyond the first, that did not open until the interior one was closed. Jason looked through the second-driver’s periscope as the outer gate lifted. Automatic flame-throwers flared through the opening, cutting off only when the truck reached them. A scorched area ringed the gate, beyond that the jungle began. Unconsciously Jason shrank back in his seat.

All the plants and animals he had seen only specimens of, existed here in profusion. Thorn-ringed branches and vines laced themselves into a solid mat, through which the wild life swarmed. A fury of sound hurled at them, thuds and scratchings rang on the armor. Krannon laughed and closed the switch that electrified the outer grid. The scratchings died away as the beasts completed the circuit to the grounded hull.

It was slow speed, low-gear work tearing through the jungle. Krannon had his face buried in the periscope mask and silently fought the controls. With each mile the going seemed to get better, until he finally swung up the periscope and opened the window armor. The jungle was still thick and deadly, but nothing like the area immediately around the perimeter. It appeared as if most of the lethal powers of Pyrrus were concentrated in the single area around the settlement. Why? Jason asked himself. Why this intense and planetary hatred?

The motors died and Krannon stood up, stretching. “We’re here,” he said. “Let’s unload.”

There was bare rock around the truck, a rounded hillock that projected from the jungle, too smooth and steep for vegetation to get a hold. Krannon opened the cargo hatches and they pushed out the boxes and crates. When they finished Jason slumped down, exhausted, onto the pile.

“Get back in, we’re leaving,” Krannon said.

“You are, I’m staying right here.”

Krannon looked at him coldly. “Get in the truck or I’ll kill you. No one stays out here. For one thing you couldn’t live an hour alone. But worse than that the grubbers would get you. Kill you at once, of course, but that’s not important. But you have equipment that we can’t allow into their hands. You want to see a grubber with a gun?”

While the Pyrran talked, Jason’s thoughts had rushed ahead. He hoped that Krannon was as thick of head as he was fast of reflex.

Jason looked at the trees, let his gaze move up through the thick branches. Though Krannon was still talking, he was automatically aware of Jason’s attention. When Jason’s eyes widened and his gun jumped into his hand, Krannon’s own gun appeared and he turned in the same direction.

“There — in the top!” Jason shouted, and fired into the tangle of branches. Krannon fired, too. As soon as he did, Jason hurled himself backward, curled into a ball, rolling down the inclined rock. The shots had covered the sounds of his movements, and before Krannon could turn back the gravity had dragged him down the rock into the thick foliage. Crashing branches slapped at him, but slowed his fall. When he stopped moving he was lost in the tangle. Krannon’s shots came too late to hit him.

Lying there, tired and bruised, Jason heard the Pyrran cursing him out. He stamped around on the rock, fired a few shots, but knew better than to enter the trees. Finally he gave up and went back to the truck. The motor gunned into life and the treads clanked and scraped down the rock and back into the jungle. There were muted rumblings and crashes that slowly died away.

Then Jason was alone.

Up until that instant he hadn’t realized quite how alone he would be. Surrounded by nothing but death, the truck already vanished from sight. He had to force down an overwhelming desire to run after it. What was done was done.

This was a long chance to take, but it was the only way to contact the grubbers. They were savages, but still they had come from human stock. And they hadn’t sunk so low as to stop the barter with the civilized Pyrrans. He had to contact them, befriend them. Find out how they had managed to live safely on this madhouse world.

If there had been another way to lick the problem, he would have taken it; he didn’t relish the role of martyred hero. But Kerk and his deadline had forced his hand. The contact had to be made fast and this was the only way.

There was no telling where the savages were, or how soon they would arrive. If the woods weren’t too lethal he could hide there, pick his time to approach them. If they found him among the supplies, they might skewer him on the spot with a typical Pyrran reflex.

Walking warily he approached the line of trees. Something moved on a branch, but vanished as he came near. None of the plants near a thick trunked tree looked poisonous, so he slipped behind it. There was nothing deadly in sight and it surprised him. He let his body relax a bit, leaning against the rough bark.

Something soft and choking fell over his head, his body was seized in a steel grip. The more he struggled the tighter it held him until the blood thundered in his ears and his lungs screamed for air.

Only when he grew limp did the pressure let up. His first panic ebbed a little when he realized that it wasn’t an animal that attacked him. He knew nothing about the grubbers, but they were human so he still had a chance.

His arms and legs were tied, the power holster ripped from his arm. He felt strangely naked without it. The powerful hands grabbed him again and he was hurled into the air, to fall face down across something warm and soft. Fear pressed in again, it was a large animal of some kind. And all Pyrran animals were deadly.

When the animal moved off, carrying him, panic was replaced by a feeling of mounting elation. The grubbers had managed to work out a truce of some kind with at least one form of animal life. He had to find out how. If he could get that secret — and get it back to the city — it would justify all his work and pain. It might even justify Welf’s death if the age-old war could be slowed or stopped.

Jason’s tightly bound limbs hurt terribly at first, but grew numb with the circulation shut off. The jolting ride continued endlessly, he had no way of measuring the time. A rainfall soaked him, then he felt his clothes steaming as the sun came out.

The ride was finally over. He was pulled from the animal’s back and dumped down. His arms dropped free as someone loosed the bindings. The returning circulation soaked him in pain as he lay there, struggling to move. When his hands finally obeyed him he lifted them to his face and stripped away the covering, a sack of thick fur. Light blinded him as he sucked in breath after breath of clean air.

Blinking against the glare, he looked around. He was lying on a floor of crude planking, the setting sun shining into his eyes through the doorless entrance of the building. There was a ploughed field outside, stretching down the curve of hill to the edge of the jungle. It was too dark to see much inside the hut.

Something blocked the light of the doorway, a tall animallike figure. On second look Jason realized it was a man with long hair and thick beard. He was dressed in furs, even his legs were wrapped in fur leggings. His eyes were fixed on his captive, while one hand fondled an ax that hung from his waist.

“Who’re you? What y’want?” the bearded man asked suddenly.

Jason picked his words slowly, wondering if this savage shared the same hair-trigger temper as the city dwellers.

“My name is Jason. I come in peace. I want to be your friend . . .”

“Lies!” the man grunted, and pulled the ax from his belt. “Junkman tricks. I saw y’hide. Wait to kill me. Kill you first.” He tested the edge of the blade with a horny thumb, then raised it.

“Wait!” Jason said desperately. “You don’t understand.”

The ax swung down.

“I’m from off-world and —”

A solid thunk shook him as the ax buried itself in the wood next to his head. At the last instant the man had twitched it aside. He grabbed the front of Jason’s clothes and pulled him up until their faces touched.

“S’true?” he shouted. “Y’from off-world?” His hand opened and Jason dropped back before he could answer. The savage jumped over him, towards the dim rear of the hut.

“Rhes must know of this,” he said as he fumbled with something on the wall. Light sprang out.

All Jason could do was stare. The hairy, fur-covered savage was operating a communicator. The calloused, dirt-encrusted fingers deftly snapped open the circuits, dialed a number.

It made no sense. Jason tried to reconcile the modern machine with the barbarian and couldn’t. Who was he calling? The existence of one communicator meant there was at least another. Was Rhes a person or a thing?

With a mental effort he grabbed hold of his thoughts and braked them to a stop. There was something new here, factors he hadn’t counted on. He kept reassuring himself there was an explanation for everything, once you had your facts straight.

Jason closed his eyes, shutting out the glaring rays of the sun where it cut through the tree tops, and reconsidered his facts. They separated evenly into two classes; those he had observed for himself, and those he had learned from the city dwellers. This last class of “facts” he would hold, to see if they fitted with what he learned. There was a good chance that most, or all, of them would prove false.

“Get up,” the voice jarred into his thoughts. “We’re leaving.”

His legs were still numb and hardly usable. The bearded man snorted in disgust and hauled him to his feet, propping him against the outer wall. Jason clutched the knobby bark of the logs when he was left alone. He looked around, soaking up impressions.

It was the first time he had been on a farm since he had run away from home. A different world with a different ecology, but the similarity was apparent enough to him. A new-sown field stretched down the hill in front of the shack. Ploughed by a good farmer. Even, well-cast furrows that followed the contour of the slope. Another, larger log building was next to this one, probably a barn.

There was a snuffling sound behind him and Jason turned quickly — and froze. His hand called for the missing gun and his finger tightened down on a trigger that wasn’t there.

It had come out of the jungle and padded up quietly behind him. It had six thick legs with clawed feet that dug into the ground. The two-meter long body was covered with matted yellow and black fur, all except the skull and shoulders. These were covered with overlapping horny plates. Jason could see all this because the beast was that close.

He waited to die.

The mouth opened, a froglike division of the hairless skull, revealing double rows of jagged teeth.

“Here, Fido,” the bearded man said, coming up behind Jason and snapping his fingers at the same time. The thing bounded forward, brushing past the dazed Jason, and rubbed his head against the man’s leg. “Nice doggy,” the man said, his fingers scratching under the edge of the carapace where it joined the flesh.

The bearded man had brought two of the riding animals out of the barn, saddled and bridled. Jason barely noticed the details of smooth skin and long legs as he swung up on one. His feet were quickly lashed to the stirrups. When they started the skull-headed beast followed them.

“Nice doggy!” Jason said, and for no reason started to laugh. The bearded man turned and scowled at him until he was quiet.

* * * *

By the time they entered the jungle it was dark. It was impossible to see under the thick foliage, and they used no lights. The animals seemed to know the way. There were scraping noises and shrill calls from the jungle around them, but it didn’t bother Jason too much. Perhaps the automatic manner in which the other man undertook the journey reassured him. Or the presence of the “dog” that he felt rather than saw. The trip was a long one, but not too uncomfortable.

The regular motion of the animal and his fatigue overcame Jason and he dozed into a fitful sleep, waking with a start each time he slumped forward. In the end he slept sitting up in the saddle. Hours passed this way, until he opened his eyes and saw a square of light before them. The trip was over.

His legs were stiff and galled with saddle sores. After his feet were untied getting down was an effort, and he almost fell. A door opened and Jason went in. It took his eyes some moments to get used to the light, until he could make out the form of a man on the bed before him.

“Come over here and sit down.” The voice was full and strong, accustomed to command. The body was that of an invalid. A blanket covered him to the waist, above that the flesh was sickly white, spotted with red nodules, and hung loosely over the bones. There seemed to be nothing left of the man except skin and skeleton.

“Not very nice,” the man on the bed said, “but I’ve grown used to it.” His tone changed abruptly. “Naxa said you were from off-world. Is that true?”

Jason nodded yes, and his answer stirred the living skeleton to life. The head lifted from the pillow and the red-rimmed eyes sought his with a desperate intensity.

“My name is Rhes and I’m a . . . grubber. Will you help me?”

Jason wondered at the intensity of Rhes’ question, all out of proportion to the simple content of its meaning. Yet he could see no reason to give anything other than the first and obvious answer that sprang to his lips.

“Of course I’ll help you, in whatever way I can. As long as it involves no injury to anyone else. What do you want?”

The sick man’s head had fallen back limply, exhausted, as Jason talked. But the fire still burned in the eyes.

“Feel assured . . . I want to injure no others,” Rhes said. “Quite the opposite. As you see I am suffering from a disease that our remedies will not stop. Within a few more days I will be dead. Now I have seen . . . the city people . . . using a device, they press it over a wound or an animal bite. Do you have one of these machines?”

“That sounds like a description of the medikit.” Jason touched the button at his waist that dropped the medikit into his hand. “I have mine here. It analyzes and treats most . . .”

“Would you use it on me?” Rhes broke in, his voice suddenly urgent.

“I’m sorry,” Jason said. “I should have realized.” He stepped forward and pressed the machine over one of the inflamed areas on Rhes’ chest. The operation light came on and the thin shaft of the analyzer probe slid down. When it withdrew the device hummed, then clicked three times as three separate hypodermic needles lanced into the skin. Then the light went out.

“Is that all?” Rhes asked, as he watched Jason stow the medikit back in his belt.

Jason nodded, then looked up and noticed the wet marks of tears on the sick man’s face. Rhes became aware at the same time and brushed at them angrily.

“When a man is sick,” he growled, “the body and all its senses become traitor. I don’t think I have cried since I was a child — but you must realize it’s not myself I’m crying for. It’s the untold thousands of my people who have died for lack of that little device you treat so casually.”

“Surely you have medicines, doctors of your own?”

“Herb doctors and witch doctors,” Rhes said, consigning them all to oblivion with a chop of his hand. “The few hard working and honest men are hampered by the fact that the faith healers can usually cure better than their strongest potion.”

The talking had tired Rhes. He stopped suddenly and closed his eyes. On his chest, the inflamed areas were already losing their angry color as the injections took affect. Jason glanced around the room, looking for clues to the mystery of these people.

Floor and walls were made of wood lengths fitted together, free of paint or decoration. They looked simple and crude, fit only for the savages he had expected to meet. Or were they crude? The wood had a sweeping, flamelike grain. When he bent close he saw that wax had been rubbed over the wood to bring out this pattern. Was this the act of savages — or of artistic men seeking to make the most of simple materials? The final effect was far superior to the drab paint and riveted steel rooms of the city-dwelling Pyrrans. Wasn’t it true that both ends of the artistic scale were dominated by simplicity? The untutored aborigine made a simple expression of a clear idea, and created beauty. At the other extreme, the sophisticated critic rejected over-elaboration and decoration and sought the truthful clarity of uncluttered art. At which end of the scale was he looking now?

These men were savages, he had been told that. They dressed in furs and spoke a slurred and broken language, at least Naxa did. Rhes admitted he preferred faith healers to doctors. But, if all this were true, where did the communicator fit into the picture? Or the glowing ceiling that illuminated the room with a soft light?

Rhes opened his eyes and stared at Jason, as if seeing him for the first time. “Who are you?” he asked. “And what are you doing here?”

There was a cold menace in his words and Jason understood why. The city Pyrrans hated the “grubbers” and, without a doubt, the feeling was mutual. Naxa’s ax had proved that. Naxa had entered silently while they talked, and stood with his fingers touching the haft of this same ax. Jason knew his life was still in jeopardy, until he gave an answer that satisfied these men.

He couldn’t tell the truth. If they once suspected he was spying among them to aid the city people, it would be the end. Nevertheless, he had to be free to talk about the survival problem.

The answer hit him as soon as he had stated the problem. All this had only taken an instant to consider, as he turned back to face the invalid, and he answered at once. Trying to keep his voice normal and unconcerned.

“I’m Jason dinAlt, an ecologist, so you see I have the best reasons in the universe for visiting this planet —”

“What is an ecologist?” Rhes broke in. There was nothing in his voice to indicate whether he meant the question seriously, or as a trap. All traces of the ease of their earlier conversation were gone, his voice had the deadliness of a stingwing’s poison. Jason chose his words carefully.

“Simply stated, it is that branch of biology that considers the relations between organisms and their environment. How climatic and other factors affect the life forms, and how the life forms in turn affect each other and the environment.” That much Jason knew was true — but he really knew very little more about the subject so he moved on quickly.

“I heard reports of this planet, and finally came here to study it firsthand. I did what work I could in the shelter of the city, but it wasn’t enough. The people there think I’m crazy, but they finally agreed to let me make a trip out here.”

“What arrangements have been made for your return?” Naxa snapped.

“None,” Jason told him. “They seemed quite sure that I would be killed instantly and had no hope of me coming back. In fact, they refused to let me go and I had to break away.”

This answer seemed to satisfy Rhes and his face cracked into a mirthless smile. “They would think that, those junkmen. Can’t move a meter outside their own walls without an armor-plated machine as big as a barn. What did they tell you about us?”

Again Jason knew a lot depended on his answer. This time he thought carefully before speaking.

“Well . . . perhaps I’ll get that ax in the back of my neck for saying this . . . but I have to be honest. You must know what they think. They told me you were filthy and ignorant savages who smelled. And you . . . well, had curious customs you practiced with the animals. In exchange for food, they traded you beads and knives . . .”

Both Pyrrans broke into a convulsion of laughter at this. Rhes stopped soon, from weakness, but Naxa laughed himself into a coughing fit and had to splash water over his head from a gourd jug.

“That I believe well enough,” Rhes said, “it sounds like the stupidity they would talk. Those people know nothing of the world they live in. I hope the rest of what you said is true, but even if it is not, you are welcome here. You are from off-world, that I know. No junkman would have lifted a finger to save my life. You are the first off-worlder my people have ever known and for that you are doubly welcome. We will help you in any way we can. My arm is your arm.”

These last words had a ritual sound to them, and when Jason repeated them, Naxa nodded at the correctness of this. At the same time, Jason felt that they were more than empty ritual. Interdependence meant survival on Pyrrus, and he knew that these people stood together to the death against the mortal dangers around them. He hoped the ritual would include him in that protective sphere.

“That is enough for tonight,” Rhes said. “The spotted sickness had weakened me, and your medicine has turned me to jelly. You will stay here, Jason. There is a blanket, but no bed at least for now.”

Enthusiasm had carried Jason this far, making him forget the two gee exertions of the long day. Now fatigue hit him a physical blow. He had dim memories of refusing food and rolling in the blanket on the floor. After that, oblivion.