Storm moved to run his hand along the sweating arch of the horse’s neck, conscious now of the smell of this place. Just as they had found it in the entrance tunnel of the valley, so here the air was stale, musty. As he continued to breathe it the Terran felt a growing sickness and an impulse to turn and batter his way out of this cave, or pocket, or whatever it was, that held them. He fought for self-control.
On his right was a second rock wall, and behind him the fall of moist earth in which he had been caught. Then the torch beam glistened at floor level. Runnels of water were sluggishly crawling toward him from under that mass of loose earth, gathering in the slight depressions of the rock floor. As Storm watched there was more movement, a slide of the soil, only this one uncovered a dim spot of light close to the roof—a handsbreadth of metallic gray that might mark the sky.
Storm snapped off the torch, spoke once more to Rain. With great care he climbed, a few inches at a time, to reach that breakthrough, once leaping clear to avoid being carried back by a second slip. But, at last, he got there, thankful to draw in lungfuls of the rain-washed air, clean and sweet without. The soft earth was easy enough to dig and he set about with his hands to enlarge the opening.
He came upon a rock that had to be dislodged with care, and marveled at the chance or good fortune that had saved him and the stallion from such a bombardment, giving them their lives in spite of their imprisonment. Storm’s wonder at the narrowness of their escape increased as his nails scraped across an even larger stone, one wedged in the opening as a stopper might be driven into a bottle.
The Terran returned to clawing at the earth heaped about that rock, pushing outward when he could. Now and again he checked the seepage under the wall; the flow was increasing, if slowly. Could a stream, or part of the lake, be lapping outside? He could not remember in which direction Rain had raced in panicked flight—west, north, or east—
A whole block of moist soil tangled with roots gave way before him and rain beat in to soak him in an instant. The moisture felt clean and good against his body, washing the mud and staleness of the place from him.
Worming his way back up, Storm thrust head and shoulders out of the hole. Visibility was limited by the rain, but what he could see made him gasp, for the whole area below bore no resemblance to anything he remembered.
A sheet of water, swirling angrily and pitted by the lash of the rain, lapped at the other side of the barrier on which he half lay. Uprooted trees tossed on that roiled surface and just below him was the body of the black pack mare, anchored to the shore by the weight of a rock that had crushed her head and one foreleg.
On the frail island of her body crouched a small shape with matted fur, clinging despairingly to the bobbing pack. And seeing that refugee, Storm shoveled swiftly at the earth. He ripped off his belt, stripping it quickly of knife sheath and stun rod holster, and on his third toss one end of the belt landed on the pack. The meerkat moved swiftly, climbing that improvised ladder to a point where Storm could scoop the small creature to safety.
It was Hing and she was uninjured as far as his examining hands could determine. What had happened to Ho he did not want to guess, for the bag in which Hing’s mate had ridden must now be trapped under the dead mare.
Whimpering, the meerkat clung to Storm, trying in plaintive little cries to tell her misery. He scraped the mud from her fur as best he could, and carried her into the cave to wrap her in the blanket. With her snug he returned to their window on the outside.
It might be dangerous to try to dig out more of the cave-closing slide at present. Such efforts could only let in the lake waters to engulf them. For such work he needed better light and an end to the rain. And both of those might come in the morning. For the present there was nothing to do but wait out the hours. Surely the skies could not go on releasing such a weight of water forever!
The gray of the day became the dark of a starless, moonless night. Storm rested half across the wall, Hing curled against him, watching in vain hopes of seeing some light along the cliff walls that would signal the escape to safety of the others, some indication that he was not the only human survivor of the flood that filled the valley.
Storm must have fallen asleep at last, for when he roused, it was to find weak sunlight on his face. Hing sat by his shoulder making an exacting toilet, chittering with almost human disgust at the unhappy state of her usually well-groomed fur.
The water had fallen away outside, grounding some of the wrack that it had floated. Something as red-brown as the soil, with a wicked mouthful of teeth, was busy at the mare, feasting upon the bounty. Storm shouted and flung a clod of earth at the creature.
As the scavenger flashed to cover the Terran’s voice echoed weirdly from the heights. He shouted again, this time with a summoning call. Though he did that again and again, waiting eagerly between each shout until he counted twenty—there came no answer. So he set to work again digging until he was able to get out, skidding down to bring up short against the dead pack horse.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Having salvaged the mare’s pack and dumped it in the cave, Storm stationed Hing on guard over what might be the last supplies. The meerkat was not a fighter, but she would keep off the scavengers such as the one he had seen at work earlier that morning. That precaution taken, the Terran splashed out to explore, using a length of driftwood to anchor him on the slippery mud banks. Twice he disturbed scavengers and carrion birds and both times hurried to see what they fed upon.
Once it was the horse Sorenson had ridden, and secondly it was a battered wild thing that must have been swept down the mountain stream. He stopped at intervals to call, to whistle for Baku—but there was never any answer.
As the sun rose higher, its rays sucked up the moisture and Storm was able to flounder about the end of the enlarged lake. The spread of murky water now covered five-sixths of the valley, including the entire lower end through which they had entered. And the Terran found no traces of any survivors, saw no camp smoke, had no answers to his frequent hails.
The mounts of debris were largely covered, only a few projecting above the surface of the flood. On one or two he sighted moving creatures, all small refugees from among the grass dwellers of the valley. He was about to turn back to the cave when he heard the beat of powerful wings and saw a black shape etched against the clear sky—a shape that could only be Baku. Storm whistled and the eagle dropped in her falcon swoop.
She skimmed above his head, thus delivering her usual signal to follow. But the path she pointed lay directly across the lake and Storm distrusted those dark waters full of floating drift and perhaps some unpleasant water-dwelling things he could not sight. He splashed along the verge, sometimes thigh deep, always sounding ahead with his pole. Baku had come to rest on one of the above-surface mounds, one which had been situated far up the dry portion of the valley before the storm. The Terran recognized it as an earlier landmark by a few feet of battered outcrop that still bore some resemblance to a wall. He shouted and Baku screamed in answer but did not rise. His testing pole plunged into a sudden deep and Storm knew he would have to swim to reach that islet. He took to the deeper water gingerly, striking out with care to avoid the flotsam, hating the smell of the mud-thick liquid that slid greasily about his body.