West Of The Sun

  3

  This was dawn: vision out of the dark: ripples of music coalescent inone forest voice moving toward a crescendo of daytime.

  Paul watched a spreading of color in the leaves, a shift from black togray to a loveliness more green than red; the trees were massivelyold, with varied bark of green or purple-brown. Phantoms in the moredistant shadows could be understood now that light was advancing: theywere thick trees with a white bark like that of the never-forgottenbirches of New Hampshire. Underfoot Paul felt a humus that might havebeen a thousand years in growing; he prodded it with his knife--awhite worm curled in mimic death.

  Everywhere purple-leaved vines, vastly proliferating, climbed in ariot of greed for the sunlight of the forest ceiling. Paul sensed amute cruelty in them, a shoving lust of growth. It might have beenthese, elastically yielding, that had saved the lifeboat from totalruin.

  Overnight the gravity of Lucifer had become natural. His close-knitbody accepted and relished it, finding a new pleasure in strength:thirty-seven years old and very young.

  One tiny voice was near, persistent. Paul walked around the boat,where Dorothy and Wright still slept. The starboard wing, parting fromthe lifeboat, had gashed a tree trunk, littering the ground withbranches. The source of the voice was a brown lump, twenty feet up,clinging head downward, a body small as a sparrow's, wings folded likea bat's. As he watched they spread, quivered, and relaxed. Head andears were mousy, the neck long, with a hump at its base. The throatpulsed at each cry. Near Paul's foot lay a fabric like an oriole'snest, fastened to a twig that had been torn from the tree. Threeyoung had tumbled out. One was not mangled but all were dead,hairless, poignantly ugly. "Sorry, baby--our first act on Lucifer."The parent creature made another abortive motion as Paul took up theyoung.

  Its high lament was not what he and Dorothy had heard in the night.That had been continuing when he slipped out to watch for dawn, and ithad ended at some unnoticed moment--profoundly different, surely faroff....

  He tried to study the dead things as Sears Oliphant would want to do.Two were hopelessly torn; he dug a hole in the humus and dropped thosein, smoothing the surface, wondering at his need for an act whichcould mean nothing to the unhappy morsel of perception on the treetrunk. The third, and the nest, he carried around the boat where thelight was better.

  All seven digits of the forelimb spread into a membranous wing; thehind leg divided at the ankle, three toes anchoring the wing, theother four fused into a slim foot which had suction pads. He cradledthe bit of mortality in his palm, recalling a thing Wright had saidwhen they entered the lifeboat. Captain Jensen, waiting for take-offat the spaceport, trying, as he drank sherry with Christopher Wright,to look at the venture under the aspect of eternity, had said he likedthe philosophical implications of _Argo's_ converter, into which hisown body was strangely soon to pass. What was Wright's comment elevenyears later? "All life is cannibalism, benign or not: we are stilleating the dinosaurs." There had been more, which Paul could notremember. So, man drove eleven years through space and killed threebabies. _But there was no element of malevolence_....

  Perhaps there was none in most of man's actions over the millennia.

  Wright crawled out, stiff-limbed and unrested.

  "'Morning, Doc. Let me introduce _Enigma Luciferensis_."

  "'Luciferensis' won't do." Wright peered down. "Everything is'Luciferensis,' including the posterity Dot mentioned. Well now,what----"

  "A nestling. Our crash broke the nest and killed the young."

  Wright fingered the fabric. "Beautiful. Leaves gummed together withsome secretion." With a doctor's intentness he added: "How d'youfeel?"

  "Good."

  A shadow circled Paul, settled on his arm, hobbling toward his palmand what it held. He felt the suction cups; with a careful mouth thecreature took up its dead and flew away. "I've been rememberingsomething you said: life eating life--without too much concern for thesecond law of thermodynamics. Forgive us our trespasses.... Goodmorning, lady."

  "What did I miss?" Dorothy had glimpsed the departure.

  "Lucifer's idea of a bat. I think that big flying thing I saw from thelifeboat was shaped like this midget. Haven't seen any birds."

  Dorothy hugged his arm. "Not even one measly robin?"

  "Sorry, Whifflepuff--fresh out of robins."

  Wright blinked at his compass. "Meadow that way." Paul wasinattentive, needing the warm quiet of the woman beside him. Wrightadded: "First, breakfast." He broke the seal of a ration package andsnarled. "Thirty days, I b'lieve you said. Antique garbage--dehydratedhay."

  Dorothy said, "You're nicest when you're mad, Doc. We'll soon have totry the local stuff, I suppose."

  "Uh-huh. But no guinea-pig work for you or Ann."

  She was startled. "Why not? I can digest boilerplate."

  "Two women on Lucifer: valuable livestock." Wright smiled with hismouth full. "I'm boss, remember? For guinea-pig work, the men drawlots."

  She was grave. "I won't argue. It so happens----" She peeked into thenest. "Poor little fuzzies lined it with fur. Their own, I'll bet."

  "It so happens what, dear?"

  "Ah.... This eleven-year-old gookum claims to be coffee. Can we make afire? Looks like dead wood over there."

  The branches burned aromatically; the morning was growing into deepwarmth, but still with freshness. Wright said, "Coffee my shirt."

  Dorothy tasted it. "Brr...! I was about to say when I interruptedmyself, it so happens I'm six or seven weeks pregnant, I think."

  "Six----" Wright set his aluminum cup carefully upside down. Paulmumbled, "That's what's been on your mind."

  Behind her eyes he glimpsed the primitive thing, deeper than thought,not like a part of her but a force that sustained her, himself, allothers: the three billion of Earth, the small grieving spirit nowflown away into the trees. "Yes, Adam. I would have told you sooner,but we all had a lot on our minds."

  "Even before we got in orbit, you saw us settling--staying----"

  Dorothy grinned then. "No-o, Paul. I just wanted the baby. Could havebeen born on the ship. The Federation said no, but...."

  Gradually Paul began to realize it. "But you said yes."

  She leaned to him, no longer smiling. "I said yes...."

  The forest floor hushed footsteps; some coolness lingered. Paul walkedin front, then Dorothy, and Wright marked blazes on the tree trunks.Paul glanced backward often, to capture the receding patterns. At thethird such pause the lifeboat was no longer visible--only a samenessof trees and sparse young life groping through shadow for the food ofthe sun. In this depth of forest there was no brush; the going waseasy except for the nuisance of purple vines that sometimes loopedfrom tree to tree. Paul searched for any change of light ahead.

  The boat held all but what they wore, the two rifles, the threepistols holstered at their hips, the three knives, three sealed rationpackages. Damage had prevented locking the door of the boat: to rob,an inhabitant of Lucifer would need only intelligence enough to solvethe sliding mechanism. They had seen no life but that huge nocturnalleaf eater, the small fliers, a white worm, and now a few timidten-legged scuttlers on the warm ground and midge-like specks dancingin shafts of sunlight. Too quietly, Wright said, "Stop."

  Paul raised his rifle as he turned. Only untroubled forest. Wright'swarning hand lowered. "Almost saw it. Heard nothing, just felta--watching. Might be in my head. Let's go on. And don't hurry."

  It would have been possible to hurry, even with an eye on the compass.It would have been possible, Paul thought, to run in panic, fallwhimpering and waiting. But you wouldn't do it....

  No shape in this dim region could be right or wrong; the treesthemselves were no sweetly familiar beech or pine. They halted atsight of a new sprawling type of vine, uprooted where a break in theforest ceiling admitted more sunshine. The earth displayed hoof-printslike a pig's. Some scattered tuberous roots were marked by teeth;Dorothy sniffed one. "Spud with garlic for a papa." Paul pocketed asample. She said, "Not that Luci
fer cares, Doc, but what time is it?"

  "My watch says we've been walking fifteen minutes. Take it slow."Wright presently added: "I've had another glimpse. Not a good one.Furry, gray and white--white face, splashes of white on a gray bodyseven or eight feet tall. Human shape. We may be all right if we don'tbother him."

  "Or blunder into territory where he doesn't want us."

  "There is that, Paul."

  "Human shape," said Dorothy evenly. "How human?"

  "Very. Upright. Good-sized head.... Ah--hear that?" It was Ann'svoice, calling, from someplace where there should be sunlight. "Don'tanswer just yet--no sudden noises."

  Close to Paul, Dorothy whispered, "The baby--I don't want to tell theothers quite yet."

  That made it real--so real that in spite of a patch of beckoning bluePaul had to turn to her.

  Behind Wright, he saw it, among the pillars of the trees, retreatingin fluid slowness till it was only a black ear, part of a white-furredcheek, an iridescent green eye showing, like a cat's, no white. Butthe blue was also real....

  The edge of the forest was a mass of young growth fighting for thegold coin of sunlight. "Shield your faces"--Wright was panting--"couldbe poisonous leaves." They broke through to a red-green field, theslim silver of the undamaged boat, the certainty of friends, anexpanse of lake no longer blue but sickly white. The boat's nose wasthrust under an overhang of branches. Ann Bryan was unsteady and wan,but there was welcome in her gray eyes for Dorothy, who joined her atonce and whispered with her. Sears' fat affectionate face carried adetermined smile. Ed Spearman came forward, alert and commanding.Wright asked, "How long have you been out in the air?"

  "An hour." Ed was impatient. "Sealed overnight. Nothing in the boatfor a test of the air, no point in waiting. You----"

  "Okay." Wright watched brown wings over the lake. "What are those?"

  "Birds or some damn thing. The white on the lake is dead fish. Isuppose the ship blew under water or the impact killed them. OurGeiger says the water isn't radioactive. We haven't gone into themeadow--been waiting for you."

  In the south the meadow reached the horizon--twenty miles of it, Paulremembered from the air view, before jungle again took over. Near by,threads of smoke were rising straight from the grass. "Abandonedfires? We scared off----"

  "Maybe," Spearman said. "Seen no life except those birds."

  "Bat wings," Sears Oliphant remarked. "Mammalian, I think--oh my, yes.Can't have furry birds, you know, with a taxonomist in the family,hey?"

  Spearman shrugged. "Must get organized. How much damage, Paul?"

  "The boat itself. Both wings off, radio dead. Couldn't lock thedoor...." It was like an Earth landscape. Tall grass carried oatlikeruddy seed clusters on green stems. The lake was bordered by whitesand except close by, where jungle reached into water. There wascasual buzzing traffic above the grass, reminiscent of bees, wasps,flies. Far up, something drifted on motionless wings, circling. Andten or fifteen miles to the west there was the calm of hills--rounded,old, more green than blue in a sleepy haze, but to paint them, Paulthought, you would shade off into the purple. Paul went on, absently:"We'll have the charlesite of the wrecked boat of course. That givesthis one a theoretical twenty hours of jet. We have ammunition forlong enough to learn how to use bow and arrow, I think."

  Ann muttered, "Paul, don't----"

  "What?" Spearman was disgusted. "Oh, you could be right at that, Paul.Hard to realize.... Well, we must make some kind of camp."

  Wright began: "Some knowledge of the life around us----"

  "Oh my, yes----"

  "We'll have to make a camp before we can do any exploring, Doc. Here,out in the open. See anything in the woods?"

  "Something followed. More or less human----"

  "So we know the camp has to be in the open."

  "Do we, Ed?" Wright watched the distant bat wings. Spearman stared."Can't chance a forest we don't know."

  "Still, I mean to look things over a bit. Feel not so good, Ann?"

  "All right," she said, glancing from Wright to Spearman, silentlybegging to know: _Who is leader?_ "Slightly slap-happy, Doc."

  "Mm, sure." Wright hitched his rifle. "Going to look at that nearestsmoke. You come, Paul--or you, Ed. One of you should stay here."

  Spearman leaned against the lifeboat, still-faced. "Paul can go if hewants to. I think it's a risk and a waste of time."

  Paul watched him a moment, frightened not by a man whom he had neverquite been able to like, but by the withdrawal itself, the sense of abarrier to communication. _We start with a division on this firstmorning of the world...?_ Paul hugged his own rifle and followedWright into the long whisper of the grass.