The COMPLEAT Collected SFF Works, page 290
Working swiftly, he swabbed the raw end with medicinal sealing-plastic. The stuff was tacky and difficult to apply, for it set glass-hard within a couple of seconds of daubing it on. The first layer congealed the blood and closed the vessels. More layers hardened over it, one upon another, building up until the great wound was encased in a sterile and solid mould. Then the same with the other stump.
As a swift technique for coping with grave emergencies it was top-notch—but no ultimate solution. It was good enough to hold a patient together until he could reach more competent hands and up-to-date surgical facilities. Mallet reached for soft pads and bandages, not that they were needed for the wounds, but because they might provide some cushioning and comfort. His hand stayed outstretched as Little Koo whipped out his automatic—their only remaining weapon—and spoke calmly.
"Water devil!"
Glancing backward over his shoulder, Mallet saw a great, flat, heart-shaped head sticking out of the river. It was the size of a small boat and had two white saucerlike eyes that stared at them cold and unblinking. Thin strings of weed dangled from horny projections on the outlandish face. Its jaws were still munching as though savoring a delicacy to the last.
The automatic spat savagely again and again. One of the saucer eyes blotted out and a green liquid poured from where it had been. The head ducked under water and the river went wild as the thing thrashed around on the bed.
Brought round by the hard cracks of the gun, Sammy stirred, looked up. "My legs! It took my legs!" In childish wonderment, he added, "I didn't even feel it. Just like a slight stab of pain, hardly noticeable—but it took my legs!"
"You'll be all right." Mallet got on with the bandaging.
"No I won't. Not in this place." He paused, gave a brief shiver as if sensing a queer coldness in all this heat. "Better leave me."
Mallet harshed at him, "Look, the fact that you're temporarily indisposed doesn't give you the right to talk a lot of nonsense. So shut up!"
Giving him a thin smile, Sammy said, "You can't fool me, talking that way. I know I'm next for the spade."
"We're going to carry you," Mallet retorted. "It'll be quite a change. I'm fed up digging holes. Get it out of your thick head that you can wangle me into digging another."
NOW TAKING charge, Mallet decided that the river must be regarded as an impassable barrier at this particular point. Had there been only the two of them—Little Koo and himself—he'd have risked a swing on one of the other vines or on three or four if a bunch could be found anchored sufficiently near together.
But with Feeny to swing and Sammy to handle, the job became too awkward. It was easier to turn back to the westward path and seek some other more favorable branch running north. This meant adding unknown mileage to the seemingly endless journey ahead. Nevertheless it had to be faced. Obstacles that cannot be surmounted must be detoured.
They trimmed a pair of straight, tough branches and Little Koo shaped between them a flexible mattress of woven reeds. The deftness with which his long, thin yellow fingers worked was a revelation to the onlooking Mallet. It was obvious that Little Koo had an aptitude for this kind of work, for the job was done with speed and dexterity he could never hope to match.
Sammy rode on this impromptu but effective litter, protesting for the first half-hour then giving up as no notice was taken. His machete lay at his side. There was remote chance of his making use of it in any circumstances, but they were reluctant to abandon the weapon. Besides, its mere presence had good psychological effect on the man being carried: it implied the others' belief that he was still a valuable part of their armed strength. Nobody knew better than he how little justified was such a notion. A man with half-legs is like a fly without wings unless and until he can be fitted with mechanical appendages not available on alien worlds.
But the shining blade reposed there by his side, winking and blinking under rare shafts of blue sunlight and seeming to say to him, "You're all right, Sammy boy. I'd be wasting my time lying here if you were no good. I am the fighting extension of a strong right arm, and you've got arms, haven't you, Sammy boy?"
So he lay in the litter and caught the continually reassuring gleams from the blade and watched branches drift overhead and bit his bottom lip in silent pain and tried to ignore the fierce burning in his severed limbs. He was losing no blood: the sealing plastic ensured that much. Neither could germs penetrate it to get at his raw flesh. The bacteria swarming in the yellow river were a different proposition. They'd got at him early, while he was still open, they were not shut in behind the plastic and the battle was between them and his white corpuscles.
The burning was hip-high by the middle of the second night. Unable to sleep because of it, Sammy lay between the fire and the recumbent form of Little Koo. Nearby, patrolling slowly round and round was Bill Mallet doing his spell of watch. Feeny was whining in his dreams atop their pile of packs. Sammy sighed, forcing himself up to sitting position. Reflections of the flames flickered in his dark eyes. Mallet came across, knelt beside him, whispered so as not to disturb Little Koo.
"How're you doing?"
"Not so good. I—"
"Wait a sec." Mallet went to his pack, edged it from under Feeny, foraged inside, came back. "I nipped these out of the boat. Thought I'd save them for the glorious moment when the dome came in sight." He exhibited a small can of cigarettes. "Reckon we won't need this many now."
"Keep them," breathed Sammy. He tried to suppress a gasp but failed. "Shame to bust the can open just now. They won't keep for months once the air gets at them."
"Little Koo doesn't smoke. There's only you and me." Mallet broke the vacuum, flipped the lid up. He gave Sammy a cigarette, lit it for him, had one himself. "Could you do with a shot of morphine?"
"Know how?"
"No."
Propping on one hand, Sammy leaned awkwardly toward him. He spoke in still lower tones. "You two have lugged me a couple of days. How far have you gone?"
"About seven miles," Mallet hazarded.
"Three and a half miles per day. Not much, is it? Every time you meet a tangle you have to put me down while you chop a way through it. You've only got two hands, not six. You haven't got indestructible legs, either. You can't go on this way for ever."
"What of it?" Mallet eyed him in the light of the flames.
"Little Koo has got a gun."
"What of it?" repeated Mallet without slightest change of expression.
"You know!"
Mallet squirted a thin stream of smoke, watched it disperse. "I look a bum. Maybe you think I am a bum. And maybe you're right. But I'm not a murderer."
"Don't look at it in that manner," pleaded Sammy. He winced again. There were shining beads on his forehead. "You know I'll go sooner or later. I'm asking you to make it easy for me. I'd much rather—"
"You really mean you want us to make it easy for ourselves," interrupted Mallet. He spat in the fire which promptly hissed back at him. "For two pins I'd knock your stupid block off!"
Leaning back on one elbow, Sammy grinned weakly. "One thing you excel at, Bill, is comforting a fellow's ego in a menacing way."
"I'll go get that morphine."
Tramping to the other side of the fire, he pawed among the supplies. Bill, he thought. First time Sammy had called him by his first name. It might have been the same with the others if they'd stayed this long.
Paton, for instance. Maybe by now they'd have grown out of, "Here, pick this up, Paton," and, "Yes, Mr. Mallet." Maybe they'd be talking kind of different with, "Catch this, Hanny," and, "Okay, Bill."
Maybe Mrs. Mihailovik would be calling him 'Beel' and he'd be addressing her as Gerda or perhaps Mom. Once upon a time the notion would have embarrassed him beyond measure. More than that: it would have irked him into unconcealed sourness. But not now, not now. Times change. People change with them.
A cockeyed rhythm was running through his mind, repeating itself again and again, jeering at him, mocking him as he fiddled with the morphine.
Sammy is a Sheeny,
Sammy is a Yid,
But Sammy is like Feeny—
Far better than this kid!
He resented it while at the same time feeling that it was true. Sammy had dived after Kessler without a moment's thought or hesitation and now he was asking them to use the gun to remove the burden thus placed upon them. Paton had dashed in where angels fear to tread, his only idea being that of diverting peril from others. Gerda and Grigor had been willing to die alone rather than handicap the rest. Even Feeny would take on one of those fifty-ton gallopers in effort to save them from being trampled underfoot.
And what had he got? A dancing-girl tattooed on his forearm and a spray of shooting stars across his back. A wad of hair on his chest. A bull-body and the constitution to plough doggedly ahead until he dropped.
All the rest was ignorance. His superb knowledge of reactive-engineering was now so much useless lumber. He knew too little about surgery and the use of drugs. He lacked Feeny's sharp ears and supersensitive nose. He hadn't got Little Koo's agile fingers and bland acceptance of the future. He couldn't even swim, like Sammy. He wasn't much darned good at anything.
Except comforting folk in a menacing way. Yes, that was a mite in his favor, a very small chalk-mark to put against his name.
Like most persons deeply exercised about their own misapprehensions, he was going to absurd lengths to underrate himself. It was the swing of the psychic pendulum which dives to the opposite extreme before it begins to settle down in moderation. There was reason for it. Deep down inside him—or was it outside and far away?—somewhere a voice was calling.
He came back, holding the needle. "I'm taking it for granted that one filling represents one maximum dose, and I hope I'm right. Want to chance it?"
"Yes." Sammy's face twisted in pain. He dropped his half-smoked cigarette. "Anything, anything to make this more bearable."
"I think the thighs would be best. They're nearer the source of the trouble. Like to try a half-shot in each one?"
Sammy agreed. Kneeling beside him, Mallet administered the stuff. He'd never felt more shaky in his life, but his broad, hairy fingers were made firm and gentle by sheer willpower.
He stood up. "Feel better?"
"Not yet. Probably it takes a minute or two." He lay back, sweating. After what seemed an age, he said, "It's going off. It's easing a lot." He closed his eyes. "Thanks, Bill!"
Light from the second moon angled through a tree-gap, illuminated his face in damp paleness. Mallet waited a while, bent over him, listened to his breathing. Satisfied that he was asleep, he resumed his lonely vigil.
In the mid-morning as they were mounting a slight rise, Mallet felt a pull on the litter, looked back. Little Koo had stopped and was lowering his end of the shafts. Mallet put his down likewise.
"What's the matter?"
"Not look. Not move. Nearly roll off. Think him dead," said Little Koo doubtfully.
Feeny went to the body, sniffed, let go a thin, reedy howl. Mallet had a look, feeling Sammy's wrist, listening to his chest. He reached for the spade.
When he had finished by patting shape and firmness into the little mound he became aware of Little Koo standing near holding a newly-cut cross and making ready to echo the inevitable, "Amen!"
"I don't know that he wants that," said Mallet.
"Not want?" Little Koo stared aghast at his own workmanship, his air that if one of in his appalling ignorance has committed an unknown enormity.
"I'm not sure. Maybe he would, maybe he wouldn't—but somehow I don't think so."
"Him not say?" inquired Little Koo.
"Shut up—let me think a minute."
Mallet tormented his mind in effort to make it produce hazy fragments of memory, one of those worthless oddities of information one picks up from time to time and never expects to use. Why is it that people know so little about people?
Finally he said, "I fancy I've got it. If I'm wrong, he'll forgive me."
Ramming the cross into the opposite side of the path, he cut and trimmed half a dozen branches, fastened them into two triangles, fixed them together, mounted the assembly on the grave. Then he looked at the sky.
"I don't know what to say."
"Good feller," suggested Little Koo, fearful of another blunder.
"Yes, "that'll do," said Mallet. "One can't say more."
Picking up their packs and weapons, they moved onward, leaving the Star of David to stand amid the trees.
Two men and a dog.
DAY NUMBER thirty-two, or was it thirty-six or fifty-six? Nobody knew, nobody cared. They had lost count, there being no point in keeping it. About the only crumb of comfort was that they'd crossed the river where it was narrow and had big rocks that served as stepping-stones. They were northing once more.
Mileage was anyone's guess. Perhaps three hundred, perhaps four hundred. At very most, a mere quarter of the way to the dome assuming that Symes' estimate had been correct. They had several times the distance still to go.
A man, a Chink and a mutt. Eh?
Three men!
Three men named Mallet, Little Koo and Feeny. One was built like a pug. One was small, with almond eyes. One had four legs and could not speak. But what of it? There were three men on the march to death or salvation, three men and a spade.
They had finished their noon meal and by accident Mallet picked up Little Koo's pack. The packs looked pretty much the same but he knew it wasn't his own the moment he lifted it. Putting it down without remark, he took his own, heaved its straps over his shoulders, grasped his machete.
From that moment on he kept surreptitious watch upon Little Koo. It didn't take him long to discover what the other was up to. The technique was cunning. He would have noticed it long before had there been any reason for suspicion.
At meal-times they took turns breaking a food-pack for Feeny. Little Koo was straightforward about this matter, but not when he came to break another one for himself. He had an open one which he'd produce, go through the motions of unfastening and then pretend to eat. No empty container was thrown away. The flat box went back still full, in readiness for the next play. Since his pack felt twenty percent heavier than Mallet's, he must have been doing this at least the last four days.
Yet Little Koo was not starving. He was eating by night during his spells on watch. Keeping one eye open by the fire, Mallet saw him gorging himself on the fruits of the jungle, consuming strange roots and queer nuts, filling himself in readiness for the next day. The motive was obvious and Mallet objected to it. He raised the matter immediately he discovered the facts.
"Not enough food, eh? It'll give out before we're halfway to the dome, won't it?"
"Not know."
"You know, all right! Don't give me that! You've worked it out in your mind. You've decided we'll never make it unless we can live on the jungle. Somebody's got to be the guinea-pig for that and it might as well be you."
"Not understand," protested Little Koo, his black eyes inscrutable.
"Bunkum!" Mallet studied the other as if he'd found him guilty of a major crime. "Unknown foods are dangerous. There's no telling what they can do to a man. So you argue that if you get away with this there'll be proof that we're safe. If you don't, and it kills you"—he tapped his pack—"there'll be so much the more chow for Feeny and me."
"Not care, if dead," said Little Koo, thwarting him with true Oriental logic.
"I care!" shouted Mallet. "I can't talk to your pack after you're gone. I can't use it for company. Neither can it take your turn at night-watch. Who's going to stand on guard while the other sleeps?"
"Nice dog," suggested Little Koo, pointing at Feeny.
"He's not enough." He prodded the other in the chest, his manner tough, authoritative. Completely unaware of the imbecility of what he was saying, he informed, "I'm the boss of what's left of this outfit and I forbid you to die on me, see?"
"Not yet," agreed Little Koo—and faithfully kept his promise for ten days.
First sign that he was about to renege, came when he fell flat on his face, clawed momentarily at the earth, forced himself to his feet and stumbled on. After ten yards he caught up with the waiting Mallet, refused to let himself fall again. The result was peculiar.
He stood swaying as he faced Mallet, his features the color of old ivory. His knees bent slowly, ever so slowly, as if being pulled down in spite of all his efforts to prevent them. In this manner he reached kneeling position, murmured apologetically, "Cannot help," and bowed forward into Mallet's ready arms.
Stripping him of gun, ammunition-belt and pack, Mallet laid him on a mossy bank while Feeny circled around whining querulously. The blue sun poured through a leaf-gap and burned the back of his neck while he stooped over Little Koo and tried to bring him round.
"Don't skip out, d'you hear?" An urgent, imperative shake. "Don't go away like all the others did. I'm not going to make a hole for you. I refuse to do it." He snatched up the spade, flung it into the jungle. A pulse was beating in his forehead. "See, I've thrown it away. It's not going to be used. Never, never, never. Neither for you nor for me." He patted the ivory cheeks. "Wake up, will you? Wake up!"
Little Koo obeyed, woke up, rolled onto his side and was sick. When he had finished, Mallet lugged him to his feet, held him by the shoulders.
"Okay now?" he asked anxiously.
"Plenty weak." Little Koo slumped in his grasp.
"We'll sit a bit."
Lowering the other, he squatted on the bank, took Little Koo's head in his lap. Feeny barked an agitated warning as huge, sinuous coils showed among the growths fifty yards away. Mallet snatched up the automatic, fired four shots. The coils slid rapidly away, not fearing the bullets but hating the noise. He continued to nurse Little Koo, cursing his own impotence and appealing to the head cradled in his arms.
"Make a fight for it, little feller. There's a long, long way to go but we can do it if we stick together. We've come a long way already. You're not going to give in now, are you?"
