Collected Short Fiction, page 24
The top of the ship was released and pushed back; the man stood up, stretched, and looked around. A crowd of green-faced, goggle-eyed citizens gaped at him from a safe distance. The man ignored them.
Finally, through the crowd, a white Earthman threaded his way.
“You took your time,” said the pilot.
“Didn’t expect you, Alex,” said the other. “And certainly not like this.”
“The forward jets were damaged by gunfire when we left Mars. We crashed in the mountains to the north. I came for help.”
“I’ll get a rescue party started,” the man said anxiously, turning to go.
“Wait!” said Alex. “We can’t take time for that. Have to get things cleaned up in a hurry. I have reason to suspect there may be complications if we delay.”
“But your daughter . . .!” began the other and stopped.
“Yes?” Alex said coldly.
The man gathered together his courage.
“The Kalja. They’ll be attacking the ship now. I understood your daughter was coming with you.”
“She did come with me,” Alex said without emotion. “Only one person could leave. I was more valuable. Sentiment cannot be allowed to get in our way; the work comes first.”
Alex mopped the perspiration from his face.
“This heat is unbearable after Mars.”
He started to turn away but stopped, impatiently, at the incredulous expression on the other’s face.
“Very likely,” he said, “they’ll be able to hold out . . .”
THE MOUNTAINS were cold. Moisture collected on the peaks that were eternally buried in the cloud formations, trickled down the bare, rocky slopes to form ramaging torrents in the deep-cut gorges, eventually those swelling rivers poured out into the stinking swamps of the lowlands and finally into the huge, dark, sullen seas.
Rock slides were common. Huge segments of the mountains, weakened by cold and the unending drip of the water, cut their way with unstoppable force into the valleys. They formed lakes behind them until, eventually, they were washed away again.
The space ship lay halfway up a peak, its nose crumpled against the side or the mountain. On either side the ground sloped off and the attackers had difficulty approaching the ship without being picked off. They didn’t seem to mind the danger. They tried a rush now and then, and when that failed against the spitting flame from the gun-ports of the wrecked ship they retired to a safer position to wait. They were patient.
They were huge, hairy men, six and a half to seven feet tall, with flat, lean bellies and flanks swelling to heavily muscled barrel chests and shoulders a yard across. One had to hit them in the head or the heart to stop them. Anywhere else and they went on unconcernedly with what they were doing.
The crewman in the ship shook his head disgustedly as he pumped charge after charge into the still crawling figure of one of the attackers.
“What’s the use?” he said. “They’ll get us eventually.”
“No talk like that,” snapped the girl, swinging her knee-length skirt in a vicious circle. “My father will send help.”
“With all respect to you, Miss Dekker,” the crewman said bitterly, “I’d like to correct that statement. Your father will send help—if he wants to.”
Miss Dekker frowned. The menace of her expression only emphasized the beauty of her ivory-white face and the stubbornness of her otherwise gently-rounded chin.
“Alex will send help,” she said. Her tone said that there would be no argument. For emphasis she slapped the hand-weapon strapped to her waist which belied the feminine curve of her hips.
“Maybe we ought to surrender,” suggested another crewman despondently. “We hold out for a week maybe, and what happens? We only make them madder. So we kill a few of them. That don’t save us.” She turned on him savagely.
“You know the Kalja. They don’t take prisoners any time. And if I hear any more talk of surrender you’ll die sooner than you think.”
Another crewman spoke up, this one older than the others, harder and wiser.
“See here, Miss Dekker,” he said, slowly and easily. “You’re new at this business. We aren’t. We’ve been working for your father or men like him for ten years or more. They haven’t been noteworthy for sentiment. If it suits their plans to rescue us they will; if it doesn’t, or if something else seems more important, we’ll just have to hold out here as long as we can and hope that we become more valuable. Meanwhile talk like yours ain’t going to help any.”
He turned his gaze on the other crewmen. “On the other hand, Miss Dekker’s right. The Kalja don’t like strangers. They hate aliens worse than they hate the Laja, and that’s saying some. They’d tear us to pieces with their bare hands before you could get out the first syllable of ‘surrender.’ I know. I fought ’em, five-six years ago. I’ve seen what they do.”
A youngster spoke up eagerly.
“Maybe we could cut our way out and make a break for it.”
The older man chuckled. It had an ugly sound.
“We’d have as much chance out there as you have of ever seeing Earth again.”
The boy looked sick.
“They’d swarm down on us like gorillas. And even if we got through, by some unbelievable miracle, it’s a thousand miles over the mountains and through the swamps. It ain’t never been mapped. There’s tribes of Kalja all over. And there’s animals that don’t like people any more than the Kalja and are lots bigger and tougher.”
His smile was grim.
“Anybody want to try?”
Even among those hard, tough, battle-scarred men nobody moved, nobody said anything. The older man turned back to the girl.
“I guess we’ll stay, Miss Dekker.”
An odd smile curled her full red lips. “You won’t,” she said easily, “unless you get back to your guns. There’s another charge coming our way . . .”
A MAN, tall by earth standards but lacking half a head of reaching the heights of the Kalja, moved easily along a mountain trail. He was unlike the Kalja, too, in other respects. Instead of bulging muscles he had flat silken ripples under his skin, a skin which was bronzed but not as dark or hairy as the mountain natives.
It was all very odd. None but the Kalja and their only slightly wilder animal cousins lived long in the mountains. And this man with his cautious watchfulness that was not fear and his flowing grace that was not weakness looked like he might live a long time.
He wasn’t handsome. In fact, he was ugly until one looked at his eyes and the sweep of his forehead. One kept returning to his eyes. They were bold and fearless, knowing and a trifle cynical—and they were kind, kind and generous, but it was as if those qualities were tempered with justice, unalloyed with maudlin sentiment or mistaken pity. One soon forgot everything but his eyes. He was above the beauty which is an accident of regularity and fashion. He was—himself. It was enough for most people. For the rest it was too much.
The eyes were watchful now, but even the most watchful of eyes could not have seen in time the blur of motion which was the cave bear, emerging enraged from its dark hole beyond an outcropping concealing it from down the trail. It swarmed forward, its great arms spread out with long, wicked claws gleaming with ivory brightness, its massive jaw hanging open and dripping saliva, its little eyes red and savage.
AN INSTINCT threw the man to one side as the bear rushed past; it brushed against him with sufficient force to knock him to the rocks by the side of the trail. He lay there for a moment, stunned, on the edge of the precipice that dropped straight down, hundreds of feet to the rocks and raging water of the river below.
It must have been only seconds he was out, for when he got to his knees, shaking his head to clear the fog away, the bear was only just turning, searching for him. He pulled the foot-long, razor-sharp knife from its sheath at his side and wished he had a blaster. But he couldn’t bring in foreign weapons, he told himself. The Kalja were funny that way.
The bear had spotted him. It was swaying from side to side, building up its rage at the intrusion of this smooth-skinned creature. The creature stepped forward, advancing toward it. That was unbearable; the bear lowered its head and charged.
As the bear almost reached him, the man stepped aside, escaping the deadly arms by inches and struck a savage blow into the hairy back, slicing deeply. The bear roared as he turned, quicker this time, and the sound rolled back and forth across the canyon in near stunning intensity. Again the bear charged and again the man dodged aside.
The bear was smarter this time. One arm swept around in a glancing back-hand blow that would have crushed had it landed squarely. It would not have touched him at all had his foot not turned on a loose rock. The blow fell, and the man was tossed, stunned, to the edge of the precipice.
The bear turned, slowly, warily, looking around for its quarry. Finally he spied it, lying in a heap along the trail. The bear charged, his arms spread wide, ready to claw the object to its huge chest in a bonebreaking embrace. The man stirred uneasily, instincts of self-preservation striving to rouse the half-conscious body. In a moment it would be too late.
As the bear, paused, hesitated above his prey, a loud, savage shout split the air. Before the bear could turn, a body was clinging to his back, his neck encircled by a hairy arm, a hand wielding a long blade stabbing at his chest. The bear roared and whirled, trying to shake the clinging being from his back. It was still there, clinging, stabbing pain. It was yelling in his ear, taunting him.
The bear fell forward onto his front paws, shook, heaved. Finally he rolled over, got up quickly. The clinging thing was gone. Instead there was a hairy thing, standing on two legs, facing him. The bear roared and started forward. The thing stepped in quickly, stabbed, and got away before he could grip it. He rushed again; again it got away.
The third time it was not so lucky. One lucky blow caught the thing on the back and hurled it away. The bear started after it.
The other man had come awake and had watched the last few seconds of the fight, which now appeared to be approaching an end.
The bear was ready to destroy its annoyance, towering over it as it crouched, trying to get away and upright. The man on the edge of the precipice raised himself, drew his arm back, and threw. The knife flew straight and hard, sticking hilt-deep into the bear’s chest.
The bear stood up with a grunt of surprise and clawed at this new object, and then the hairy thing was upon it, slicing, stabbing. Confused, bleeding from a dozen wounds, the bear blinked once—and died.
There was silence on the trail.
The hairy man looked down at his kill and then over at the man half sitting at the cliff’s edge. His forehead wrinkled in indecision; he stared at the knife-hilt protruding from the bear’s chest and wrinkled up again.
The other got up carefully, slowly. He moved a few steps forward. Then he spoke in the Venusian mountain dialect.
“Friend,” he said. “Friend. You save me.”
At once, like a child’s, the hairy one’s face cleared.
“Friend,” he agreed. “No. Brother. We kill together.”
He pointed to the bear, but his face was troubled.
“You,” the man said. “You killed the bear.”
The hairy man grinned happily. He pulled the other’s knife from the bear’s chest, wiped it clean, and handed it, hilt first, to his new friend. Then he set to work, hacking off the bear’s paws. When he was finished he looked up and handed one paw to the other. The man shook his head, indicating that he should keep them both. Happily the hairy man tied them on either end of a cord and hung the cord around his neck.
“I am Brun of the tribe of Calg,” he said finally.
“I am Paul,” the other answered. “No tribe.”
“No tribe?” Brun said in surprise. “All Kalja have a tribe.”
“I am not of the Kalja.”
“You are not Laja. What are you?”
“I am a friend.”
The other smiled.
“Yes, a friend,” said Brun, and then his face clouded. “But I cannot take you to my tribe.”
“We will face that later.”
Brun nodded uncertainly.
“I killed a bear,” he said happily. “Now I can take my place with the men.”
Paul stared in surprise at the seven feet of bulging muscle standing over the remains of a savage, almost-unkillable cave bear. It had been killed by a boy.
“Most of the men are fighting against a foreign object which fell from the sky not far from here. I could not go because I had not killed a bear. In the tribe of Calg you are not a man until you have killed a bear all alone.” The boy smiled proudly. “Today I did.”
“That is good, brother,” said Paul.
Brun smiled and began gathering material for a fire. When he had a pile of dry wood, which had been protected from the constant drip of the clouds by caves or the overhanging cliff, he set about carving two huge, dripping steaks.
As they were eating, Brun looked up suddenly in distress.
“Brother,” he said. “Calg will kill you if I take you back with me.”
“Even a friend?” Paul asked softly.
“The Kalja have no friends. Other tribes are enemies. All enemies.”
“We must do something about that.”
“Nothing can be done! That is the way it is. That is the way it has always been. Calg will kill you.”
“I wonder,” said Paul, musing. “I wonder . . .”
THE TRIBE OF CALG lived in small stone houses huddled under the protection of an overhanging cliff and protected on the other side by a sheer descent of several hundred feet to a roaring river below. Brun plodded along the narrow trail which was the only entrance to the tribe’s living area. By his side, Paul, overshadowed by almost a head, moved lithely and smoothly, his eyes roving, noting everything.
Paul saw the sentinel before he could shout a warning to the tribe below. His silken movement was unchanged as the huge hairy men came hurtling forth to meet them, but Brun glanced around uneasily and his steps became uncertain.
“Brothers,” he called, “it is Brun.”
The group of hairy men stopped uncertainly, facing them and fingering the hilts of their knives. Finally a grizzled oldster, his muscles huge and knotted, stepped forward with authority.
“We see it is you, Brun,” he said. “But who is this smooth-skinned stranger?”
Paul smiled slightly; in the Kalja the words stranger and enemy are synonymous.
Brun cast one indecisive look behind him and then turned to face his tribesmen without hesitation; with one speech he hazarded his life and, what probably meant more to him, cast away his claim to a mature membership in the tribe.
Paul’s heart beat faster. This, he thought, is Brun’s real manhood; this is worth all my efforts.
“He is my brother,” said Brun with dignity. “He saved my life. Together we killed a bear.”
The men milled around, scratching their heads dubiously. Paul stepped forward, balancing himself on the balls of his feet, lightly.
“Take me to Calg!” he said.
That broke the dam.
“Let Calg decide,” they agreed.
They hemmed them in, encircled them, led them along the path until it widened into a space before the largest of the stone houses.
“Calg!” one of them yelled. “Bran has brought us a stranger.”
A huge, bull-headed man emerged blinking from the house. Among the towering Kalja, he was a giant. Beside him, their muscles seemed weak and small. Even Bran drew back a little at his lowering glance.
“A stranger!” Calg bit off the words. “Why do you bring him to me? Why do you not kill him at once?”
“He is a friend, a brother,” Bran said.
“This smooth-skinned puny weakling!” Calg snorted. Then his expression changed for the worse. “He is a stranger. The Kalja have no friends.”
Paul stepped forward, alone, into the cleared space. He was a youthful stripling beside the giant.
“Perhaps that is why the Laja beat you in your battles,” he said slowly, letting it sink in. “I come in peace. I would stay here in peace.” Paul read the sneer on Calg’s face. “But, if necessary, I will take the leadership of the tribe from you in fair fight.”
Calg roared with laughter, the others, except Brun, joining in appreciatively. Then Calg stretched his mighty frame.
“Clear a space,” he bellowed. “I am going to break this puny fellow into small pieces and then throw those pieces over the cliff.”
He unbuckled his knife from his side and threw it behind him; Paul did the same. Then the bull lowered his head and charged. Calg was quick in spite of his bulk. But Paul was lightning fast.
II
IN ONE FLUID movement Paul dodged aside, tripped Calg’s churning feet, and buried his fist, wrist deep, into Calg’s side beneath his ribs. Calg scrambled up, yelled, and charged again, watchful for any artful dodging. As Calg’s flailing hands almost grabbed him, Paul ducked down and heaved his back up under Calg’s chest which bent over him with the force of the rush. Calg sailed twenty feet through the air and lit heavily on his back.
This time Calg got up more slowly, aware that he was facing something new in fighting, slowly awakening to the fact that this comparatively slim body with its flat, silken muscles had the power to hurt. Calg advanced slowly, looking for an opening to launch a sledge-hammer blow or a chance to grab this stranger and break him.
Paul backed away from the giant, watching his eyes. A bare flicker of an eyelid warned him, and a ham-like fist went over his shoulder. Paul counter-punched with a right-handed blow that rocked Calg’s head back on his shoulders. His left followed immediately like a piston into Calg’s solar plexus. Then he was away, dancing beyond Calg’s reach.
