Voor's world. The planet had once seemed so open and welcoming—but perhaps my kind were never meant to—I shook my head vigorously as if I could so flip away that insidious conclusion. Each and every world which my species had colonized had had one problem or another. That quality of need for mastery, which was a birth-part of us, was always so awakened into life to set us hammering some very hostile planets into earth-homes. No world was ever a paradise without any danger. In fact such might have been far worse a pitfall for my kind than the worst stone-fire-airless hell. We would only have atrophied there—become nothing.
I scratched the upstanding tuft of coarse mane-hair between Witol's ears and he snorted happily, butted me with near strength enough to knock me from my feet. Our fire was like a fading eye—and weariness reached into me. Anyway our exploration would be limited by our supplies, as I had already made clear to Illo. We must turn south as soon as the water in the tanks Witol shouldered during the day reached a level I had scarred across the sides.
Back at the fire I added the last of my twisted faggots of grass, and then stretched out, my blanket over me. Though that curious warmth which had been with us all day still seemed to reach out even this far into the plains.
I shifted unhappily on my bed. Though I was tired enough to sleep, and to a loper strange places were no deterrent to rest—as long as they were in the open (for we of the trails find it difficult to rest easy within confining walls)—still my busy thoughts would not still. I turned upon my back and lay looking up at the stars. So had I seen those on many nights. Only then I had not been—alone—I had tried to keep from me that feeling which had struck, attempted to overcome me, at my father's death.
Now I fought that battle once again. From the time I had been small—the time I could remember at all—he had worked to prepare me for this kind of loneliness. There are many accidents and ills which whittle away at the numbers of lopers. A man may be asked for at Portcity, perhaps spoken of when one loper met another on the trail—but his fate never known. I had been taught as best my father could manage to be self reliant. If he had mourned my mother, others dead in Mungo's Town, he had never done so openly. As I have said he was not a follower of religious belief which was built upon a formal creed and ritual. Yet he had said at one or two rare moments that he believed the life essence we knew was but a part of something else which had an existence beyond our comprehension, and that we must accept death as a door opening and not a gate slammed shut.
Illo had had less than I during the years since Voor's Grove had been doomed. No one of her kin had remained to keep her in touch with normal life. I thought of what she had said about her ordeal when they had tried to make her remember. That she had made a place for herself with her talent testified to her courage and the stability of her mind.
So my thoughts wound back to what she was doing this night—sleeping with the touch of that ill-omened thing she had found. Suppose I moved now—tried to free the chain from her while she slept—or did she even sleep? Was she in some kind of trance? Should I—could I take it—?
I wanted to do just that, yet I found that such an act was impossible. Though I struggled against that unseen compulsion there was no chance for me to move. Slowly, though my thoughts still spun, I closed my eyes and slept.
There was the Tangle straight before me, and behind—or rather in me a compelling force sending me straight ahead at the fearsome thorny hedge which was its outermost defense—thorns to pierce the flesh viciously, blind the eyes. I threw up my hands to protect my face, fought to free myself. Still I strode on as if my path was as open and free as the plains.
I must be right against the thorns now, I had surely covered that small stretch of open ground. I dropped the hand I used to shield my face. There was before me light—a light which waxed and waned as might an earth-bound moon—save that it was not ruddy as Voor's moon might be. Then, as my eyes adjusted to that flickering light, I saw no moon disc; rather a pillar, as if some humanoid form had been set alight and was moving. Of the Tangle there was no sign—only that light which glided away, drawing me after it—
My heart beat heavily, I was gasping for breath as if I were running, and in me there was such expectancy, such a drawing that—
"Bart! Bart!"
Out of somewhere came a force to fasten on me, making me reel back and forth. Something held me back when I must go. That figure ahead was gaining ground—if I lost sight of it—
"Bart!"
I was pulled, lifted—I was awake!
Illo knelt beside me, both her hands were tight on my shoulders as if she had been dragging my weight up—or away—
"I—let me go—"
"Not that way!" She spoke crisply, nor did she loose her hold. She kept her link between us as if fearing I would lapse into some unconscious state again.
I blinked, shook my head.
"You are here," she said slowly, accenting each word, as she might if a child had wakened crying in the night. "You are here—and now—"
Though what she meant I did not understand. Gone indeed was that throbbing light. Behind Illo's head the sky was grey, lightning—the sky I had seen many times.
"I—I was—the Tangle—" My words twisted, as if, when I attempted to find those which best explained the vividness of that dream, I could not find the proper ones.
"Not that way," she repeated. "That is what they want—we go our way, not theirs."
She loosed her hold on me at last and I sat up. This was the camp we had made. There were the banners of a new day showing above the horizon. The fire was burnt out, still I felt no chill. On the other side of the pile of ashes the three gars stood, their large eyes watching me, seeming to hold a measure of that same studying look which Illo kept upon me.
"They? Who are they?" I demanded.
She did not gesture with her hands, rather she turned her head a fraction to point with her chin.
"I do not know—save that there is a form of intelligence somewhere in there—one I cannot tap. Which is aware of us—though—though it fears and so it weaves traps—not this time to catch bodies but minds. Here—"
She reached to her belt, holding out the chain. It was a complete circlet now, I saw that somehow she had bent together two of the broken links to make it whole.
"This you wear—"
I made no attempt to take it from her. "Why? I don't want—"
"Only you can use it. It is adapted to a male principle."
"Use it how?"
"I said it was a key—it is. One which that waiting there has reason to fear, or at least dreads. No," she silenced some of my unasked questions, "I received no more impressions than that. It must be worn by a man, and it will get us in—"
"Through that?" The thorned brush of my dreams was perfectly visible now. "We'd need a blaster—"
"I wonder." She sat back on her heels, her attention turned to the brush wall. "How does this vegetation react to a stunner?"
"React to a stunner? There could be no reaction to such a weapon. The power of that reaches into the nervous system, completely relaxes all muscles. It affects only animals and men. A plant has no—"
She arose, still facing the Tangle rather than looking to me. "We do not truly know what such a growth as this may have. That which attacked the doomed places is surely alien. What if this is even more so? Will it cost you anything to try?"
I had the two charges in the weapon, a dozen more looped in my belt. There was also a bag of them in the gear Wobru had been carrying. It would not be any great loss to prove to her that such a thing was impossible.
"I'll try," I promised. "You learned nothing more from that?"
The necklet was still in her hands. She glanced down at it and then thrust it vigorously in my direction. "Fleeting impressions—none I could fasten upon. The last thoughts of he who wore it were so chaotic I could not read them. Only that he had been sent on a mission when some evil struck, so that he could not fulfill his duty. That overrides much o
f the rest—his last despair at failure. But it has much to do with the Tangle, that is a matter I am certain of. Also he was on his way there when death took him—and only a man can pick from this what is needed."
The last thing I wanted to do was to take that necklet, fasten it about my throat. Perhaps it was because I so shrank from that act my pride was aroused. Illo was used to dealing with things of her talent—the "unseen." She could accept this all as something which one must do, even as a Voorloper would inspan his wagon before he drew out from a camp. To her my squeaminess might seem without any base except craven fear of the unknown.
Well, I admitted to myself, that I did have. Still there was enough determination left in me so I must prove to myself, if not to her who might not understand, that I was not to be defeated by the unknown before I put up a struggle. Realizing that I must do this quickly, without stopping to consider what might happen, I caught the necklet from her, worried open the clasp and set it about my neck, making tight the fastening once again.
It fitted so well, lying just at the base of my throat, that it might have been fashioned for me. The collar of my hunting shirt was loose, since in this strange warmth I had not tightened the lacing thongs. So there was nothing between the smooth metal and my flesh. That inscribed foreplate lay directly in front.
A sudden thought crossed my mind—on some planets there were animals trained to serve men, animals with not the same grade of intelligence as the gars, or ones not so amiable. Those creatures bore the seal of their ownership—collars—some patterned with the name of the owner. Suppose—suppose this was such a collar and I had so voluntarily accepted subservience to a will I did not know and perhaps could not even understand? But I did not mention this to Illo.
She reached up when the necklet was in place and touched, with only fingertip, that plate at the base of my throat. The metal was not cool against my skin, instead it seemed to have the same temperature as my body.
"Duty—" she said the one word slowly, as if meditating on what it meant. "He was in such anguish of mind because of his duty—he tried to fight off death because he had not fulfilled what he must do."
"Could you tell who he was—or," I hesitated and then added, "what?"
She considered that question for what seemed to be a long moment.
"He was humanoid—I think—At least this fits you so well it might have been made for you. But his mind—it was different. Only his emotions were plain to read—that because they so rent him at the end. It all happened very long ago." She made a queer little gesture with both hands as if scattering something on the ground—perhaps fragments of all those lost years which had clung to the necklet until she decided it must be used.
We broke camp, loading the gars. Instead of ranging ahead today, the three beasts fell into single line behind us. They could have been in yoke to a small wagon. Nor did they break that line to graze. Illo, for I left the guide point to her, did not advance directly toward the portion of Tangle by our camp. Rather she set out again on a parallel route westward.
We had been tramping so for some time and the sun was already well up, when she halted abruptly, faced the Tangle wall. To my eyes this portion differed in no way from that we had surveyed along the way we had come. Yet she stared straight at the thorned brush and ordered:
"Try the stunner—here!" She stretched out one arm, her index finger pointing at a bush which overtopped my own head by a good half length of my body.
I drew my weapon, feeling slightly foolish, for I believed that its charge would only be wasted. However, I must use it, if for no other reason than to prove that fact to my own satisfaction as well as to her.
My pressure on the firing button was steady; I had set the power to top force. Now I swung the barrel of my weapon slightly, playing the invisible ray up and down the bush she had indicated. Nothing—just as I had thought. However, as I let the stunner slide back into its holster, she was running toward the bush.
"Thorns—!" I warned her.
She had already put out her hands, though I noted she did catch only the tips of the branches where their armament was the least. Then—
Had I not seen it I would not have believed that it might happen. Illo had given a jerk. The brush moved forward a little in answer to her tug, then wilted. That was the only word I could use to describe its sloughing downward, the seemingly instantaneous withering of leaf, the limpness of branch. There was a gap in the wall!
"Again!" She shouted that at me, her face flushed, her eyes alight. No mask on her now, she was all aroused eagerness. "Again!"
So I followed her orders; an inner bush withered, taking with it to the ground a huge matted mass of vine. We had the beginning of a path. However, the outer portion of the Tangle had yielded in the past to something far more potent than any stunner—blaster fire—only to regenerate, rising from the roots thicker, more deadly than before.
I reached the edge of the gap, threw out my arm and caught her, dragging her back.
"Wait—it may grow again!"
Her face showed a flash of anger, but she did not try to pass me. I had no idea how long it had been before the regeneration on those earlier expeditions. Still certainly it could not have been too long or the process would not have so impressed the would-be past explorers.
We waited. There was no change in the withered growth. I was as suspicious as I might have been with a stunned sand hound. For I could not shake off the feeling that perhaps this was a game—if you will—being played by something that was well prepared to defend itself and had successfully done so for generations.
No sign of life came, no movement of branch or even straightening of crumpled leaf. Illo turned on me:
"Would you wait away the day?" she demanded.
I wanted to say "yes, if need be." Yet I did not. As far as I knew from past records, and my father had indeed combed those, playing the tapes over and over again, the stunner had never even been considered as a weapon of possible use against the Tangle. Why should it have been? It could be that so simple a discovery would have made the expeditions free of its secrets long ago.
I checked the charge in my weapon carefully. About a quarter of it had been expended—and I did not know how far we might go—or what else could lie before us. Voorlopers are a mixture of the daring and the wary—that is, they must be if they continue to live. One part of me wanted to push forward, the other was uneasy—this answer was too simple.
"We must go!" Illo twisted away from me, started forward, planting her boots firmly on the first layer of wilted vegetation. I roused from my indecision and hurried on, elbowing by her, to once more spray the growth, watch it wither, grow limp, and sink to form a carpet. There was a snort from behind. I looked around and saw, to my true amazement, that Witol was coming too, his herd mates behind him.
Now I was aware of something else, as I stood and sprayed to open the way. There was a rustling through the Tangle, though I could not, in the pocket the stunner had opened, feel any breeze. I moved with the utmost caution, looking from side to side. The nodding flowers which had studded the villages of the dead were in my mind. Those had moved without any wind's help also. Was it the leaves, the branches, those strangling vines, which set up that sound here?
Nothing encroached on the path the stunner opened. In fact, I thought, though I could not be sure, that the growth seemed to edge back. If it had not before come in direct contact with the ray I wielded, it now had enough sensation, or intelligence of a sort, to fear contact. Surely the path was wider than the space I had rayed, wide enough so Illo and I advanced abreast and the gars had no trouble in single-filing behind us, not even their burdens of gear scraping so much as a leaf on either side.
We advanced slowly, for after each spraying I determined to wait a space to be sure there was no swift renewal of life. I had to refit the stunner twice with fresh units. When I looked back it was down a long tunnel, the other end of which had near disappeared. We could not keep on so forever. Eith
er we must find some natural clearing in this nightmare of an alien wood, or carve us one in which to rest.
That dank heat which had reached us even as we had only skirted the edge of the Tangle was far more oppressive here. Sweat ran down my face, lay under my shoulder pack to fret my shoulders. The half-healed scratches from the fight when I strove to get us and our gear out of the wagon stung furiously. Luckily there was not what I feared we might find here—no noxious insects swarmed about us to sting or bite.
Our progress became a set pattern: ray, wait, advance, ray, wait, advance—
Until—
A mass of the Tangle fell in the usual way to the ground, that ground which gave off a sour smell of its own. The disappearance of the growth left something standing—something which no stunner could possibly affect—a pillar of black stone—and it was no natural spur of rock either.