The Iron Breed

  Ayana wanted to turn her head, not watch the visa-screen. But that she could not do. It had a horrible fascination which held her in thrall.

  “Without a signal we cannot find a landing site—” Jacel paused. “Wait! I am picking up something—a signal of sorts!”

  They were once more in a day zone. Ayana could mark the shape of an ocean below. The land masses on this world were more or less evenly divided, two in each hemisphere. And they were over one such mass as Jacel reported his signal.

  “Fading—it is very weak.” His voice sounded exasperated. “I shall try to tune it in again—”

  “A message?” Tan asked. “Challenging who we are and what we are doing in their skies?” He spoke as if he expected that hostile reaction. But why? Unless the memory of the fears of the First Ship people touched him, even as it had her, Ayana thought.

  But if that were so, if they were to be greeted as enemies—how could they hope to land? Better by far to abort—Though she was sure Tan would never consent to that.

  Jacel, using the ship's resources, had another answer. The signal, he was certain, was mechanically beamed and carried no message. And as such it could have only one purpose—to guide in some visitor from space.

  Hearing that, they made their decision, though not without reservations on Ayana's part, to use the beacon as a guide. As Massa pointed out, they could not continue in orbit indefinitely and they had no other lead. But they prepared for a rough landing. The computer gave no answers, only continued to gulp in all the information their instruments supplied.

  With every protect device alerted, Ayana lay in her bunk. She shut her eyes, and would not look at the screen, glad in a cowardly fashion that it was not her duty to be in the control cabin, where she would have to watch.

  The usual discomforts of landing shut out everything beyond the range of her own body, and she tensed and then relaxed. She had done this many times in practice, yet the truth differed so much from the simulation. A second or so later she blacked out.

  As one waking out of a nightmare she regained consciousness. Then duty made its demands, and she fumbled with the webbing cocooning her body. It was only when she wriggled out of that protection that the silence of the ship impressed itself upon her; all the throbbing life in it was gone. They must be down, for the engines were shut off.

  Not only down, but they had made a good landing, for the cabin was level. They must have ridden in the deter rockets well. So Jacel had been right to trust the beam.

  Ayana stood up and felt the grip of gravity. She took a step or two, feeling oddly uncertain at first, holding to a bunk support, looking at Tan.

  He lay inert, a thin trickle of blood oozing from one corner of his mouth. But even as she raised her hand to him, he opened his eyes, those wide gray eyes, and they focused on her.

  “We made it!” He must have taken in at once the silence of the cabin, the fact that it was in correct position for a good landing. His hands sped to unhook his webbing.

  “You are all right—?”

  “Never better! We made it!” And the way he repeated that gave her a clue to his thoughts. Perhaps for all his outward show of confidence, Tan had had doubts, strong doubts after all.

  He was out of the cabin ahead of her, already climbing for the control cabin before she could follow. Voices from there announced that the two responsible for what Ayana privately believed to be a miracle—their safe landing—were already rejoicing over that.

  The scene outside as shown on the visa-screen quieted them. They had indeed landed in what must have once been a spaceport, for the scars of old deter and rise rocket fire were plain to be marked as the picture slowly changed. However, there were buildings also, towering bulks such as they had never seen on Elhorn.

  To their sight, though those buildings stood at a distance, there were no signs of erosion or the passing of time. But neither were there any signs of life. And Jacel, monitoring his com, shook his head.

  “Nothing. No broadcast except the signal which brought us in. And it is set—”

  Set by whom, why? The questions in Ayana's mind must be shared by her crew mates. If they had landed on a silent and deserted world—what had rendered it so?

  Massa was consulting other instruments. “Air—nothing wrong with that. We can breathe it. The gravity is a point or two less than we have known. Otherwise, this is enough like Elhorn to suit us.”

  “Like Elhorn? With all that to explore!” Tan waved a hand at the screen where more and more of the huge building complex showed as the pickup slowly turned. This must be a city, Ayana decided. Though it pointed higher into the sky with its towers and blocks than any city did—or should.

  To look at it aroused a queer repugnance in her, a feeling of reluctance to approach it. As if it were some crouching animal ready to pounce, perhaps actually ingest what came too near. She wanted none of those walls and towers. Yet on the screen the constantly moving scene proved that their landing site seemed to be completely surrounded by those buildings.

  She could see no green of vegetation. No growth had seemingly dared to invade this place of stone. Nor was there any other ship berthed here.

  “I think,” Jacel said as he leaned back in his seat, “this place is deserted—”

  “Don't be too sure of that!” Tan retorted. “We could be watched right now. They might well have some reason to want us to believe no one is here. Just because you flashed out the old code, or what we believe is the old code, does not mean that they could understand it. How long has it been since the First Ships lifted? We have been on Elhorn five hundred planet years, but we have no idea how long was their voyage out, or ours back. A lot can change even in a single generation.”

  He pointed out the obvious, but Ayana wished he would not. With every word he spoke those distant windows seemed more and more like cold eyes spying on them. And in all that mass of buildings there could be many hiding places for those who had no wish to be found.

  “We cannot just stay here in the ship,” Jacel said. “Either we explore here—or we lift, try for a landing somewhere else.”

  Ayana saw her head shake mirrored by the others. Now that they were down, the best thing to do was abide by their choice—explore.

  Fiercely she fought her fears under control. Even if the people were dead there would be records. And those records could hold some secret which might halt the Cloud or otherwise aid those who had struggled to send them here. They had a duty that was not to be balked by shadows and uneasy fears. Some rebel emotion, though, replied to that argument; this fear she felt was not small, and she must work hard to subdue it.

  They ran out the ramp. Tan opened the arms locker, and they all wore blasters at their belts as they went out. Massa remained on guard at the hatch, ready to activate the alarms at any sign of danger. There was a wind, but the sun was warm. Ayana could detect no odor in the breeze against her face. It was like any wind, and this might be a fall morning on her own home world.

  “A long time—” Jacel had trotted over to the nearest burn scar, was down on one knee by that scorched fringe. “This was done a long time ago.” He held a radiation detect, and its answering bleat was low.

  Tan stood with his hands on his hips, turning slowly as if he himself was a visa-recorder. “They were builders.” And there was excitement in his voice as he added: “What a world to claim! An empty world waiting for us!”

  “Do not be too sure.” Jacel joined him. “I have a feeling—” He laughed as one startled and a little dismayed by his own thoughts. “I feel we are being watched.”

  Tan's answering laugh had none of the other's apologetic undertones. He threw out his arms wide and high. “Ghosts—shadows—let them watch us if they will. I say mankind has come again to claim his home! And—let us get busy out there”—he waved to the buildings—“and find out what awaits us.”

  But training remained to tame his exuberance a little. He did not indeed urge them to instant invasion of the watching,
waiting city (if city it was). He was content to wait for their agreement that that must be done. Instead he got busy in the storage compartments, transporting to the open the parts of the flitter which must be assembled for a flight of discovery.

  It was well into late afternoon by the signs before the framework of the small flyer was together. Tan was still working on it when Jacel appeared, stringing behind him a length of cord, while stacked in his arms were small boxes. Tan, perched on the nose of the flyer, hailed him.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Seeing that we—or the flitter—have no unheralded visitors. Nights can be dark.” Jacel set down his load. Without being asked, Ayana came to help him place the detects, string cord between them to complete a circle about the flitter.

  This was one of the best warning devices they carried. Nothing could cross that circle of cord once it was set, for it created a repelling field of force. Not only that, but any attempt to approach would ring alarms in the ship.

  “A trap for ghosts,” Tan said. But he did not protest as Jacel carefully triggered each box.

  Tan finished and left the flitter, and Jacel made the final setting. They were safe within the ship once the ramp was in. For there was no possible way of attacking those holed up in a spacer; the ship was a fort in itself.

  However, Tan seemed reluctant to follow the others up the ramp, to seal up for the night. He turned to look at the towers.

  “Tomorrow!” He made a promise of that one word, spoken loud enough for Ayana to hear. Though whether he meant it for her or only himself she did not try to learn.

  Tomorrow, yes—there would be no holding Tan back then. He would circle out, looping wider and wider with every turn, relaying back all the information the instruments on the flitter could pick up. Then they would learn whether the city was truly dead or not, for among those devices was one which registered the presence of life force. They were not altogether helpless—

  Now why had she thought that? As if they were indeed under siege and had only the worst to fear? Ayana ran her tongue across her lips. She had been passed as emotionally stable, enough so (and the tests had been as severe as those preparing them could devise) to be selected for the voyage. But the minute she had entered this solar system, it was as if she had been attacked by forces which tampered with her emotions, threatened that stability in ways she could not understand. She was a medic—a trained scientist—yet she feared windows! Now she once more fought those fears—pushed them back—strove to conquer them.

  They ate, of ship's rations which tonight seemed even less satisfying and tasteless. Would they find fruit, or perhaps other food they could stomach here? She would be a party on the second or third trip—to be sure no ghost of disease lingered. She would have to go muffled and clumsy in a protect suit, but that she had practiced on Elhorn.

  “Tan—Ayana.” Massa's voice over the com and the excitement in it made Ayana reach for the blaster on her discarded belt. “Look at the screen!”

  Windows were alight! The dark ringing the ship was not complete. Apparently Massa had set the pickup on the move again to give them the changing view. There was one lighted tower and then another. Not all were alight. Ayana managed to be objective after her first startled reaction. There were blocks of lights, then again scattered single ones. Some buildings were altogether dark. Such uneven lighting hinted of inhabitants. There were people there—there had to be!

  “Tan—do you see?” Ayana's question was a kind of plea against his plans for tomorrow. He must not take off alone, cross that grim, watching place, in the light flitter. That had a shield, of course, every protect device they could give it. But above that giant, and she was sure hostile, pile—

  Those lights, surely Tan would accept them as evidence of life. They could lift ship, find one of those all-dark cities they had marked from space. That was only sensible. But she knew she would not have a chance to argue that when Tan answered:

  “Doesn't mean a thing. Do not worry, Big Eyes. Those are probably automatic and some circuits have long gone. Anyway, I have the force shield.”

  Even his use of the private name he had for her (which she cherished because of the sweet intimacy it stood for)—even that hurt. It was as if he deliberately used it to scoff at her concern. Ayana closed her eyes to those lights, tried to find sleep and perhaps dream of the safety of Elhorn before this wild venture became her life.

  11

  The sudden clamor outside this new corridor was one Furtig had heard before, which set fur erect along his spine, flattened his ears to his skull, parted his lips to hiss. He caught an echo of that hiss from Ku-La. Yet in a second or two both realized that this was not the hunting cry of a Barker pack.

  No, it held pain and fear rather than the hot triumph of the hunter upon his quarry. Furtig, belly down on the floor of the corridor, wriggled forward to peer through the transparent outer wall.

  There was the Barker, threshing wildly about, one foot—no, a foot and a hand caught in something. He was in such a frenzy that he snapped with his well-fanged jaws, striving to cut what held him. Then his head was caught! His flailing body fell, or was jerked, to the ground. Seconds later he was so trapped in the substance which had entangled him that he could not move save in spasmodic jerks, each of which worsened his plight. His baying came in muffled snorts.

  They came running from concealment where even Furtig's sharp sight had not detected them. Rattons—a gray-brown wave of them. They piled on the Barker, seeming to have no fear of what had felled him, and began to drag the captive away.

  Toward this building! Furtig hissed again. He had not smelled Ratton, seen Ratton, heard Ratton, since they had come through that break in the wall into these corridors. But if the Rattons were towing their catch into this structure, it was time to be gone.

  He crept back to Ku-La, reporting what he had witnessed.

  “A stick-in trap. They coat the ground with something you cannot see or scent, but it entangles you speedily,” the other said.

  “Yet they went to the Barker, handled him without getting stuck—”

  “True. We do not know how they are able to do that. Perhaps they put something on themselves to repel the trap. We only know—to our sorrow—how it works on us!”

  “A Barker in the lairs—” Furtig picked up the bag of tapes, was ready to help Ku-La on. “A scout?”

  “Perhaps. Or they may also seek knowledge.” Ku-La gave an involuntary cry as he pulled himself up. He was limping very badly, keeping going by will alone, Furtig knew.

  His admiration for the other's determination and fight against pain had grown. No longer did he wonder why he had endangered his mission to rescue Ku-La; he accepted him as a comrade like Foskatt.

  “If they bring the Barker here,” Furtig began warningly. It seemed cruel to keep urging Ku-La on, but Furtig had lately picked up the homing signal in his mind, knew their goal, and also that they dared waste no time in these dangerous corridors.

  “True. Though Rattons seem to have little liking for going aloft,” Ku-La commented, drawing small breaths between words. “They keep mainly to the lower ways.”

  They rounded a curve in the wall. Furtig stayed close to the inner wall; that long expanse of almost invisible surface on the outer made him uneasy. Today that feeling was worse as the wind and rain beat hard in gusts which vibrated in the walls about them.

  But—as they rounded that curve, looked out upon a new expanse of open, Furtig came to a halt—Light—a moving light!

  It rose from the ground, soaring high as if a flying thing carried a huge hand lamp. Now it danced back and forth erratically in the sky, swooping out and away. And through the curtain of the rain Furtig could not follow it far.

  Ku-La made a sharp sound. “A sky-ship—a sky-ship of the Demons!”

  Furtig did not want to accept that. In fact at that moment he discovered he had never really believed in Demon return. But there was such conviction in Ku-La's identification that belief was
now forced on him.

  The return of the Demons! Even in the caves of the People such a foreboding had been used as a horrible warning for the young. But as one grew older, one no longer could be frightened so. Only enough remained of the early chill of such tales to make one's blood run faster at such a time as this.

  One ship—a scout? Just as the People sent one warrior, two, three, ahead to test the strength of the enemy, the lay of the land, how it might be used for offense or defense before a clan moved into hunt?

  Such a scout could be cut off. And, with small clans, the loss of a warrior was warning enough. They fell back, sought another trail. No tribe was large enough to take the loss of seasoned warriors as less than a major calamity.

  Only, in the old tales the Demons had been countless. Cutting off a single scout would not discourage a migrating tribe with many warriors. Gammage might have an answer; he was the only one among the People now who would.

  “We must hurry—” Furtig said, though he still watched for that light marking the Demon ship. He leaped back toward the inner wall. No light, yet something had almost brushed the rain-wet outer wall—something far larger than any flying thing he had ever seen. Luckily there were no wall lights here, nothing except the wan daylight. Perhaps they were lucky, and the flying thing in its swift passage had not seen them. For Furtig had the dire feeling that it might possess the power to smash through the transparent wall, scoop them out, were such action desired.

  “Move!” He shoved Ku-La with his free hand. The other needed no urging; he was already hobbling at the best pace he had shown during their long, painful journey. As if the sight of that Demon thing had spurred him to transcend the wounds he bore.

  They reached a second curve in the corridor, and this time Furtig gave a sigh of relief. For that transparent wall which made him feel so vulnerable vanished, there were solid barriers on either side.

  That relief was very short, for they came soon to one of those bridges in the air. Furtig crouched, peering into the outer storm, his hands cupped over his eyes. What made his disappointment the greater was that they were now close to their goal. For he recognized the tower at the other end of the bridge as the building in which he and Foskatt had tested the communication box. They need only cross this span and they would be in their, or Furtig's home territory.