Galactic Derelict

4

A hand closed on Travis’ arm, jerking his attention from the shaping battle. Ashe pointed westward and pulled again. Ross was already creeping in that direction. The wind was at their back so that they caught the fetor of the beasts without danger of their being scented in turn.

“Get to it!” Ashe ordered. “We don’t want that cat on our trail. It can’t take on two adult sloths and it’ll be one mighty disappointed diner—out looking for another meal pretty soon now.”

They wormed their way forward, trying to gauge from the squalls of the cat, the grunting of the sloths, whether batde had yet reached the stage of actual blows. If the cat was smart, Travis knew, it would let itself be driven off. And knowing the tactics of mountain lions of his southwest, he believed that that was what would happen.

“Okay—run!” Ashe scrambled to his feet and set a good pace across the open lands, the other two thudding behind him. The sun had completely disappeared now, and the gray-ness under those lowering clouds approached twilight. The thin chirrup of their homing device sounded very lonely and far away.

Brown-gray lumps swung up heads with wide stretches of horns. Save that those horns were straight and not curved, the animals might have been the bison of the historic plains. Catching the scent of the scouts, they tossed those horned heads, set off northward down the open land at a lumbering gallop. Among them ran with speed and far more grace large-headed horses equipped with the spectacularly striped coats of zebras. This was plainly a hunter’s paradise.

The rain came from behind the men, making a visible curtain of water. When that enfolded them, Travis gasped, choked, fought for breath under the flood which beat and pounded him. But his legs kept the striding pace Ashe had set, and the three continued to head for the hills which were now only vaguely visible through the downpour.

A rising slope slowed them, and twice they had to leap runnels of streams carrying away the excess of water being dumped on the heights above them. Lightning cracked with a lashing viciousness, bringing a scrap of illumination with it.

A hand caught at Travis to the left, and so into partial shelter from the storm.

He was crowded together with Ashe and Ross, half crouching in the lee of some rocks. It was not quite a cave, but the crevice was better than the open slope.

“How long will this last?” Ross growled.

Ashe returned without much hope, “Anywhere from an hour to a couple of days. Let’s hope we’re lucky.”

They squatted, drawing their hide robes about them, pressing together for the warmth of body contact in the midst of that damp cold. Perhaps they dozed, for Travis became aware of his surroundings with a jerk of his head which hurt neck and shoulder. He knew that the rain had stopped, though there was night outside their inadequate shelter. He asked:

“Do we move on?”

But the reply to that came from the world outside their hiding place, with a roar loud enough to split eardrums. Travis, his nails digging into the wooden shaft of his spear, could not control the shudder which shook him at that menacing blast.

“We do if we want to provide a midnight snack for our friend out there,” Ashe commented. “The rain probably spoiled hunting for somebody. Hereabouts we have sabertooth, the Alaskan lion, the cave bear, and a few other assorted carnivores I don’t want to meet without, say, a tank in reserve support.”

“Cheery spot,” Ross remarked. “I’d say our playmate up-ridge hasn’t had much luck tonight. Any chance of his coming down to scoop us out—or try for taste?”

“If he, she or it does, hell get a pawful of spear points.” Ashe replied. “One advantage of this hole, nothing can get in if we’re firm in saying No!”

There was a second roar, from farther away, Travis noted with relief. Whatever meat hunter on the hoof prowled the hills, it would not have followed their trail. The rain must have cleansed their scent from grass and earth. But they continued to huddle there, stiff and cold, endeavoring now and then to change position of arms or legs so that morning would not find them too cramped to move. They remained until the sky did lighten with the first sign of dawn.

Travis crawled out, straightened up painfully, and bit back a stinging word or two, as a morning breeze with the crisp-ness of about three below zero cut in under the flap of his cloak blanket. He decided that to be properly prepared to roam the Pleistocene world in the garb of its rightful inhabitants, one should practice beforehand by spending a month or so in a deep freeze stripped to one’s shorts. And he was pleased to see that neither Ashe nor Ross was any more agile when he emerged from the hole of refuge.

They mouthed food-concentrate tablets from their storage bags. Travis, though knowing the energy-building uses of those small pellets, longed for real meat, hot, yet still juicy, taken straight from the searing of the fire. There was no taste to these pill things.

“Up we go.” Ashe wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and slung his bag over his shoulder. He studied the way before them to pick out the best ascent. But Travis had already started, winding in and out between boulders which marked the debris of a landslide.

When the scouts at last reached the summit, they turned to look back into the valley of the lake. That smooth sheet of water occupied perhaps half of the basin. And it seemed to Travis that the mirror surface reached closer to the wrecked ship today than it had when they passed it the afternoon before. He said as much, and Ashe agreed.

“Water has to go somewhere and these rains feed all the streams heading down there. Another reason why we must make this a fast job. So—let’s get moving.”

But when they turned again to follow the line of the heights,

Travis halted. A very thin and watery sunlight broke through the clouds, carrying with it little or no warmth as yet, but providing more light. And—he peered intendy westward and downslope on the other side of the hills…. No, he had not been mistaken! That sunlight, feeble as it was, reflected from some point in the second valley. From water? He doubted that, the answering spark was too brilliant.

Ashe and Ross, following his direction, saw it too.

“Second ship?” Ross suggested.

“If so, it is not marked on our charts. But we’ll take a look. I agree that’s too bright to be sun on water.”

Had there been survivors from the other crash? Travis wondered. If so, had they established a camp down there? He had heard enough during the past few days to judge that any contact with the original owners of the galactic ships could be highly dangerous. Ross had been pursued by one of their patrols across miles of wilderness, and had escaped from a form of mind compulsion they exerted only by deliberately burning his hand in a fire and using pain to counter their mental demand for surrender. They were not human, those ship people, and what powers or weapons they did possess were so alien as to defy Terran understanding so far.

So the three took to cover, making expert use of every bit of brush, every boulder, as they advanced to locate that source of reflection. Again Travis was amazed by the skill of his companions. He had hunted lion, and Hon in the beast’s native mountains is very wary game. And he could read trail with all the skill imparted to him by Chato who knew the ways of the old raiding warriors. But these two were equal to him at what he always considered a red man’s rather than a white man’s game.

They came at last to lie in a fringe of trees, parting the grass cautiously to look out on an expanse of open land. In the middle of it rested another globe ship, but this one was entirely above ground and it was small, a pygmy compared to the giant in the other valley. At first superficial examination it looked to have been landed normally, not crashed. Halfway up, the curve facing them showed the dark hole of an open entrance port, and from it dangled a ladder. Someone had survived this landing, come to earth herel

“Lifeboat?” Ashe’s voice was the slightest of whispers.

“It is not shaped like the one I saw before,” Ross hissed. “That was like a rocket.”

Wind sang across the clearing. Under its push the ladder clanged against the side of the globe. And from the foot of the strange ship some birds tried to rise. But they moved sluggishly, flopping their wings with an awkward heaviness. And the wind brought to the three in hiding that sweetish, stomach-turning odor which could never be mistaken by those who had ever smelled it. Something lay dead there, very dead.

Ashe stood up, watching those birds narrowly. Then he walked forward. A snarl came from close to ground level. Travis’ spear came up. It sang through the air and a brown-coated, four-footed beast yelped, leaped pawing in the air, to crash back into the grass. More of the gorged carrion birds fluttered and hopped away from their feast.

What lay about the foot of that ladder was not a pretty sight. Nor could the scouts tell at first glance how many bodies there had been. Ashe attempted to make a closer examination and came away, white-faced and gagging. Ross picked up a tatter of blue-green material.

“Baldies’ uniforms, all right,” he identified it. “This is one thing I’ll never forget. What happened here? A fight?”

“What ever it was, it happened some time ago,” Ashe, livid under tan and skin stain, got out the words carefully. “Since there was no burial, I’d say the crew must all have been finished.”

“Do we go in?” Travis laid a hand on the ladder.

“Yes. But don’t touch anything. Especially any of the instruments or installations.”

Ross laughed on a slightly hysterical high note. “That you do not need to underline for me, chief. After you, sir, after you.”

Thus, Ashe leading the way, they climbed the ladder, entered the gaping hole of the port. There was a second door a short distance inside, doubly thick and with heavy braces, but it, too, was ajar. Ashe pushed it back and then they were in a well from which another ladder-like stair arose.

Somehow Travis had expected darkness, since there were no windows or wall outlets in the outer skin of the globe. But a blue light seeped from the walls about them, and not only light, but a warmth which was comforting.

“The ship’s still alive,” Ross commented. “And if she is intact—”

“Then,” Ashe finished softly for him, “we’ve made the big find, boys. We never hoped for luck like this.” He started to climb the inner ladder.

They came to a landing, or rather a platform from which opened three oval doors, all closed. Ross pushed against each, but they all held.

“Locked?” Travis asked.

“Might be—or else we don’t know how to turn the right buttons. Going on up, chief? If this follows the pattern of that other one, the control cabin is on top.”

“We’ll take a look. But no experiments, remember?”

Ross stroked his scarred hand. “I’m not forgetting that.”

A second ladder section brought them through a manhole in the floor of a hemisphere chamber occupying the whole top of the ship. And, before they were through that entrance, they knew that death had come that way before them.

There was one body only, crumpled forward against the straps of a seat which hung on springs and cords from the roof. In front of that rigid corpse, which was clad in the bluegreen material, was a board crowded with dials, buttons, levers.

“Pilot—died at his post.” Ashe walked forward, stooped over the body. “I don’t see any sign of a wound. Could be an epidemic which attacked all the crew. Well let the doctors figure it out.”

They did not linger to explore farther, for this find was too important. It was too necessary that the news of this second ship be relayed to Kelgarries and his superiors. But Ashe took the precaution of drawing the ladder into the globe’s port after his two younger companions had descended. He made his way down by rope.

“Who do you think is going to snoop?” Ross wanted to know.

“Just a little insurance. We know there are primitives in the northern end of this country. They may be the type to whom everything strange is taboo. Or they may be inquisitive enough to explore. And I don’t fancy someone touching off a com again and calling in the galactic patrol or whoever those chaps wearing blue are. Now, let’s get to the transfer on the double!”

The weak sunlight of the early morning had increased in strength. The air was growing noticeably warmer, and danker, too, as the moisture-laden grass about them gave up its burden of last night’s rain. The process of travel resembled running through a river choked with slimy, slapping reeds, save that the ground underfoot was firm. The men panted up the heights, down past their refuge of the stormy night, to the plain of the lake, skirting the glade where scavengers were busy with the remains of the sabertooth’s kill.

As they came out into the open Ashe broke astride and swept one hand down in an emphatic order to take cover. That herd of mixed bison and horses which they had startled the night before was in movement once more, cutting diagonally across their path. And the animals were plainly in flight from some menace. Sabertooth again? The bison, though, tons of heavy bone and meat not to be faced down with ease, appeared able to take care of themselves with those sweeping horns.

Only when the wind bore to Travis those high, far-off sounds which his ears translated into shouts from what must be human throats, did he understand that the hunters were out in force. The primitive tribesmen had in some manner stampeded the herd in order to cut down the weaker stragglers.

The scouts were pinned down, as an ever-thickening stream of animals cut across the road they must take in order to reach the time transport. Before they had reached their present position, the main body of the herd had caught up, headed by the fleeter horses which whirled ahead of the heavier bison in skimming flight. Now the men caught sight of other harriers, using the general disturbance to their own advantage. Five dark shapes broke cover a hundred yards or so away, weaving in to cut around a lumbering, half-grown calf on the edge of the running bison herd.

“Dire wolves,” Ashe identified.

They were stocky, large-headed animals, running without giving tongue, but with a workmanlike weaving which displayed their familiarity with this game. Two darted in to snap at the calf’s head, while the others rushed to try to deliver that crippling tendon slash of the hind legs which would make the bison easy prey.

“Oooooo-yahhh!”

That small drama so near to them had absorbed Travis almost to the point of his forgetting what must lie beyond. There was no chance yet of sighting those who called and made the stragglers their targets. But at that moment a horse staggered on past the bison which was fighting off the attentions of the wolves. Its large head had sunk close to knee level and a rope of bloody foam hung from muzzle to trampled grass. Driven deeply into its barrel was a spear. And even as the animal came fully into sight it tried to lift its head, faltered, and crashed to earth.

One of the wolves straightway turned attention to this new prey. It trotted away from the battle with the calf to sniff inquiringly at the still-breathing horse and then, with a growl, to launch itself at the animal’s throat. The wolf was feeding when the hunter of that kill made a swift answer to such brazen theft.

Another spear, lighter, but as deadly and well aimed, sped through the air, caught the dire wolf behind the right shoulder. The wolf gave a convulsive leap and collapsed just beyond the body of the horse. At the same time other spears flashed, bringing down its pack mates and, last of all, the young bison they had been worrying.

Most of the fleeing herd had passed by now. There were other animals lying on the flattened grass of the back trail. The three scouts crouched low, unable to withdraw lest they attract the notice of the hunters now coming in to collect their booty.

There were twenty or more males, medium-sized brown-skinned men with ragged heads of black hair like the wigs provided the scouts. Their clothing consisted of the same hide loincloth-kilts fastened about their sweating bodies with string belts and lacings of thongs. Travis, studying them, could see how well their own make-up matched the general appearance of the Folsom hunters.

Behind the men trudged the women and children, stopping to butcher the kill. And there were more of these than of the hunters. Whether those they saw represented the full strength of a small tribe, there was no telling. The men shouted to each other hoarsely, and the two who had accounted for the wolves seemed especially pleased. One of them squatted on his heels, pried open the mouth of the wolf which had killed the horse, and inspected its fangs with a critical eye. Since a necklace of just such trophies strung on a thong thumped across his broad chest with every movement of his body, it was plain he was considering a new addidon to his adornment.

Ashe’s hand fell on Travis’ shoulder. “Back,” he breathed into the Apache’s ear. They retreated, wriggling out of the grass into the edge of the morass at the end of the lake. Here with the muck covering their bodies, and flies and other stinging insects greeting them with avid appetites, they made their way on. They moved away from the scene of the hunt with every bit of stalker’s skill they possessed, glad there was a wealth of meat to occupy the tribesmen.

Clumps of willow-like trees began to offer better screening, and behind these they achieved a hunched run until Ashe subsided, panting, into a convenient pile of brush. Travis, his chest an arch of hot pain which cut with every stabbing breath, threw himself face down, and Ross collapsed between the two.

“That was nearly it,” Ross got out between rasping intakes of air. “Never a dull moment in this business….”

Travis raised his head from his bent arm and tried to locate landmarks. They had been headed for the rockmasked time transport when the hunt cut across their path. But they had had to swing north to avoid the butchering parties. So their goal must now lie southeast.

Ashe was on his knees, peering northward to where the bulk of wrecked ship was embedded in the plain.

“Look!”

They drew up beside him to watch a party of the hunters patter around the wreckage. One of them raised a spear and clanged it against the side of the spaceship.

“They didn’t avoid it.” Travis got the significance of the casual assault.

“Which means—we’ll have to move fast with the smaller one! If they discover it, they may try to explore. Time’s growing shorter.”

“Only open country between us and the transfer now.”

Travis pointed out the obvious. To cut directly across to that distant cluster of masking rocks would put them in the open, to be instantly sighted by any tribesman looking in the right direction.

Ashe gazed at him thoughtfully. “Do you think you could make it without being spotted?”

Travis measured distances, tried to pick out any scrap of cover lying along the shortest route. “I can try,” was all he could say in return.