CHAPTER VII
_The Red Swarm_
It was a matter of a half hour later when Harkness ordered them alloutside. He had accepted Kreiss as an addition to their ranks and hadmade himself plain to Schwartzmann.
To the scientist he said. "You remarked that no ship could hold twocommanding pilots: that goes for an expedition like this, too. I am incommand. If you will take orders we will be mighty glad to have you withus."
And to Schwartzmann, in a different tone: "I am sparing you and yourmen. I ought to shoot you down, but I won't. And I don't expect you tounderstand why; any decency such as that would beyond you.
"But I am letting you live. This world is big enough to hold us both,and pretty soon I will tell you what part of it you can live in. Andthen remember this one thing, Schwartzmann--get this straight!--you keepout of my way. I will show you a valley where you and your men can stay.And if ever you leave that valley I will hunt you down as I would one ofthe beasts that you will see in this world."
Chet had to repress a little smile that was twitching at his lips; italways amused him hugely to see Harkness when roused.
"Turn us out to starve?" Schwartzmann was demanding. "You would dothat?"
"There will be food there," said Harkness curtly: "suit yourself aboutstarving. Only stay where I put you!"
Back of the others of Schwartzmann's men, the pilot, Max, was stooping.Half-hidden he moved toward the doorway to the rear cabin and to thestorage-room and gun-rooms beyond. Chet glimpsed him in his silentretreat.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you, Max," he advised quietly."Personally, I think you're all getting off too well; as for myself, I'msort of itching for an excuse to let off this gun."
It was here that Harkness turned to the open port.
"Put them out!" he snapped. "You, Chet, go out first and line them up asthey come--but, no, wait: there may be gas out there."
* * * * *
Chet was beside the port; a breath from outside came to him sweetlyfragrant. A shadow was moving across the smooth lava rock. "A bird!" hethought. Then a flash of red in startling vividness swept past the opendoor: it was like a quick flicker of living flame. He could not see whatit was, but it was alive--and this answered his question.
"Send 'em along," he said; "it seems all right now." He stepped throughthe opening in the heavily insulated walls.
It was early morning, yet the sun was already hot upon the smoothexpanse of the lava flow. Some ancient eruption from the distant peaksthat hemmed in the valley had sent out this flood of molten rock; it washard and black now. But, to the right, where the valley went on and up,and rose gently and widened as it rose, a myriad of red flames and jetsof steam told of the inner fires that still raged.
These were the fumeroles where only a month before he and Harkness andDiane had found clustering savages who were more apes than men; they hadbeen roasting meat at these flames. And below, where the lava stopped,was the open glade where the little stream splashed and sparkled: in thehigh rock walls that hemmed the glade the caves showed black. And,beyond the open ground, was the weird forest, where tree-trunks ofghostly white were laced with a network of red veining. They grew close,those spectral columns, in a shadow-world beneath the high roof ofgreenery they supported.
Here was the scene of an earlier adventure. Chet was swept up in theflood of recollections born of familiar sights and scents. HerrSchwartzmann, cursing steadily in a guttural tongue, came from the shipto bring Chet's thoughts back to the more immediate problem.
* * * * *
There were five others who followed--the pilot and Schwartzmann's fourmen. There had been another, but his body lay huddled upon the barelava. He had followed his master far--and here, for him, was the end.
Kreiss' pistol was still in his hand as he came after. Harkness andDiane were last.
Harkness pointed with his gun. "Over there!" he ordered. "Get them awayfrom the ship, Chet. Line them up down below there; all the ape-men havecleared out since we had our last fight. Get them down by the stream.Diane and I will bring them some supplies, and then we can send them offfor good."
Chet sent Kreiss down first, where an easy slope made the descent asimple matter; it had been the bow-wave of the molten lava--here was theend of that inundation of another age--and the slope was wrinkled andcreased. Schwartzmann followed; then the others. The last man was readyto descend when Diane and Walt came back.
They had packages of compressed foods. This was all right with Chet, buthe raised his eyebrows inquiringly at sight of several boxes ofammunition and an extra gun. Harkness smiled good-naturedly.
"I will give them one pistol," Walt told him, "and a good supply ofshells. We don't need to be afraid of them with only one gun, and wecan't leave the poor devils at the mercy of every wild beast."
"You're the boss," said Chet briefly; "but, for me, I'd sooner give thisSchwartzmann just one bullet--right where it would do the most good.
"Let's make him work for it," he suggested, and called to the men below:
"Come back up here, Schwartzmann! A little present for you--and I'msaying you don't deserve it."
He watched the return trip as Schwartzmann dragged his heavy bulk up theslope; he was enjoying the man's explosive, panted curses. Beside himwere Diane and Walt. With them, it was as it had been with him at first.They had eyes only for the familiar ground below: the stream, the openground, the trees....
* * * * *
Each of them was looking down at that lower ground.
It was Kreiss standing down there who first caught Chet's attention.Kreiss was trying to shout. Chet saw his waving arms; he stared,puzzled, at the facial contortions--the working lips from which no soundcame. He knew that something was wrong. It was a moment or two before herealized that Kreiss could not speak, that the throat, injured by thechoking fumes, had failed him. Then he heard the strangled croak thatKreiss forced from his lips: "_Behind you!--look behind you!_"
Schwartzmann was scrambling to the top where they stood; every man wasaccounted for. What had they to fear? And suddenly it was borne in uponChet's consciousness that he had been hearing a sound--a sound that waslouder now--a rustling!--a clashing of dry, rasping things! The very airseemed to hold something ominous.
He knew this in the instant while he whirled about; while he heard thedry rustling change to a humming roar; while he saw, like a cloud offlame, a great swarm of red, flying things like the one that had flownpast the port--and one, swifter than the rest, that darted from theswarm and flashed upon him.
_One, swifter than the rest, dashed upon him._]
It was red--vividly, dazzlingly red! The body of a reptile--a wildphantasm of distorted dreams--was supported by short, quivering wings.The body was some five feet in length, and it was translucent.
A shell, like the dried husk of some creature long dead!--yet here wassomething alive, as its quick attack proved. It had a head of dry scaleswhich ended in a projecting black-tipped beak that came like a sword,straight and true for Chet's heart. It seemed an age before he couldbring his pistol up and fire.
* * * * *
Detonite, as everyone knows, does not explode on impact; the cap offulminate in the end of each bullet sets it off. But even this requiressome resistance--something more than a dry, red husk to check thebullet's flight. There was no explosion from the tiny shell that Chet'spistol fired, but the bullet did its work. The creature fell plunging tothe rocky ground, and its transparent wings sent flurries of dust wherethey beat upon the ground. There were others that went down, for thebullet had gone on and through the great swarm.
And then they attacked.
The very fury of the assault saved the huddle of humans. So close werethe red things pressed together that their vibrating wings beat andlocked the swarm into a mass. They were almost above their prey. Chetknew that he was firing upward into the swarm, but the sound of h
ispistol was lost. The red cloud hung poised in a whirling maelstrom; andthe pandemonium of clashing wings whipped down to them not only thesound of their dry scraping but a stench from those reptile bodies thatwas overpowering.
Sickly sweet, the taste of it was in Chet's mouth; the sound of thefurious swarm was battering at his ears as he knew that his pistol wasempty.
There were red bodies on the bare rock before him. A scaly, scabrousthing was pressing against his upflung hands that he raised above hishead--a loathsome touch! A beak that was a needle-pointed tube stabbedhis shoulder before he could flinch aside: the quick pain of it waspiercingly sharp....
* * * * *
Other red horrors dropped from the main mass overhead; he saw Harknessbeating at them wildly while he made a shelter of his body above thecrouched figure of Diane. Two of them--two incredible, beastly, flyingthings! He saw them so plainly where they hovered, and Harkness strikingat them with a useless, empty gun, while they waited to drive home theirlance-like beaks.
The picture was so plain! His brain was a photographic plate,super-sensitized by the utter horror of the moment. While the redmonster stabbed its beak into his shoulder, while he drove home one blowagainst its parchment body with his empty pistol, while the wild,beating wings lifted the creature again into the air--he saw it all.
Here were Diane and Harkness! Nearby Schwartzmann was on the ground! Hisman--the one who had not yet descended with the others--was runningstumblingly forward. He was wounded, and the blood was streaming fromhis back. Chet saw the two monsters hovering above Harkness' head; hesaw their thick-lidded eyes--and he saw those eyes as they detected aneasier prey.
The fleeing man was half-stooped in a shambling run. The winged reptileChet had beaten off joined the other two and they were upon the woundedman in a flurry of red.
Chet saw him go down and took one involuntary step forward to give himaid--then stopped, transfixed by what he beheld.
The man was down crouching in terror. Above him the three monstrousthings beat each other with their wings; then their long beaks stabbeddownward. The man's body was hidden, but through those transparent beaksthere mounted swiftly a red stream. Plainly visible, Chet saw that vitalcurrent--the living life-blood of a living man--drawn into those beastlybodies; he saw it spread through a network of canals! And he was heldrigid with horror until a harsh scream from Harkness reached his brain.
"The trees!" Harkness was shouting. "The trees! Down, Chet, for God'ssake! You can't save him!"
* * * * *
Walt was half carrying Diane. Even then Chet was vaguely thankful thattheir bodies were between the girl and this gruesome sight. And Walt wasleaping madly down the lava slope.
Beyond him, already on the lower level, was the racing figure ofSchwartzmann. A whirring flash of red pursued him. Another made acrimson streak through the air toward Walt's back. Chet came withstartling abruptness from the frozen rigidity that held him, and hecrashed his empty pistol in well-directed aim through the body of thebeast. Then he, too, threw himself in great leaps down the slope.
Kreiss was firing from below; Chet knew dimly that this was checking theattack of the swarm. He saw Walt stagger; saw blood flowing from a slashon the back of his head, and knew that Kreiss had got the monster justin time. He sprang toward the stumbling man and got his arms under theunconscious figure of the girl to help carry the load.
And now it was Kreiss who was shouting. "The trees! We'll be safe in thetrees!" He saw Kreiss drop his pistol and dash headlong for the whitetrunks of ghostly trees.
His arm was pierced by a stinging pain; cold eyes, with thick, leatherylids, were staring into Chet's as he cast one horrified glance over hisshoulder. Then he crashed against the white trunk of a tree and helpedHarkness drag the body of the girl between two twin trunks. He pulledhimself to safety in the shelter of the protecting trees, and heldweakly to one of them.... And the crimson lace-work of the sap-wood thatshowed through the white bark was no brighter red than the mark of hisblood-stained hands where they clung for support.