16 A Rainfall of Rocks
With Awmit swimming, he and Tompa made great time. The stim pad, on the other hand, proved to be a mixed blessing. In fact, they might have done better if he were padless. He was okay in the water, but one time when he walked around shallow spots or rapids, he started marching resolutely back in the direction they’d come and she had to splash across the stream to turn him around. Another time, he wandered lazily into some low shrubbery to admire a particularly hideous, thorny bush. His besotted behavior was maddening.
On the other hand, the stim pad helped Tompa a lot. Without it she’d never have kept up with him. The pad also made her feel warmer even before they rounded the first bend that hid Roussel from view. For an hour or so after that, her clothes felt clammy and uncomfortable, but at least they weren’t sapping her body heat.
The canyon gradually became shallower, sunnier, and hotter. At the same time, the vegetation became more sparse, until even the thick, leafless plants she’d used as a club were scarce. She picked up as many as would fit in her rucksack, just in case.
Three cameras followed their every move, but Tompa neither saw nor heard a living creature. She kept looking over her shoulder to see if Roussel would appear riding a balloon and leading a mob of Shons. He never did. Nonetheless, every break in the canyon walls where a dry streambed slanted to the bottom felt like a possible ambush.
The silence in the canyon was broken only by the sounds of Awmit paddling, and she relaxed without even realizing it. As the morning grew old and sweat trickled down her back, she almost had to remind herself that she was being chased by a bloodthirsty army rather than hiking across an alien planet in the company of an amphibious friend.
“Graceful human’s sound signifies what?” Awmit asked as he swam around a small s-curve in the narrow stream.
“Huh? Oh, I guess I was humming.”
He straightened, resting his arms. “Humans sing possessively solidarity tunes?”
“Keep swimming,” she nagged. Awmit did as she asked, but without the same vigor as earlier. The stim pad must be wearing off. “Are solidarity tunes like the chant of the hunters, back in the cave?”
“Agree shudderingly. Ancient traditional tune lures seductively justice-seekers into the oneness of prook-nah.”
“What I’m humming isn’t like that. It’s just a song a crazy old friend of mine wrote back when I was a kid.” She glanced at Awmit. “You kind of remind me of him.”
He shook his arms wearily. “Because this one lacks sanity?”
“Keep swimming. Because . . . well, just because. But it’s a good thing, reminding me of Gramps.”
They traveled in silence for a few minutes. Tompa opened her mouth, intending to tell Awmit about Gramps, but he spoke first. “Graceful human, look distantly.” He pointed ahead. “The bridge Dante human predicted uncannily.”
“It can’t be.” Tompa shaded her eyes because the canyon, which had again become a shallow ravine, was flooded with sun. “Roussel said the bridge was nine miles upstream and we’ve only been traveling two hours.”
“This one repeats, the bridge exists collapsedly ahead. Dante human possesses miraculously a knowledge of the island of justice.” As though the sight of the bridge renewed his energy, Awmit surged forward. She had to trot to keep up, breathing heavily. Her stim pad was wearing off, just like his.
The bridge was an arch of squared, brown rocks that ended halfway across the ravine; originally there must have been a second arch. There weren’t any good hiding places, so there was no way they could wait for Roussel here. Even if she trusted the bastard—which she didn’t—they couldn’t waste their precious head start by waiting.
While Awmit floated in the stream, Tompa climbed the sun-baked-clay bank to scout around. As soon as she crested the edge of the ravine, a blast of wind howled in her ears and blew hair across her eyes. She pulled the hair away and saw the mountain.
“Wow.” She craned her head up, then up some more. The thing was gigantic, much taller and more massive than any skyscraper she’d ever seen. “We have to climb that?”
She dragged her gaze away from the jagged summit. The bridge was surrounded by a dozen or so ruined brick buildings sprinkled across the dusty, barren ground as though a giant had walked through a playground, scattering toy blocks as he went. All the edges of the blocks were rounded by age. The road leading from the bridge toward the mountain had thick paving stones that had shifted over the centuries, leaving a surface that was uneven but usable.
“Graceful human observes what?” Awmit called from down below.
“Well, I see what must be Holy Mountain.” The name, she had to admit, seemed appropriate for such an awe-inspiring sight. She braced herself against the gusts, shaded her eyes, and tried to take in details rather than the overwhelming totality of the scene. “The road climbs the mountain, heading that direction.” She waved with her arm toward the left. “I’m not sure, but I think it must spiral around the mountain.”
“Legendary and holy route to Bez-Tattin’s temple.” Awmit did a little dance in the water, rolling his head while swimming left, then right, and finally in a circle as he splashed water onto his back. “Dante human predicts truthfully.”
Tompa looked back, but the barren countryside was just hilly enough to hide the direction they’d come from. She didn’t know what she hoped to see. Something. Some hint that she was being pursued, that Dante Roussel was back there, plotting, but there was nothing other than a dust devil dancing along the crest of a rise. She wasn’t used to nature; the massive impersonality of the countryside made her feel uneasy and forsaken.
She half-walked and half-slid down the bank to where Awmit was stepping out of the narrow stream. When she reached the bottom, he was shaking his injured leg. “This one feels strongly better. Apothecary’s powder of magical herbs equals happily a long rest in cool water.”
Tompa didn’t bother to puzzle that out. “Can you climb the bank or should I try to carry you?”
He stared at her for several seconds. Water dripping off his hips formed a dark ring around him in the dirt. “For Dante human these ones wait negatively?”
“Can you climb?” she repeated.
Awmit remained stubbornly in place. “This one comprehends negatively.”
“Don’t push it, Awmit. I don’t trust Roussel.”
“Yet despite graceful human’s words of distrust, these ones follows faithfully the path Dante human told.”
“Are you going to get up that bank?” She reached out to pick him up by the hips, but he backed away from her.
“Dante human shares invigoratingly prook-nah with these ones.”
Tompa paused and took a deep breath. She was close to losing her temper, and Awmit didn’t deserve that. After another breath she had herself and the tremble in her voice more or less under control. “He’s done me more harm than anyone else in my entire life. I hate him, I don’t trust him, and there’s nothing you or anyone else can do about that, ever.”
Awmit scratched his chest with both hands. “Humans exist befuddlingly. Worse than kron-colladies in a death-leaf forest.” He walked with hardly any limping to the ravine bank, evading her arms as she reached out to help him. The steep part of the slope slowed him down, but he managed pretty well.
“Anyway,” she said as she walked behind him, ready to help if he had difficulty, “maybe Dante’s not coming. Maybe he’s dead.”
Awmit came to an abrupt stop and swivelled his head all the way around to stare the direction from which they’d come. “Truth shines in graceful human’s words. Shines chillingly.”
Peffer and his pod-loogs appeared without any warning; the waterfall must have drowned out the sounds of their approach. Dante was sitting beside a rock, shivering from the rapid evaporation of water from his clothes. He ducked behind the rock.
Luckily, they didn’t see him. He peeked around and saw them jump into the pool, noticing that for some reason, they didn’t swim nearly as we
ll as Awmit. Peffer was the first one out of the water, and he pointed dramatically to the footprints in the sand.
Two of the pod-loogs scurried down the main channel while two more headed toward the tributary. Dante picked up one of the fist-sized rocks he’d collected as ammunition, just in case. The two pod-loogs headed his way disappeared from sight, hidden by the edge of the waterfall. Dante wished he’d been able to find more rocks of throwing size.
Suddenly, excited shouts echoed off the walls of the canyon. The scouts had found the wreckage of the camera balloon. As they pranced on its deflated skin, the propeller sprang to life and gave a few final spins before dying, making them scurry back a respectful distance.
Peffer and his entire cohort, including the two investigating the waterfall, headed up the main channel. Within minutes, they’d passed the wreckage and disappeared from sight.
“Well, what do you know,” Dante whispered. His little subterfuge had actually worked.
Peffer would catch on eventually, however, and even if he didn’t, there were a lot more Shons out there. For the next fifteen minutes, Dante was glad of his stim pad as he combed the canyon floor for more rocks, searching as far as a hundred yards back from the waterfall.
He returned with a dozen stones nestled in the crook of his arm. As soon as he dropped them, clattering, to his ammunition pile, he heard shouts. He crouched behind a plant that smelled like a wet dog, but it was too late; someone had heard the rocks and seen him. Three Shons stood by the pool, pointing at the top of the waterfall with all their arms. None of them wore the flame-patterned apparel of the pod-loogs.
Since they’d already spotted him, Dante rose and stood at the lip where the stream plunged off the top of the cliff. He felt as though he was watching himself act out a ritual, rather than preparing to fight for his life. The sensation made his defiant pose seem self-conscious, though at the same time he regretted no one would witness that he was finally, after a disappointing lifetime, living up to the heroic image of the Space Navy.
“Come and get me, you little buggers.”
They gave no sign that they understood. Two of them watched him in silence while the other scurried back downstream. Well, he would wait for them and try to buy more time. He glanced at his watch. Nearly an hour had passed since Tompa had left. Not a bad lead, but the more time he could get for her, the better.
He was still standing at the top of the waterfall as Shons began pouring into the canyon below. There were now fifty or sixty, and more appeared every minute. They stared at him as they waited for more help to arrive. That was sound strategy, he had to admit. He could hold off a dozen or two simply by pushing them off when they reached the top of the cliff, but if they kept coming, they’d eventually overwhelm him with sheer numbers.
Since his object was to buy time for Tompa Lee rather than to gain martyrdom, Dante considered retreating. But then the Klicks arrived, and he stayed.
Major Krizink shoved through the crowd of Shons, followed by his five remaining henchmen. “Dante Roussel,” he shouted, tail blade raised high. “You killed the glish-naka of my life party. I no longer like you.”
“I’m crushed,” Dante said.
“Indeed, you will be. Under my feet.” Krizink’s tail whipped from side to side, knocking over several nearby Shons. He raised both arms and made elaborate gestures toward his cohorts. Two Klicks plunged to the left and right through the crowd, knocking Shons aside or walking over any who remained in their way. When they reached the cliffs, one to Dante’s left and one to his right, they began climbing.
Dante vaguely remembered hearing of the Klicks’ knack for climbing, but seeing them in action was a revelation. They climbed with the speed and surefootedness of flies on a wall, using all four limbs and their tails to scramble up the rocks on either side of the waterfall. It took them less time than it had for him to use the stairs. They continued going until they were higher than he was, ready to move close enough to pounce.
Dante threw a rock at the closest Klick. The creature dodged, and the rock shattered against the cliff. The Klick gave a howl similar to the hiss of a cat, but deeper and ten times louder. A drop of putrid-smelling spittle hit Dante’s chin.
Again he threw a stone. Again the Klick dodged. Dante had another rock ready and tossed it while the creature was still reacting. The rock smashed into one of his eyes, making the Klick grunt. It clung to the rocks for a moment, then lost its grip everywhere except the tail. It dangled face down, back to the cliff, hands and feet pawing the air for handholds. Red blood dripped off his snout as he howled again—plaintively this time, with a rhythm and overtones that imbued the sound with a startling and tragic beauty. The other Klicks answered the howl with similar sounds, varying in loudness, sorrow, and desire for revenge. Saying goodbye, Dante guessed as he bent to pick up more rocks.
The Klick’s tail lost its grip. The creature fell, headfirst, forty feet to the rocks at the base of the waterfall. It lay there, broken and still.
The heavy silence that followed was wonderful, but it didn’t last long. Dante started tossing rocks at the Klick to his right. Krizink’s ferocious shouts filled the canyon, apparently ordering the Klick on the rock face to retreat.
Krizink picked up the closest Shon, raised it over his head and slammed the unfortunate creature to the ground. The Klick shouted in his native language—curses, Dante guessed—and then said in panting, ferocious English, “My half-marriage brother!” He tried to grab another Shon, but it and all the other Shons scooted away. Krizink settled for plunging the spike in his tail into the body of the one he’d thrown to the ground. He pulled the spike out and pointed it, dripping blood, toward Dante. “Two reasons now for hatred, for me to pray that duty allows the pleasure of burying my tail in your intestines, Dante Roussel!”
Dante stared at the major, panting. He was about to return the challenge with a taunt of his own when a dull roar shook the ground. Behind Krizink, on the far side of the main channel, Shons crowded around a dust cloud where there’d been a minor rockslide.
There were a lot more Shons than five minutes ago, a hundred and fifty at least. They began handing throwing-sized rocks to each other in fire-bucket fashion. Dante guessed that he’d given them the idea to throw stones at him, and they’d somehow caused the rockslide to arm themselves. As the dust settled, he saw that a couple Shons were trapped by the rockfall, their limbs waving feebly. No one stopped to help them; gathering ammunition was clearly more important to their prook-nah at the moment.
Shons had such short arms that Dante had difficulty imagining them throwing accurately, so he returned his attention to the tall aliens. While the Shons handed out rocks, Major Krizink growled orders to his remaining four henchmen. They all began scaling the rock wall to the left, well out of Dante’s range. He watched them climb, expecting them to angle toward him so they were overhead. They didn’t. Instead, they kept going toward the top of the canyon. Clearly, they planned to track him safely from above and perhaps rain rocks down on him.
While Dante watched the Klicks climb out of sight, the Shons started chanting. He glanced down just in time to see a third of the Shons lean back in perfect unison, then do a simultaneous basketball jump as they threw their stones. It seemed like an asteroid belt was hurtling toward him. Before he even had time to duck, a second shift threw rocks while the first shift grabbed another rock. Stones filled the air in volley after volley.
Small rocks stung him on the shoulder and leg. No serious damage was done, but it was only a matter of time. Judging from the number of rocks they’d stockpiled, the Shons were prepared to bury him under a mountain of stones. He’d been wrong to ignore them.
He ran ingloriously away, head low and hands sheltering the back of his head. Some hero he was.