Tunnel In The Sky

6. "I Think He Is Dead"

Rod was awakened by heavenly odors. he rolled over, blinked at light streaming under the overhang, managed by great effort to put himself back into the matrix of the day before. Jack, he saw, was squatting by a tiny fire on the edge of the shelf; the wonderful fragrance came from toasting liver.

Rod got to his knees, discovering that he was slightly stiff from having fought dream stobor in his sleep. These nightmare stobor were bug-eyed monsters fit for a planet suddenly strange and threatening. Nevertheless he had had a fine night's sleep and his spirits could not be daunted in the presence of the tantalizing aroma drifting in.

Jack looked up. "I thought you were going to sleep all day. Brush your teeth, comb your hair, take a quick shower, and get on out here. Breakfast is ready." Jack looked him over again. "Better shave, too."

Rod grinned and ran his hand over his chin. "You're jealous of my manly beard, youngster. Wait a year or two and you'll find out what a nuisance it is. Shaving, the common cold, and taxes... my old man says those are the three eternal problems the race is never going to lick." Rod felt a twinge at the thought of his parents, a stirring of conscience that he had not thought of them in he could not remember how long. "Can I help, pal?"

"Sit down and grab the salt. This piece is for you."

"Let's split it."

"Eat and don't argue. I'll fix me some." Rod accepted the charred and smoky chunk, tossed it in his hands and blew on it. He looked around for salt. Jack Was slicing a second piece; Rod's eyes passed over the operation then whipped back.

The knife Jack was using was "Colonel Bowie."

The realization was accompanied by action; Rod's hand darted out and caught Jack's wrist in an anger-hard grip. "You stole my knife!"

Jack did not move. "Rod... have you gone crazy?"

"You slugged me and stole my knife."

Jack made no attempt to fight, nor even to struggle. "You aren't awake yet, Rod. Your knife is on your belt. This is another knife... mine.

Rod did not bother to look down. "The one I'm wearing is Lady Macbeth. I mean the knife you're using, Colonel Bowie- my knife."

"Let go my wrist."

"Drop it!"

"Rod....ou can probably make me drop this knife. You're bigger and you've got the jump on me. But yesterday you teamed with me. You're busting that team right now. If you don't let go right away, the team is broken. Then you'll have to kill me... because if you don't, I'll trail you. I'll keep on trailing you until I find you asleep. Then you've had it."

They faced each other across the little fire, eyes locked. Rod breathed hard and tried to think. The evidence was against Jack. But had this little runt tracked him, slugged him, stolen everything he had? It looked like it.

Yet it did not feel like it. He told himself that he could handle the kid if his story did not ring true. He let go Jack's wrist. "All right," he said angrily, "tell me how you got my knife."

Jack went on slicing liver. "It's not much of a story and I don't know that it is your knife. But it was not mine to start with- you've seen mine. I use this one as a kitchen knife. Its balance is wrong.

"Colonel Bowie! Balanced wrong? That's the best throwing knife you ever saw!"

"Do you want to hear this? I ran across this hombre in the bush, just as the jackals were getting to him. I don't know what got him-stobor, maybe; he was pretty well clawed and half eaten. He wasn't one of my class, for his face wasn't marked and I could tell. He was carrying a Thunderbolt and-"

"Wait a minute. A Thunderbolt gun?"

"I said so, didn't I? I guess he tried to use it and had no luck. Anyhow, I took what I could use- this knife and a couple of other things; I'll show you. I left the Thunderbolt; the power pack was exhausted and it was junk."

"Jack, look at me. You're not lying?"

Jack shrugged. "I can take you to the spot. There might not be anything left of him, but the Thunderbolt ought to be there."

Rod stuck out his hand. "I'm sorry. I jumped to conclusions."

Jack looked at his hand, did not shake it. "I don't think you are much of a team mate. We had better call it quits." The knife flipped over, landed at Rod's toes. "Take your toadsticker and be on your way."

Rod did not pick up the knife. "Don't get sore, Jack. I made an honest mistake."

"It was a mistake, all right. You didn't trust me and I'm not likely to trust you again. You can't build a team on that." Jack hesitated. "Finish your breakfast and shove off. It's better that way."

"Jack, I truly am sorry. I apologize. But it was a mistake anybody could make- you haven't heard my side of the story."

"You didn't wait to hear my story!"

"So I was wrong, I said I was wrong." Rod hurriedly told how he had been stripped of his survival gear. "-so naturally, when I saw Colonel Bowie, I assumed that you must have jumped me. That's logical, isn't it?" Jack did not answer; Rod persisted: "Well? Isn't it?"

Jack said slowly, "You used 'logic' again. What you call 'logic.' Rod, you use the stuff the way some people use dope. Why don't you use your head, instead?"

Rod flushed and kept still. Jack went on, "If I had swiped your knife, would I have let you see it? For that matter, would I have teamed with you?"

"No, I guess not. Jack, I jumped at a conclusion and lost my temper."

"Commander Benboe says," Jack answered bleakly, "that losing your temper and jumping at conclusions is a one-way ticket to the cemetery."

Rod looked sheepish. ''Deacon Matson talks the same way."

"Maybe they're right. So let's not do it again, huh? Every dog gets one bite, but only one."

Rod looked up, saw Jack's dirty paw stuck out at him. "You mean we're partners again?"

"Shake. I think we had better be; we don't have much choice." They solemnly shook hands. Then Rod picked up Colonel Bowie, looked at it longingly, and handed it hilt first to Jack.

"I guess it's yours, after all."

"Huh? Oh, no. I'm glad you've got it back."

"No," Rod insisted. "You came by it fair and square.

"Don't be silly, Rod. I've got 'Bluebeard'; that's the knife for me."

"It's yours. I've got Lady Macbeth."

Jack frowned. "We're partners, right?"

"Huh? Sure."

"So We share everything. Bluebeard belongs just as much to you as to me. And Colonel Bowie belongs to both of us. But you are used to it, so it's best for the team for you to wear it. Does that appeal to your lopsided sense of logic?"

"Well..."

"So shut up and eat your breakfast. Shall I toast you another slice? That one is cold."

Rod picked up the scorched chunk of liver, brushed dirt and ashes from it. "This is all right."

"Throw it in the stream and have a hot piece. Liver won't keep anyhow."

Comfortably stuffed, and warmed by companionship, Rod stretched out on the shelf after breakfast and stared at the sky. Jack put out the fire and tossed the remnants of their meal downstream. Something broke water and snapped at the liver even as it struck. Jack turned to Rod. "Well, what do we do today?"

"Mmm... what we've got on hand ought to be fit to eat tomorrow morning. We don't need to make a kill today."

"I hunt every second day, usually, since I found this place. Second-day meat is better than first, but by the third... phewy!"

"Sure. Well, what do you want to do?"

"Well, let's see. First I'd like to buy a tall, thick chocolate malted milk- or maybe a fruit salad. Both. I'd eat those-"

"Stop it, you're breaking my heart!"

"Then I'd have a hot bath and get all dressed up and flip out to Hollywood and see a couple of good shows. That superspectacle that Dirk Manleigh is starring in and then a good adventure show. After that I'd have another malted milk... strawberry, this time, and then-"

"Shut up!'

"You asked me what I wanted to do."

"Yes, but I expected you to stick to possibilities."

"Then why didn't you say so? Is that 'logical'? I thought you always used logic?"

"Say, lay off, will you? I apologized."

"Yeah, you apologized," Jack admitted darkly. "But I've got some mad I haven't used up yet."

"Well! Are you the sort of pal who keeps raking up the past?"

"Only when you least expect it. Seriously, Rod, I think we ought to hunt today."

"But you agreed we didn't need to. It's wrong, and dangerous besides, to make a kill you don't need."

"I think we ought to hunt people."

Rod pulled his ear. "Say that again."

"We ought to spend the day hunting people."

"Huh? Well, anything for fun I always say. What do we do when we find them? Scalp them, or just shout 'Beaver!'?"

"Scalping is more definite. Rod, how long will we be here?"

"Huh? All we know is that something has gone seriously cockeyed with the recall schedule. You say we've been here three weeks. I would say it was longer but you have kept a notch calendar and I haven't. Therefore..." He stopped.

"Therefore what?"

"Therefore nothing. They might have had some technical trouble, which they may clear up and recall us this morning. Deacon Matson and his fun-loving colleagues might have thought it was cute to double the period and not mention it. The Dalai Lama might have bombed the whiskers off the rest of the World and the Gates may be radioactive ruins. Or maybe the three-headed serpent men of the Lesser Magellanic Cloud have landed and have the situation well in hand- for them. When you haven't data, guessing is illogical. We might be here forever."

Jack nodded. "That's my point."

"Which point? We know we may be marooned; that's obvious."

"Rod, a two-man team is just right for a few weeks. But suppose this runs into months? Suppose one of us breaks a leg? Or even if we don't, how long is that thorn-bush alarm going to work? We ought to wall off that path and make this spot accessible only by rope ladder, With somebody here all the time to let the ladder down. We ought to locate a salt lick and think about curing hides and things like that- that water skin I made is getting high already. For a long pull we ought to have at least four people."

Rod scratched his gaunt ribs thoughtfully. "I know. I thought about it last night, after you jerked the rug out from under my optimistic theory. But I was waiting for you to bring it up."

"Why?"

"This is your cave. You've got all the fancy equipment, a gun and pills and other stuff I haven't seen. You've got salt. All I've got is a knife- two knives now, thanks to you. I'd look sweet suggesting that you share four ways."

"We're a team, Rod.'

"Mmm... yes. And we both figure the team would be strengthened with a couple of recruits. Well, how many people are there out there?" He gestured at the wall of green across the creek.

"My class put through seventeen boys and eleven girls. Commander Benboe told us there would be four classes in the same test area.

"That's more than the Deacon bothered to tell us. However, my class put through about twenty."

Jack looked thoughtful. "Around a hundred people, probably."

"Not counting casualties."

"Not counting casualties. Maybe two-thirds boys, one-third girls. Plenty of choice, if we can find them."

"No girls on this team, Jack."

"What have you got against girls?"

"Me? Nothing at all. Girls are swell on picnics, they are just right on long winter evenings. I'm one of the most enthusiastic supporters of the female race. But for a hitch like this, they are pure poison."

Jack did not say anything. Rod went on, "Use your head, brother. You get some pretty little darling on this team and we'll have more grief inside than stobor, or such, can give us from outside. Quarrels and petty jealousies and maybe a couple of boys knifing each other. It will be tough enough without that trouble."

"Well," Jack answered thoughifully, "suppose the first one we locate is a girl? What are you going to do? Tip your hat and say, 'It's a fine day, ma'am. Now drop dead and don't bother me.'?"

Rod drew a pentagon in the ashes, put a star in the middle, then rubbed it out. "I don't know," he said slowly. "Let's hope we get our team working before we meet any. And let's hope they set up their own teams."

"I think we ought to have a policy."

"I'm clean out of policies. You would just accuse me of trying to be logical. Got any ideas about how to find anybody?"

"Maybe. Somebody has been hunting upstream from here."

"So? Know who it is?"

"I've seen him only at a distance. Nobody from my class. Half a head shorter than you are, light hair, pink skin- and a bad sunburn. Sound familiar?"

"Could be anybody," Rod answered, thinking fretfully that the description did sound familiar. "Shall we see if we can pick up some sign of him?"

"I can put him in your lap. But I'm not sure we want him."

"Why not? If he's lasted this long, he must be competent."

"Frankly, I don't see how he has. He's noisy when he moves and he has been living in one tree for the past week."

"Not necessarily bad technique."

"It is when you drop your bones and leavings out of the tree. It was jackals sniffing around that tipped me off to where he was living."

"Hmm... well, if we don't like him, we don't have to invite him."

"True."

Before they set out Jack dug around in the gloomy cave and produced a climbing line. "Rod, could this be yours?"

Rod looked it over. "It's just like the one I had. Why?"

"I got it the way I got Colonel Bowie, off the casualty. If it is not yours, at least it is a replacement." Jack got another, wrapped it around and over body armor. Rod suspected that Jack had slept in the armor, but he said nothing. If Jack considered such marginal protection more important than agility, that was Jack's business- each to his own methods, as the Deacon would say.

The tree stood in a semi-clearing but Jack brought Rod to it through bushes which came close to the trunk and made the final approach as a belly sneak. Jack pulled Rod's head over and whispered in his ear, "If we lie still for three or four hours, I'm betting that he will either come down or go up.

"Okay. You watch our rear."

For an hour nothing happened. Rod tried to ignore tiny flies that seemed to be all bite. Silently he shifted position to ward off stiffness and once had to kill a sneeze. At last he said, "Pssst!"

"Yeah, Rod?"

"Where those two big branches meet the trunk, could that be his nest?"

"Maybe."

"You see a hand sticking out?"

"Where? Uh, I think I see what you see. It might just be leaves."

"I think it's a hand and I think he is dead; it hasn't moved since we got here."

"Asleep?"

"Person asleep ordinarily doesn't hold still that long.

I'm going up. Cover me. If that hand moves, yell."

"You ought not to risk it, Rod."

"You keep your eyes peeled." He crept forward..

The owner of the hand was Jimmy Throxton, as Rod had suspected since hearing the description. Jimmy was not dead, but he was unconscious and Rod could not rouse him.

Jim lay in an aerie half natural, half artificial; Rod could see that Jim had cut small branches and improved the triple crotch formed by two limbs and trunk. He lay cradled in this eagle's nest, one hand trailing out.

Getting him down was awkward; he weighed as much as Rod did. Rod put a sling under Jim's armpits and took a turn around a branch, checking the line by friction to lower him- but the hard part was getting Jim out of his musty bed without dropping him.

Halfway down the burden fouled and Jack had to climb and free it. But with much sweat all three reached the ground and Jim was still breathing.

Rod had to carry him. Jack offered to take turns but the disparity in sizes was obvious; Rod said angrily for Jack to cover them, front, rear, all sides; Rod would be helpless if they had the luck to be surprised by one of the pseudo-lions.

The worst part was the climbing traverse over loose shale up to the cave. Rod was fagged from carrying the limp and heavy load more than a kilometer over rough ground; he had to rest before he could tackle it. When he did, Jack said anxiously, "Don't drop him in the drink! It won't be worthwhile fishing him out- I know."

"So do I. Don't give silly advice."

"Sorry."

Rod started up, as much worried for his own hide as for Jim's. He did not know what it was that lived in that stream; he did know that it was hungry. There was a bad time when he reached the spot where the jutting limestone made it necessary to stoop to reach the shelf. He got down as low as possible, attempted it, felt the burden on his back catch on the rock, started to slip.

Jack's hand steadied him and shoved him from behind. Then they were sprawled safe on the shelf and Rod gasped and tried to stop the trembling of his abused muscles.

They bedded Jimmy down and Jack took his pulse. "Fast and thready. I don't think he's going to make it."

"What medicines do you have?"

"Two of the neosulfas and verdomycin. But I don't know what to give him."

"Give him all three and pray.

"He might be allergic to one of them."

"He'll be more allergic to dying. I'll bet he's running six degrees of fever. Come on."

Rod supported Jim's shoulders, pinched his ear lobe, brought him partly out of coma. Between them they managed to get the capsules into Jim's mouth, got him to drink and wash them down. After that there was nothing they could do but let him rest.

They took turns watching him through the night. About dawn his fever broke, he roused and asked for water. Rod held him while Jack handled the waterskin. Jim drank deeply, then went back to sleep.

They never left him alone. Jack did the nursing and Rod hunted each day, trying to find items young and tender and suited to an invalid's palate. By the second day Jim, although weak and helpless, was able to talk without drifting off to sleep in the middle. Rod returned in the afternoon with the carcass of a small animal which seemed to be a clumsy cross between a cat and a rabbit. He encountered Jack heading down to fill the water skin. "Hi."

'Hi. I see you had luck. Say, Rod, go easy when you skin it. We need a new water bag. Is it cut much?"

"Not at all. I knocked it over with a rock."

"Good!"

"How's the patient?"

"Healthier by the minute. I'll be up shortly."

"Want me to cover you while you fill the skin?"

"I'll be careful. Go up to Jim."

Rod went up, laid his kill on the shelf, crawled inside. "Feeling better?"

"Swell. I'll wrestle you two falls out of three."

"Next week. Jack taking good care of you?"

"You bet. Say, Rod, I don't know how to thank you two. If it hadn't been for-"

"Then don't try. You don't owe me anything, ever. And Jack's my partner, so it's right with Jack."

"Jack is swell."

"Jack is a good boy. They don't come better. He and I really hit it off."

Jim looked surprised, opened his mouth, closed it suddenly. "What's the matter?" Rod asked. "Something bite you? Or are you feeling bad again?"

"What," Jim said slowly, "did you say about Jack?"

"Huh? I said they don't come any better. He and I team up like bacon and eggs. A number-one kid, that boy."

Jimmy Throxton looked at him. "Rod... were you born that stupid? Or did you have to study?"

"Huh?"

"Jack is a girl."