4. SORTIE
Five days later they came up from the south so that this time Shann'sview of the Terran camp was from a different angle. At first sight therehad been little change in the general scene. He wondered if the alienswere using the Terran dome shelters themselves. Even in the twilight itwas easy to pick out such landmarks as the com dome with the shaft of abroadcaster spearing from its top and the greater bulk of the supplywarehouse.
"Two of their small flyers down on the landing field...." Thorvaldmaterialized from the shadow, his voice a thread of whisper.
By Shann's side the wolverines were moving restlessly. Since Taggi'sattack on the Throg neither beast would venture near any site where theycould scent the aliens. This was the nearest point to which the mencould urge either animal, which was a disappointment, for the wolverineswould have been an excellent addition to the surprise sortie theyplanned for tonight, halving the danger for the men.
Shann ran his fingers across the coarse fur on the animals' shoulders,exerting a light pressure to signal them to wait. But he was not sure oftheir obedience. The foray was a crazy idea, and Shann wondered againwhy he had agreed to it. Yet he had gone along with Thorvald, evensuggested a few modifications and additions of his own, such as thecontents of the crude leaf sack now resting between his knees.
Thorvald flitted away, seeking his own post to the west. Shann was stillwaiting for the other's signal when there arose from the camp a sound tochill the flesh of any listener, a wail which could not have come fromthe throat of any normal living thing, intelligent being or animal.Ululating in ear-torturing intensity, the cry sank to a faint, ominousecho of itself, to waver up the scale again.
The wolverines went mad. Shann had witnessed their quick kills in thewilds, but this stark ferocity of spitting, howling rage was new. Theyanswered that challenge from the camp, streaking out from under hishands. Yet both animals skidded to a stop before they passed the firstdome and were lost in the gloom. A spark glowed for an instant to hisright; Thorvald was ready to go, so Shann had no time to try and recallthe animals.
He fumbled for those balls of soaked moss in his leaf bag. The chemicalsmell from them blotted out that alien mustiness which the wind broughtfrom the campsite. Shann readied the first sopping mess in his sling,snapped his fire sparker at it, and had the ball awhirl for a tossalmost in one continuous movement. The moss burst into fire as it curvedout and fell.
To a witness it might have seemed that the missile materialized out ofthe air, the effect being better than Shann had hoped.
A second ball for the sling--spark ... out ... down. The first hadsmashed on the ground near the dome of the com station, the force ofimpact flattening it into a round splatter of now fiercely burningmaterial. And his second, carefully aimed, lit two feet beyond.
Another wail tearing at the nerves. Shann made a third throw, a fourth.He had an audience now. In the light of those pools of fire the Throgswere scuttling back and forth, their hunched bodies casting weirdshadows on the dome walls. They were making efforts to douse the fires,but Shann knew from careful experimentation that once ignited the stuffhe had skimmed from the lip of one of the hot springs would go onburning as long as a fraction of its viscid substance remainedunconsumed.
Now Thorvald had gone into action. A Throg suddenly halted, struggledfrantically, and toppled over into the edge of a fire splotch, legslooped together by the coils of the curious weapon Thorvald had puttogether on their first night of partnership. Three round stones ofcomparable weight had each been fastened at the end of a vine cord, andthose cords united at a center point. Thorvald had demonstrated theeffectiveness of his creation by bringing down one of the small "deer"of the grasslands, an animal normally fleet enough to feel safe fromboth human and animal pursuit. And those weighted ropes now trapped theThrog with the same efficiency.
Having shot his last fireball, Shann ran swiftly to take up a newposition, downgrade and to the east of the domes. Here he put intoaction another of the primitive weapons Thorvald had devised, a spearhurled with a throwing stick, giving it double range and twice asforceful penetration power. The spears themselves were hardly more thancrudely shaped lengths of wood, their points charred in the fire.Perhaps these missiles could neither kill nor seriously wound. But morethan one thudded home in a satisfactory fashion against the curving backcarapace or the softer front parts of a Throg in a manner whichcertainly shook up and bruised the target. And one of Shann's victimswent to the ground, to lie kicking in a way which suggested he had beenmore than just bruised.
Fireballs, spears.... Thorvald had moved too. And now down into thesomewhat frantic melee of the aroused camp fell a shower of slimweighted reeds, each provided with a clay-ball head. The majority ofthose balls broke on landing as the Terrans had intended. So, throughthe beetle smell of the aliens, spread the acrid, throat-parching fumesof the hot spring water. Whether those fumes had the same effect uponThrog breathing apparatus as they did upon Terran, the attackers couldnot tell, but they hoped such a bombardment would add to the generalconfusion.
Shann began to space the hurling of his crude spears with more care,trying to place them with all the precision of aim he could muster.There was a limit to their amount of varied ammunition, although theyhad dedicated every waking moment of the past few days to manufactureand testing. Luckily the enemy had had none of their energy beams at thedomes. And so far they had made no move to lift their flyers forretaliation blasts.
But the Throgs were pulling themselves into order. Blaster fire cut thedusk. Most of the aliens were now flat on the ground, sending a creepingline of fire into the perimeter of the camp area. A dark form movedbetween Shann and the nearest patch of burning moss. The Terran raised aspear to the ready before he caught a whiff of the pungent scent emittedby a wolverine hot with battle rage. He whistled coaxingly. With theThrogs eager to blast any moving thing, the animals were in danger ifthey prowled about the scene.
That blunt head moved. Shann caught the glint of eyes in a furred mask;it was either Taggi or his mate. Then a puff of mixed Throng andchemical scent from the camp must have reached the wolverine. The animalcoughed and fled westward, passing Shann.
Had Thorvald had time and opportunity to make his planned raid on thesupply dome? Time during such an embroilment was hard to measure, andShann could not be sure. He began to count aloud, slowly, as they hadagreed. When he reached one hundred he would begin his retreat; on twohundred he was to run for it, his goal the river a half mile from thecamp.
The stream would take the fugitives to the sea where fiords cut thecoastline into a ragged fringe offering a wealth of hiding places.Throgs seldom explored any territory on foot. For them to venture intothat maze would be putting themselves at the mercy of the Terrans theyhunted. And their flyers could comb the air above such a rockywilderness without result.
Shann reached the count of one hundred. Twice a blaster bolt singedground within distance close enough to make him wince, but most of thefire carried well above his head. All of his spears were gone, save forone he had kept, hoping for a last good target. One of the Throgs whoappeared to be directing the fire of the others was facing Shann'sposition. And on pure chance that he might knock out that leader, Shannchose him for his victim.
The Terran had no illusions concerning his own marksmanship. The most hecould hope for, he thought, was to have the primitive weapon thud homepainfully on the other's armored hide. Perhaps, if he were very lucky,he could knock the other from his clawed feet. But that chance whichhovers over any battlefield turned in Shann's favor. At just the rightmoment the Throg stretched his head up from the usual hunched positionwhere the carapace extended over his wide shoulders to protect one ofthe alien's few vulnerable spots, the soft underside of his throat. Andthe fire-sharpened point of the spear went deep.
Throgs were mute, or at least none of them had ever uttered a vocalsound to be reported by Terrans. This one did not cry out. But hestaggered forward, forelimbs up, clawed digits pulling at the wooden pint
ransfixing his throat just under the mandible-equipped jaw, holding hishead at an unnatural angle. Without seeming to notice the others of hiskind, the Throg came on at a shambling run, straight at Shann as if hecould actually see through the dark and had marked down the Terran forpersonal vengeance. There was something so uncanny about that forwarddash that Shann retreated. As his hand groped for the knife at his belthis boot heel caught in a tangle of weed and he struggled for balance.The wounded Throg, still pulling at the spear shaft protruding above theswelling barrel of his chest, pounded on.
Shann sprawled backward and was caught in the elastic embrace of a bush,so he did not strike the ground. He fought the grip of prickly branchesand kicked to gain solid earth under his feet. Then again he heard thatpiercing wail from the camp, as chilling as it had been the first time.Spurred by that, he won free. But he could not turn his back on thewounded Throg, keeping rather a sidewise retreat.
Already the alien had reached the dark beyond the rim of the camp. Hisprogress now was marked by the crashing through low brush. Two of theThrogs back on the firing line started up after their leader. Shanncaught a whiff of their odor as the wounded alien advanced with thesingle-mindedness of a robot.
It would be best to head for the river. Tall grass twisted about theTerran's legs as he began to run. In spite of the gloom, he hesitated tocross that open space. At night Warlock's peculiar vegetation displayeda very alien attribute--ten ... twenty varieties of grass, plant, andtree emitted a wan phosphorescence, varying in degree, but affordingeach an aura of light. And the path before Shann now was dotted bysplotches of that radiance, not as brilliant as the chemical-born flamesthe attackers had kindled in the camp, but as quick to betray the unwarywho passed within their dim circles. And there had never been any reasonto believe that Throg powers of sight were less than human; there wasperhaps some evidence to the contrary. Shann crouched, charting theclumps ahead for a zigzag course which would take him to at leastmomentary safety in the river bed.
Perhaps a mile downstream was the transport the Terrans had cobbledtogether no earlier than this afternoon, a raft Thorvald had professedto believe would support them to the sea which lay some fifty Terranmiles to the west. But now he had to cover that mile.
The wolverines? Thorvald? There was one lure which might draw theanimals on to the rendezvous. Taggi had brought down a "deer" justbefore they had left the raft. And instead of allowing both beasts tofeast at leisure, Shann had lashed the carcass to the shaky platform ofwood and brush, putting it out to swing in the current, though stillmoored to the bank.
Wolverines always cached that part of the kill which they did notconsume at the first eating, usually burying it. He had hoped that toleave the carcass in such a way would draw both animals back to the raftwhen they were hungry. And they had not fed particularly well that day.
Thorvald? Well, the Survey officer had made it very plain during thepast five days of what Shann had come to look upon as an uneasypartnership that he considered himself far abler to manage in the field,while he had grave doubts of Shann's efficiency in the direction ofsurvival potential.
The Terran started along the pattern of retreat he had laid out to theriver bed. His heart pounded as he ran, not because of the physicaleffort he was expending, but because again from the camp had come thatblood-freezing howl. A lighter line marked the lip of the cut in whichthe stream was set, something he had not foreseen. He threw himself downto crawl the last few feet, hugging the earth.
That very pale luminescence was easily accounted for by what lay below.Shann licked his lips and tasted the sting of sap smeared on his faceduring his struggle with the bushes. While the strip of meadow behindhim now had been spotted with light plants, the cut below showed analmost solid line of them stringing willow-wise along the water's edge.To go down at this point was simply to spotlight his presence for anyThrog on his trail. He could only continue along the upper bank, hopingto finally find an end to the growth of luminescent vegetation below.
Shann was perhaps five yards from the point where he had come to theriver, when a commotion behind made him freeze and turn his headcautiously. The camp was half hidden, and the fires there must be dying.But a twisting, struggling mass was rolling across the meadow in hisgeneral direction.
Thorvald fighting off an attack? The wolverines? Shann drew his legsunder him, ready to erupt into a counter-offensive. He hesitatedbetween drawing stunner or knife. In his brush with the injured Throg atthe wreck the stunner had had little impression on the enemy. And now hewondered if his blade, though it was super-steel at its toughest, couldpierce any joint in the armored bodies of the aliens.
There was surely a fight in progress. The whole crazily weaving blotcollapsed and rolled down upon three bright light plants. Dull sheen ofThrog casing was revealed ... no sign of fur, or flesh, or clothing. Twoof the aliens battling? But why?
One of those figures got up stiffly, bent over the huddle still on theground, and pulled at something. The wooden shaft of Shann's spear waswanly visible. And the form on the ground did not stir as that wasjerked loose. The Throg leader dead? Shann hoped so. He slid his knifeback into the sheath, tapped the hilt to make sure it was firmly inplace, and crawled on. The river, twisting here and there, was apromising pool of dusky shadow ahead. The bank of willow-things wascoming to an end, and none too soon. For when he glanced back again hesaw another Throg run across the meadow, and he watched them lift theirfellow, carrying him back to camp.
The Throgs might seem indestructible, but he had put an end to one,aided by luck and a very rough weapon. With that to bolster hisself-confidence to a higher notch, Shann dropped by cautious degreesover the bank and down to the water's edge. When his boots splashed intothe oily flood he began to tramp downstream, feeling the pull of thewater, first ankle high and then about his calves. This early in theseason they did hot have to fear floods, and hereabouts the stream waswide and shallow, save in mid-current at the center point.
Twice more he had to skirt patches of light plants, and once a youngtree stood bathed in radiance with a pinkish tinge instead of the usualghostly gray. Within the haze which tented the drooping branches,flitted small glittering, flying things; and the scent of its half-openbuds was heavy on the air, neither pleasant nor unpleasant in Shann'snostrils, merely different.
He dared to whistle, a soft call he hoped would carry along the cutbetween the high banks. But, though he paused and listened until itseemed that every cell in his thin body was occupied in that act, heheard no answering call from the wolverines, nor any suggestion thateither the animals or Thorvald were headed in the direction of the raft.
What was he going to do if none of the others joined him downstream?Thorvald had said not to linger there past daylight. Yet Shann knew thatunless he actually sighted a Throg patrol splashing after him he wouldwait until he made sure of the others' fate. Both Taggi and Togi were asimportant to him as the Survey officer. Perhaps more so, he told himselfnow, because he understood them to a certain degree and foundcompanionship in their undemanding company which he could not claim fromthe man.
Why _did_ Thorvald insist upon their going on to the seashore? ToShann's mind his own first plan of holing up back in the easternmountains was better. Those heights had as many hiding places as thefiord country. But Thorvald had suddenly become so set on this westwardtrek that he had given in. As much as he inwardly rebelled when he tookthem, he found himself obeying the older man's orders. It was only whenhe was alone, as now, that he began to question both Thorvald's motivesand his authority.
Three sprigs of a light bush set in a triangle. Shann paused and thenclimbed out on the bank, shaking the water from his boots as Taggi mightshake such drops from a furred limb. This was the sign they had set tomark their rendezvous point, but....
Shann whirled, drawing his stunner. The raft was a dark blob on thesurface of the water some feet farther on. And now it was bobbing up anddown violently. That was not the result of any normal tug of current. Heheard an indi
gnant squeal and relaxed with a little laugh. He need nothave worried about the wolverines; that bait had drawn them all right.Both of them were now engaged in eating, though they had to conducttheir feast on the rather shaky foundation of the makeshift transport.
They paid no attention as he waded out, pulling at the anchor cord as hewent. The wind must have carried his familiar scent to them. As thewater climbed to his shoulders Shann put one hand on the outmost log ofthe raft. One of the animals snarled a warning at being disturbed. Orhad that been at him?
Shann stood where he was, listening intently. Yes, there was a splashingsound from upstream. Whoever followed his own recent trail was taking nocare to keep that pursuit a secret, and the pace of the newcomer wasfast enough to spell trouble.
Throgs? Tensely the Terran waited for some reaction from the wolverines.He was sure that if the aliens had followed him, both animals would givewarning. Save when they had gone wild upon hearing that strange wailfrom the camp, they avoided meeting the enemy.
But from all sounds the animals had not stopped feeding. So the otherwas no beetle-head. On the other hand, why would Thorvald so advertisehis coming, unless the need for speed was greater than caution? Shanndrew taut the mooring cord, bringing out his knife to saw through thattough length. A figure passed the three-sprig signal, ran onto the raft.
"Lantee?" The call came in a hoarse, demanding whisper.
"Here."
"Cut loose. We have to get out of here!"
Thorvald flung himself forward, and together the men scrambled up on theraft. The mangled carcass plunged into the water, dislodged by theirefforts. But before the wolverines could follow it, the mooring vinesnapped, and the river current took them. Feeling the raft sway andbegin to spin, the wolverines whined, crouched in the middle of what nowseemed a very frail craft.
Behind them, far away but too clear, sounded that eerie howling, toppingthe sigh of the night wind.
"I saw----" Thorvald gasped, pausing as if to catch full lungfuls of airto back his words, "they have a 'hound!' That's what you hear."