“Where are we, anyhow?” she asked.
“Vergis IV,” Wayne told her.
“Don’t look like much of a place for a weekend,” Nora said. “Lonely.”
Wayne grinned and pulled her close. “That’s just why I picked it out,” he muttered. “There’ll be nobody around to bother you—except me.”
The plump, voluptuous brunette ran her hand along his spine. “When you plan to start bothering, hon?” she whispered.
“Soon. Let me put us down first. I’m looking for a spot.”
Nora put her head close to his and stared into the scanner. “Who told you about this place?” she asked.
“Friend of mine—a space-rat. Luke, they call him.”
The full-figured brunette giggled. “Old Luke? The guy who hit Port City last week for a big bash-out? The one with all them diamonds?”
“That’s right,” Wayne answered. “Diamonds.”
“He sure was tossing ’em around. Dorine, she’s my girlfriend, she was with him night before last. He was real bashed, and Dorine tried to find out where he got the loot. But he wasn’t talking.”
“He told me,” Wayne said. “The diamonds came from here.”
Nora dug her nails into his arm.
“Is that why you picked this place, on account of the diamonds?” Her breath quickened, and Wayne could smell the sickly-sweet odor of bash. “You gonna get me some diamonds, hon?”
Wayne smiled down on her. “I said you were a good kid, didn’t I? If there are any diamonds here, you’ll get them.”
“Oh, hon—”
“Hold it,” Wayne told her, disengaging her arms. “We land first, remember? Meanwhile, how are you fixed for bash? I’ve got some prime stuff here in the pouch.”
“Sure, hon. Give me a pop. The more I bash, the better I am—you’ll see—”
Wayne pulled the pouch from his pocket and poured a minute mound of the grayish seeds into her palm. She raised it to her nostrils and sniffed, inhaling with a deep sigh that ended in a sneeze.
“Now I’m cruising,” she said. The whites of her eyes turned yellow as the pupils contracted. “Come on, hon—”
“Let me set us down,” Wayne urged. He squinted through the scanner. “Right over there,” he told her.
“What’s that big brown thing?” Nora asked, trying to focus her gaze. “Looks like a snake.”
Wayne studied the brown, irregular oblong. “It does at that, from this height,” he agreed. “But it’s really a hut. Luke told me to find a hut if I wanted to get hold of the natives. Besides, we’ll need a place to stay.”
“How about right here on the ship?” Nora suggested. “Right here on the ship, and right now—” She was beginning to breathe heavily.
“Don’t forget the diamonds,” Wayne reminded.
“Diamonds.” Nora’s voice trailed off as the bash took hold. She fell back upon the bunk. “Hon, I’m dizzy. Don’t leave me, hon.”
“I wouldn’t think of it,” Wayne assured her. “You’re a good kid, remember?”
He grinned and bent over the controls. Slowly, the ship glided in for a landing on a sandy plain only a few hundred yards from the brown oblong. As Nora murmured incoherently, Wayne put out the landing platform and packed a small kit-bag which he slung over his shoulder. Then he stepped over to Nora and shook her.
“Wake up,” he said. “We’re going out.”
Eyes closed, Nora tried to pull him down on the bunk. “Wait, hon,” she whispered. “Let’s not go now.”
“We’ve got to,” he told her. “The way I figure it, there’s less than an hour of daylight left. I want to look around.”
“You promised—”
“First let’s see about the diamonds. If there’s anybody in that hut they’ll spot us.”
He raised the girl to her feet. She had to hang on to him as they walked down the ramp, and her legs went rubbery as she waded through the sand.
“Take your shoes off,” he suggested.
She kicked them aside. “Hot,” Nora murmured, eyes closed against the sun’s glare. “Too hot.”
“Cooler in the hut,” he replied. “Come on.”
They trudged over to the oblong. It was perhaps thirty feet in length, seven or eight feet high, and nine feet wide. Seen at close range it no longer resembled a serpent, except to Nora’s bash-distorted vision.
“Looks creepy,” she whispered. “What’s it made of, anyway?”
“Some kind of hide, I guess. See how it’s stretched? Wonder how they pieced it together—”
Wayne broke off as Nora stumbled against him. The girl was bashed, all right. Maybe he shouldn’t have given her that last pop. But she was a good kid, he had to remember that.
And now, where were the natives?
He approached the dark doorway of the hut and tried to peer into the dimness beyond. There didn’t seem to be any door at all, and no windows. The interior flooring slanted down away from the opening and he couldn’t see very far within.
“Place must be deserted, all right,” he said. “Let’s take a peek inside.”
Nora tugged at his arm. “I don’t want to go in there. It’s too dark.”
“Here’s a light.” Wayne produced a small tube from his pack. “Got a stunner attachment, too, following the beam. We’re ready for anything.” He pulled her toward the doorway.
“It smells so,” the girl whimpered. “Like snakes. And I think someone’s looking at us.”
Wayne glanced behind him, scanning the desert horizon, then shook his head. “You’re just bash-happy.”
“I’m scared, that’s all.”
He shrugged and moved forward. She had no choice but to follow. They walked down the slanting floor into the hut.
It did smell in here, Wayne realized. The odor was atrocious. No wonder the place was deserted. He swept the beam up and over the rough, unfinished walls. There was no furnishing, no sign of occupancy.
They stood in the outer chamber and gazed forward, noting that the interior of the hut was divided into several sections. Ahead of them was a narrow passageway leading to a second chamber. As Wayne moved forward the odor grew stronger and the girl held back.
“Let’s go outside,” she urged. “I’m choking, hon.” Wayne shook his head and advanced to the head of the passageway. He stood there and played his beam on the empty chamber beyond. The stench was almost intolerable, and it seemed to be coming from the floor, which was inches deep in stagnant muck. Maybe the natives used this but as a cesspool. Maybe this is where they disposed of the—
“Look!” Nora had crept close behind him, and now she was cowering against him and pointing. “See, in that slime in the corner? There’s bones, and a skull!”
Wayne swept the beam around, away from the opening. “You’re imagining things,” he told her.
But he’d seen them too, and now he knew everything was all right.
“Want to go back outside?” he asked.
“Yes. Oh, please, hurry—I think I’m going to be sick.”
He half-supported Nora as she staggered back up the slanting slope leading to the doorway. The sky had darkened over the desert beyond, and the air was suddenly chill.
“Take a deep breath,” he commanded. “You’ll feel better.”
“Not until we get back to the ship,” the girl whispered. “I can’t stand being near this place. There’s something awful about it. It isn’t just a house, it’s—” Abruptly she paused and stared back at the oblong bulk of the hut. “We’re being watched,” she said. “I know it.”
“Nonsense. You can see for yourself there’s nobody around.”
“Then where are the natives?”
“Hunting, perhaps.”
“Are there animals around, too?”
“No.”
“Then what do they hunt?”
“Each other.”
“You mean they’re—”
“Cannibals.” Wayne nodded. “It’s a dying world. No real civilization. No
wonder they give diamonds as gifts. They’re so grateful when anyone brings them a present.”
“Is that how Luke got his loot?” Nora asked. “What kind of present did he give them?”
Wayne grinned at her. “His partner, Brady.”
Nora’s mouth twitched. “You’re joking. Or—he was lying to you—”
“Dying men don’t lie,” Wayne said, softly. “I picked old Luke up in an alley, two nights ago, bashed to the lungs and coughing his guts out. Dragged him into my place, and ten minutes later he was dead. But he talked, first. I thought he was delirious, until I saw the diamonds. Then I knew he was telling the truth.
“It had all been an accident, really. He and Brady were scavengers, operating a little wildcat freighter. They were on their way back from Cybele when Luke got sick. Brady must have figured it was better to find a place to stop, and he put down here. Luke was unconscious at the time.
“When he came to, he was alone on the freighter. Apparently Brady had decided to step out and take a look around. It was night, but the moon was up and Luke could see out—he was in desert country, like this. And there was nobody around. Off in the distance was one of these huts, and Luke wondered if Brady had gone to investigate. He felt pretty weak, but he just about made up his mind to follow his partner when the natives came.
“Luke didn’t let them get aboard, of course. But he stood in the airlock and gestured at them. I guess they caught on to his sign language in a hurry. Anyway, they nodded at him and pantomimed. The way it looked, they’d found Brady wandering outside and jumped him.
“Luke said there were a dozen or more of them, all carrying long spears. He couldn’t possibly handle them all, so he did the next best thing—smiled, looked friendly, and tried to find out what they’d done with Brady.
“So he made stabbing gestures and cutting gestures, but they just shook their heads and kept gesturing over at the hut in the distance. Then some of them bowed down facing it, and the rest bowed down facing the ship. And the biggest one, whom Luke took to be the chief, pulled out the sack of diamonds. He set it down and bowed again. Then he pointed at the hut once more and started to rub his belly. That’s when Luke guessed the rest. You see, he thought Luke was some kind of god who had brought them Brady as an offering. And they were repaying him in diamonds.”
The moon was rising redly over the black bulk of the hut, and Wayne could see Nora’s face flaming in the light. Her eyes were glazed.
“The natives left, then, and after a while Luke opened the lock and picked up the diamonds. He wanted to go to the hut and find Brady, but he was afraid. Instead, he took off. That’s why he went on the bash when he hit port. He knew he’d been a coward.”
“I don’t believe it,” Nora murmured. “He was out of his head.”
“I saw the diamonds,” Wayne reminded her.
“But it doesn’t make sense. Maybe he and Brady found diamonds here and they quarreled. So he killed his partner and took the loot for himself. That crazy yarn about the natives eating each other—”
“You saw the bones in the hut,” Wayne muttered. “And in a little while, you’ll see the natives, too.”
Nora stepped back. “I don’t want to see them,” she wailed. “I want to go back to the ship. Why did you bring me here in the first place? Why—”
“Because you’re a good kid,” Wayne said, and hit her across the face with his flash.
She fell forward heavily and he put his knee in her back, pressing her down as he got the rope out of his pack. The bash had weakened her and she couldn’t put up much of a struggle. He tied her wrists expertly and then dragged her along the sand by her ankles. She moaned a little, but didn’t come around until he’d propped her up on a small rise a few hundred feet from the entrance to the hut.
“There we are,” he told her. “All wrapped and ready. Like I said, you’re a good kid. But I suppose you don’t know what I mean, do you?”
“Hon, let me go—”
“A kid is a baby goat. Once upon a time, back on Terra, in a place called India, there were other animals called tigers. Some of them were man-eaters. When the natives wanted to attract a man-eater, they staked a kid out.
“So when I heard Luke’s story, I knew what to do. I started looking for bait for a man-eater, and I found you.”
“You can’t—”
“I can.” Wayne stared down at her soberly. “Nobody saw us together last night. Nobody knows you sneaked off with me on an unauthorized flight. The Port is filled with tramps like you—they come and go. Even if somebody notices your disappearance, I’ll never be involved.”
“But why me?” She was sobbing now, wheezing in panic.
Wayne reached forward and started ripping away her garments, slowly and deliberately.
“This is why,” he murmured. “Because you’re white and soft. Because you’re plump and rounded and tender. Because you’re a good kid.”
“Stop! Let me go!”
Wayne stood up, nodding. “That’s right,” he said. “Go ahead and scream. If they don’t see that body of yours in the moonlight, at least they’ll hear your voice. When the kid bleats, the man-eater comes.”
“No—don’t leave me—come back—I’ll do anything you want, anything!”
“You’ll get me the diamonds,” Wayne told her. “I’ll be waiting, never fear.”
He walked over to the dark shadow of the oblong hut and crouched just inside the doorway. The charnel stench was strong on the night air, but he wanted to keep out of sight. After they came, that was the psychological moment. With the weapon in his hand, he had nothing to fear. They’d treated old Luke like a god, and he’d get the same consideration.
Nora was crying softly in the distance. Her nude body was radiant in the moonlight. If there were any natives around, they’d be here soon.
For a moment he wondered if Nora had been right. Could the old scavenger have made up the whole yarn just as she said? Maybe there were no natives after all. The whole idea of cannibals with spears seemed a bit naive and ridiculous. Brady could have wandered off, found some diamonds, then brought them back with him. Maybe he’d tried to hide them from his partner, only to have Luke discover them and kill him in a quarrel over the loot. That made a lot more sense.
Yes, the old space-rat had probably been lying. And who could blame him under the circumstances? Wayne hadn’t told Nora the whole story—what he’d gotten out of Luke at the end wasn’t a voluntary confession. Sure, he’d picked the old man up in the alley and dragged him inside, but only after he’d gone through the dying man’s pockets and found the diamonds. That’s why he put him on his bed, and started choking him; choking him until the story came out in bits and pieces, like the bits and pieces of lung he coughed up in the final dying spasm.
Wayne frowned at himself. He’d been a little too rough; otherwise he’d have gotten more of the details. He’d have found out how to separate fact from fancy. As it was, all he really knew was that Luke had found the diamonds here on Vergis IV.
If there was nothing to the yarn about the cannibal natives, then Wayne was wasting his time. He’d have to dispose of the girl himself and then go diamond-hunting.
On the other hand, he reminded himself, there were the huts, just like Luke described them. Someone must have built them. And now he remembered the bones. The bones and the stench. There had to be man-eaters around. There had to be—
A whiff of carrion odor caused him to wrinkle his nose in revulsion. He wished there was another place of concealment available. Nora had been right; something about this hut made him feel uneasy. What kind of creatures could have built it? Where did they get the hides? Maybe they used their own skins—that is, the skins of their victims. Wayne tried to imagine a completely cannibalistic civilization. Had there ever been any on Terra?
Wayne tried to think about that for a moment, but there was something else that disturbed him, something he couldn’t quite account for.
Maybe it was the red moon. I
t gave him the feeling Nora had complained about in the hut, the feeling of being watched. It was too much like an accusing eye.
Maybe it was remembering how he’d choked the story out of that bash-crazed old man; maybe it was seeing that naked, moaning girl up there on the rise.
He stared at her silhouette as it writhed on the horizon and wondered when something was going to happen. He hoped it would be soon, because he had to get out of here, the smell was getting worse—
Suddenly Wayne stiffened and crouched back in the doorway.
Something was coming over the rim of the hill.
The bait was luring the man-eater.
Wayne squinted into the wastes, trying to distinguish individual forms in the black blur that moved across the hilltop. Why, there must be an army of them, moving packed together in a solid mass!
Nora saw the movement too, because she was screaming, now. And there was another sound—a soft, slow rumbling. The black bulk was flowing forward. It wasn’t black, really; more of a reddish-brown. The same color as the hut.
Then Wayne realized why he couldn’t make out individual figures. There were no figures—just the solid mass. The thing crawling sluggishly over the hillside was a single great form. A brown oblong form, moving slowly but surely.
As Wayne recognized the object, another realization came to him. Now he knew what had eluded his mind. It was something about this hut. With no wind to disturb the sand, why hadn’t he noticed the footprints of the natives leading to and from the doorway?
He had the answer, now. There were no natives—at least, no humanoid cannibals. Nora’s guess had been correct. Brady found the diamonds and Luke killed him, then made up the story about natives dragging him into their hut. Brady hadn’t been dragged to a hut—the hut had come to him.
And it was coming to Nora, now, out there on the hillside, its brown bulk inching toward her, towering over her, the black doorway gaping to engulf her like a ravenous mouth.
But it is a mouth, Wayne told himself, and suddenly there was a shock of final recognition as he remembered the hide-like covering that was hide, and the second inner compartment with the stagnant stench bubbling over the bones.