Travelers of Space - [Adventures in Science Fiction 03] Read online

  Whittaker and Sampler hammered in the recalcitrant tank’s bowels and shouted ribald remarks to anyone nearby, until they emerged the third day, grease-stained and perspiring, to announce that “She’s ready to roll her g— d— cleats off.”

  Whittaker had been nursing the tank’s radio transreceiver beside the forward hatch this grey afternoon, when his wild yell brought Hague erect. The officer carefully handed Bormann’s skin bird back to the gunner, swung down from the city wall’s edge, and ran to Whittaker’s side. Clark was already there when Hague reached the tank.

  “Listen! I’ve got ‘em!” Whittaker yelped and extended the crackling earphones to Clark.

  A tinny voice penetrated the interference.

  “Base . . . Peter One . . . Do you hear ... to George Easy Peter One . . . hear me . . . out.”

  Whittaker snapped on his throat microphone.

  “George Easy Peter One To Base. George Easy Peter One To Base. We hear you. We hear you. Rocket crashed. Rocket crashed. Returning overland. Returning overland. Present strength sixteen men. Can you drop us supplies? Can you drop us supplies?”

  The earphones sputtered, but no more voices came through. Clark’s excited face fell into tired lines.

  “We’ve lost them. Keep trying, Whittaker. Hague, well march-order tomorrow at dawn. You’ll take the rear again.”

  ~ * ~

  Grey, windy dawnlight brought them out to the sound of Clark’s call. Strapping on equipment and plates, they assembled around the tank. They were rested, and full fed.

  “Walk, you poor devils,” Whittaker was yelling from his tank turret. “And, if you get tired, run awhile,” he snorted, grinning heartlessly, as he leaned back in pretended luxury against the gunner’s seat, a thinly padded metal strip.

  Balistierri and the blond Swenson shouldered their rifles and shuffled out. They would move well in advance as scouts.

  “I wouldn’t ride in that armored alarm-clock if it had a built-in harem,” Hurd was screaming at Whittaker, and hurled a well-placed mudball at the tankman’s head as the tank motor caught, and the metal vehicle lumbered ahead toward the gate, with Whittaker sneering, but with most of his head safely below the turret rim. Beside it marched Clark, his ragged uniform carefully scraped clean of mud, and with him Lenkranz, the metals man. Both carried rifles and wore half empty bandoliers of blast cartridges.

  The supply cart jerked behind the tank, and behind it filed Whitcomb with his cameras; Sewell, the big, laconic medical technician; Johnston; cartographer Hirooka perusing absorbedly the clip board that held his strip map; Blake, the lean and spectacled bacteriologist, brought up the rear. Hague waited until they had disappeared through the gate cut sharply in the city’s black wall, then he turned to his gun crew.

  Sergeant Brian, saturnine as always, swung past carrying the pneumatic barrel assembly, Crosse with the charger a pace behind. Next, Bormann, whispering to Helen who rode his shoulder piping throaty calls. Last came Hurd, swaggering past with jaws grinding steadily at that mysterious cud. Hague cast a glance over his shoulder at the deserted street of black cubes, wondered at the dank loneness of the place, and followed Hurd.

  The hours wore on as they swung across dark grass, through damp tendrils of cloud, and faced into whipping, cold wind, eyes narrowed against its sting. Helen, squawking unhappily, crawled inside Bormann’s shirt and rode with just her brown bird-head protruding.

  “Look at the big hole, Lieutenant,” Hurd called above the wind.

  Hurd had dropped behind, and Hague called a halt to investigate Hurd’s find, but as he hiked rapidly back, the wiry little man yelled and pitched out of sight. Brian came running, and he and Hague peered over the edge of a funnel shaped pit, from which Hurd was trying to crawl. Each time he’d get a third of the way up the eighteen-foot slope, gravelly soil would slide and he’d again be carried to the bottom.

  “Throw me a line.”

  Brian pulled a hank of nylon line from his belt, shook out the snarls, and tossed an end into Hurd’s clawing hands. Hague and the Sergeant anchored themselves to the upper end and were preparing to haul, when Hague saw something move in the gravel beneath Hurd’s feet, at the funnel bottom, and saw a giant pincers emerging from loose, black gravel.

  “Hurd look out!” he screamed.

  The little man, white-faced, threw himself aside as a giant beetle head erupted through the funnel bottom. The great pincers jaws fastened around Hurd’s waist as he struggled frantically up the pit’s side. He began screaming when the beetle monster dragged him relentlessly down, his distorted face flung up at them appealingly. Hague snatched at his rifle and brought it up. When the gun cracked, the pincer’s tightened on Hurd’s middle, and the little man was snipped in half. The blue-white flash and report of the explosive bullet blended with Hurd’s choked yells, the beetle rolled over on its back and the two bodies lay entangled at the pit bottom. Brian and Hague looked at each other in silent, blanched horror, then turned from the pit’s edge and loped back to the others.

  Bormann and Crosse peered fearfully across the windwhipped grass, and inquired in shouts what Hurd was doing.

  “He’s dead, gone,” Hague yelled savagely over the wind’s whine. “Keep moving. We can’t do anything. Keep going.”

  ~ * ~

  IV

  At 1630 hours Commander Technician Harker slipped on the earset, threw over a transmitting switch, and monotoned the routine verbal message.

  “Base to George Easy Peter One . . . Base to George Easy Peter One . . . Do you hear me George Easy Peter One . . . Do you hear me George Easy Peter One . . . reply please . . . reply please.” Nothing came from his earphones, but bursts of crackling interference, until he tried the copters next, and “George Easy Peter Two” and “George Easy Peter Three” reported in. They were operating near the base.

  He tried “One” again, just in case.

  “Base to George Easy Peter One . . . Base to George Easy Peter One . . . Do you hear me . . . Do you hear me . . , out.”

  A scratching whisper resolved over the interference. Harker’s face wore a stunned look, but he quickly flung over a second switch and the scratching voice blared over the mother ship’s entire address system. Men dropped their work throughout the great hull, and clustered around the speakers.

  “George One . . . Base . . . hear you . . . rocket crashed . . . overland . . . present strength . . . supplies . . . drop supplies.”

  Interference surged back and drowned the whispering voice, while through Odysseus’ hull a ragged cheer grew and gathered volume. Harker shut off the address system and strained over his crackling earphones, but nothing more came in response to his radio calls.

  He glanced up and found the Warning Room jammed with technicians, science section members, officers, men in laboratory smocks, or greasy overalls, or spotless Rocket Service uniforms, watching intently his own strained face as he tried to get through. Commander Chapman looked haggard, and Harker remembered that someone had once said that Chapman’s young sister was the wife of the medical technician who’d gone out with Patrol Rocket One.

  Harker finally pulled off the earphones reluctantly and set them on the table before him. “That’s all. You heard everything they said over the PA. system. Nothing more is coming through.”

  ~ * ~

  Night came, another day, night again, and they came finally to the plateau’s end, and stood staring from a windy escarpment across an endless roof of rainforest far below, grey green under the continuous roof of lead-colored clouds. Hague, standing back a little, watched them. A thin line of ragged men along the rim peering mournfully out across that endless expanse for a gleam that might be the distant hull of Odysseus, the mother ship. A damp wind fluttered their rags and plastered them against gaunt bodies.

  Clark and Sampler were conferring in shouts.

  “Will the tank make it down this grade?” Clark wanted to know.

  For once, Sergeant Sampler’s mobile, merry face was grim.

&n
bsp; “I don’t know, but we’ll sure try. Be ready to cut that cart loose if the tank starts to slip.”

  Drag ropes were fastened to the cart, a man stationed at the tank hitch, and Sampler sent his tank lurching forward over the edge, and it slanted down at a sharp angle. Hague, holding a drag rope, set his heels and allowed the tank’s weight to pull him forward over the rim; and the tank, cart, and muddy figures hanging to drag ropes began descending the steep gradient. Bormann, just ahead of the Lieutenant, strained back at the rope and turned a tight face over his shoulder.

  “She’s slipping faster!”

  The tank was picking up speed, and Hague heard the clash of gears as Sampler tried to fight the downward pull of gravity. Gears ground, and Sampler forced the whippet straight again, but the downward slide was increasing. Hague was flattened under Bormann, heels digging, and behind him he could hear Sergeant Brian cursing, struggling to keep flat against the downward pull.

  The tank careened sideways again, slipped, and Whittaker’s white face popped from her turret

  “She’s going,” he screamed.

  A drag rope parted. Clark sprang like a madman between tank and cart, and cut the hitch. The tank, with no longer sufficient restraining weight, tipped with slow majesty outward, then rolled out and down, bouncing, smashing as if in a slow motion film, shedding parts at each crushing contact. It looked like a toy below them, still rolling and gathering speed, when Hague saw Whittaker’s body fly free, a tiny ragdoll at that distance, and the tank was lost to view when it bounced off a ledge and went floating down through space.

  Clark signalled them forward, and they inched the supply cart downward on the drag ropes, legs trembling with strain, and their nerves twitching at the memory of Whittaker’s chalky face peering from the falling turret. It was eight hours before they reached the bottom, reeling with exhaustion, set a guard, and tumbled into their shelter tents. Outside, Hague could hear Clark pacing restlessly, trying to assure himself that he’d been right to cut the tank free, that there’d been no chance to save Whittaker and Sampler when the tank began to slide.

  Hague lay in his little tent listening to the footsteps splash past in muddy Venusian soil, and was thankful that he hadn’t had to make the decision. He’d been saving three cigarettes in an oilskin packet, and he drew one carefully from the wrapping now, lit it, and inhaled deeply. Could he have done what Clark did—break that hitch? He still didn’t know when he took a last lung-filling pull at the tiny stub of cigarette and crushed it out carefully.

  As dawn filtered through the cloud layer, they were rolling shelter tents and buckling on equipment. Clark’s face was a worn mask when he talked with Hague, and his fingers shook over his pack buckles.

  “There are thirteen of us. Six men will pull the supply cart, and six guard, in four hour shifts. You and I will alternate command at guard.”

  He was silent for a moment, then watched Hague’s face intently as he spoke again.

  “It’ll be a first grade miracle if any of us get through. Hague, you—you know I had to cut that tank free.” His voice rose nervously. “You know that! You’re an officer.”

  “Yeah, I guess you did.” Hague couldn’t say it any better, and he turned away and fussed busily with the bars holding the portable Sonar detection unit to the supply cart

  They moved off with Hague leaning into harness pulling the supply cart bumpily ahead. Clark stumbled jerkily at the head, with Blake, a lean, silent ghost beside him, rifle in hand. The cart came next with Hague, Bormann, Sergeant Brian, Crosse, Lenkranz and Sewell leaning in single file against its weight. At the rear marched photographer Whitcomb, Hirooka with his maps, and Balistierri, each carrying a rifle. The big Swede Swenson was last in line, peering warily back into the rainforest shadows. The thirteen men wound Indian file from sight of the flat-headed reptilian thing, clutching a sheaf of bronze arrows, that watched them.

  ~ * ~

  Hague had lost count of days again when he looked up into the shadowy forest roof, his feet finding their way unconsciously through the thin mud, his ears registering automatically the murmurs of talk behind him, the supply cart’s tortured creaking, and the continuous Sonar drone. The air felt different, warmer than its usual steam bath heat, close and charged with expectancy, and the forest seemed to crouch in waiting with the repressed silence of a hunting cat.

  Crosse yelled thinly from the rear of the file, and they all halted to listen, the hauling crew dropping their harness thankfully. Hague turned back and saw Crosse’s thin arm waving a rifle overhead, then pointing down the trail. The Lieutenant listened carefully until he caught the sound, a thin call, the sound of a horn mellowed by distance.

  The men unthinkingly moved in close and threw wary looks into the forest ways around them.

  “Move further ahead, Hague. Must be more lizard men.” Clark swore, with tired despair. “All right, let’s get moving and make it fast”

  The cart creaked ahead again, moving faster this time, and the snicking of rifle bolts came to Hague. He moved swiftly ahead on the trail and glanced up again, saw breaks in the forest roof, and realized that the huge trees were pitching wildly far above.

  “Look up,” he yelled, “wind coming!”

  The wind came suddenly, striking with stone wall solidity. Hague sprinted to the cart, and the struggling body of men worked it off the trail, and into a buttress angle of two great tree roots, lashing it there with nylon ropes. The wind velocity increased, smashing torn branches overhead, and ripping at the men who lay with their heads well down in the mud. Tiny animals were blown hurtling past, and once a great spider came flailing in cartwheel fashion, then smashed brokenly against a tree.

  The wind drone rose in volume, the air darkened, and Hague lost sight of the other men from behind his huddled shelter against a wall-like root. The great trees twisted with groaning protest, and thunderous crashes came downward through the forest, with sometimes the faint squeak of a dying or frightened animal. The wind halted for a breathless, hushed moment of otter stillness, broken only by the dropping of limbs and the scurry of small life forms—then came the screaming fury from the opposite direction.

  For a moment, the gunnery officer thought he’d be torn from the root to which his clawing fingers clung. Its brutal force smashed breath from Hague’s lungs and held him pinned in his corner until he struggled choking for air as a drowning man does. It seemed that he couldn’t draw breath, that the air was a solid mass from which he could no longer get life. Then the wind stopped as suddenly as it had come, leaving dazed quiet. As he stumbled back to the cart, Hague saw crushed beneath a thigh-sized limb a feebly moving reptilian head; and the dying eyes of the lizard-man were still able to stare at him in cold malevolence.

  The supply cart was still intact, roped between buttressing roots to belt knives driven into the tough wood. Hague and Clark freed it, called a hasty roll, and the march was resumed : at a fast pace through cooled, cleaner air. They could no longer hear horn sounds; but the grim knowledge that lizard-men were near them lent strength, and Hague led as rapidly as he dared, listening carefully to the Sonar’s drone behind him, altering his course when the sound faded, and straightening out when it grew in volume.

  A day slipped by and another, and the cart rolled ahead through thin greasy mud on the forest floor, with the Sonar’s drone mingled with murmuring men’s voices talking of food. It was the universal topic, and they carefully worked out prolonged menus each would engorge when they reached home. They forgot heat, insect bites, the sapping humidity, and talked of food —steaming roasts, flanked by crystal goblets of iced wine, oily roasted nuts, and lush, crisp green salads.

  ~ * ~

  V

  Hague, again marching ahead with Balistierri, broke into the comparatively bright clearing, and was blinded for a moment by the sudden, cloud-strained light after days of forest darkness. As their eyes accommodated to the lemon-colored glare, he and Balistierri sighted the animals squatting beneath low bushes that
grew thickly in the clearing. They were monkey-like primates with golden tawny coats, a cockatoo crest of white flaring above dog faces. The monkeys stared a moment, the great white crests rising doubtfully, ivory canine teeth fully three inches long bared.

  They’d been feeding on fruit that dotted the shrub-filled clearing; but now one screamed a warning, and they sprang into vines that made a matted wall on every side. The two rifles cracked together again, and three fantastically colored bodies lay quiet, while the rest of the troop fled screaming into tree tops and disappeared. At the blast of sound, a fluttering kaleidoscope of color swept up about the startled rocketeers, and they stood blinded, while mad whorls of color whirled around them in a miniature storm.

  “Giant butterflies,” Balistierri was screaming in ecstasy. “Look at them! Big as a dove!”