A Far Sunset

TWENTY-EIGHT

It was on the second night that disaster struck.

The Watering of Oruri was a broad, slow river, fairly shallow but easily navigable. Were it not for the mild current, the pole-men would have had an easier job propelling their craft up the river than along the Canal of Life.

To Paul, it seemed that there could be no end to this strange journey back in time—at least, not until they arrived at the very fount of creation. Baya Nor was less than two days’ travel away; yet already it belonged to another world—a world that, fancifully, seemed as if it would not begin to exist until hundreds of millennia had passed.

It was strange, this sense of journeying back in time. He had experienced the same sort of sensations in the donjons of Baya Nor and in the temple when Enka Ne had granted him his life but had commanded that each of his litde fingers be struck off.

In a sense, perhaps, he really had journeyed back in time; for he had left the twenty-first century on Earth to travel many light-years and enter a medieval society on the ‘far side of the sky’. But now, as he and his companions propelled themselves up a great musky river, flanked by high green walls of overpowering vegetation, even Baya Nor seemed ultra-modern.

The world he was in now seemed as if it had yet to experience the intrusion of man. The voyagers in their frail craft were nothing more than insubstantial dreams of the future, flitting like brief shadows through the long morning of pre-history.

They made camp for the night close by a mossy patch of ground that seemed both incongruous and refreshingly peaceful in the surrounding riot of green.

Life was lived at such a primitive and furious level in the forest through which the Watering of Oruri passed that Paul thought he could actually see plants growing. Oddly enough, although the trees and tree-ferns were much taller here than in the stretches of forest on each side of the Canal of Life, the gloom was not quite so unrelieved. Here and there, broad shafts of dying sunlight broke through the great green roof of foliage to create an odd impression of stained glass illumination in. an endless green cathedral.

As he gazed idly at the river bank, tiny flowers closed their petals and almost shrank into the ground as if they were unwilling to witness the dark happenings of the long forest night.

Again the small band of explorers slept in their barge. As on the previous night, the hunters exchanged their stories— which, thought Paul, had much in common with the traditional anecdotes of fishermen back on Earth. He was less sleepy this time and managed to stay awake until one of the hunters took the first spell of the night watch. Then, with the sweeper rifle ready in his hand, he drifted luxuriously into a dark dimension of dreams that seemed strangely attuned to this world of pre-history.

It took several vital seconds for him, when the tragedy happened, to force himself back into consciousness. At first, the cries and the roars and the stench seemed to be part of the dream; but then the barge received a mighty blow and lurched violently. Paul rolled over, realized that he was awake and that the pandemonium was real.

He groped desperately for the sweeper rifle. Fitted along its barrel was a small atomic-powered pencil-beam torch, set parallel with the sights. It was his only source of light. Until he could find it and operate it, he could not possibly discover what was happening. The stench was terrible; but the screams were indescribable.

Frantically, he groped for the rifle. A century seemed to pass before he found it. He felt for the torch button and pressed it as he swung the rifle towards the sound of screaming.

The thin beam of intense light did not illuminate a wide area; but it revealed enough to turn his stomach to jelly.

There, on the bank of the river, was the largest and most terrible creature he had ever seen. As large, perhaps, as the prehistoric tyrannosaurus rex of Earth, and certainly no less terrible.

He swung the torch beam up towards the massive and nightmarish head—then almost dropped the rifle in sheer terror. The head, arms and shoulders of one of the hunters protruded from a cavernous mouth.

Instantly, Paul swung the rifle away from the head, down the great curved back to where he judged the creature’s belly must be. He pressed the trigger. Blue light shot through the darkness, parallel to the white light of the torch.

Added to the stench of the monster itself there was now the stench of its burning flesh. The fantastic creature seemed to be more surprised than hurt. With a casual and strangely delicate movement, it raised a great forearm and plucked the hunter from its mouth, flinging the body far out into the Watering of Oruri.

Then, with an almost comical calmness, it began to contemplate the unusual phenomenon of the blue and white beams of light. By that time the creature’s stomach was burning, with the flesh sizzling and spitting. Gouts of flaming body fat fell to the ground; and smoky yellow flames curled up the high, scaly back.

The beast, thought Paul, hysterically, was already dead— but it just didn’t know when to lie down. It stood there, watching itself being consumed by atomic fire as if the event were interesting but not altogether disturbing. Surely the blood must be boiling in its brain!

The whole scene appeared to drift into nightmarish slow motion. Paul, hypnotized, could not take his eyes from the beast to see what his companions were doing. He continued pouring fantastic quantities of energy into the hide of a monster that seemed to have erupted from the very dawn of life.

At last, the terrible creature—almost burnt in two— appeared to realize that it was doomed. It shuddered, and the ground shuddered with it, then it gave a piercing scream— literally breathing fire, as burning flesh and air were expelled from its lungs, and rolled over, taking a tree with it. The thud of its body shook the bank, the barge and even the river. It must have been dead before it hit the ground.

Paul managed to pull himself together sufficiently to take his finger off the trigger of the sweeper rifle. But darkness did not descend, for the corpse of the beast had become a blazing inferno. The smell and the sounds were over-powering.

Shon Hu spoke the first coherent words. ‘Lord,’ he gasped with difficulty, ‘forgive me. I vomit.’

He hung over the side of the barge and was joined within seconds by everyone except Nemo, who had curled himself up into a tight foetal ball and was unconscious.

‘Who has died?’ whispered Paul, when he could trust himself to speak once more.

‘Mien She, lord. He was the one who watched. Perhaps the beast saw him move.’

‘Why did he not see the beast move? Or hear it? Such a creature could not move without warning of its coming.’

‘Lord, I know not. He is dead now. Let us not question his alertness, for he has suffered much, and it may be that his spirit would be sad to know that we doubted him.’

Paul glanced at the burning corpse once more, and was immediately sick again. When he had recovered, he said ‘How call you this monster?’

‘Lord, it has no name,’ said Shon Hu simply. ‘We have not seen its like before. We do not wish to see its like again.’

‘Let us go quickly from this place,’ said Paul, retching, ‘before we vomit ourselves to death. In future, two men will always watch, for it is clear that one may nod. Let us go quickly, now.’

‘Lord, it is dark and we do not know the river.’ ‘Nevertheless, we will go.’ He gestured towards the still burning body. ‘Here is too much light—and other things. Come. I will take the pole of Mien She.’