Later, they drifted along the tops of hundreds of ranked cylindrical shells, each twenty feet wide, in whose purple depths vague, indecipherable shapes could be glimpsed. “The Shefthi growth cells,” Rab commented, drifting close to his bubble.
“You came out of one of those… do you remember?”
Naismith shook his head. Part of his mind was aware of the blue bubbles, with their chattering occupants, drifting insubstantially around, behind, above him. Another part was listening to what Rab-Yani said. The rest was fiercely alert for danger.
“What about you—did you come out of one of those, too?”
he asked abstractedly.
Floating beside Rab in the bubble, Liss-Yani laughed. “No
—then he would have been a Shefth! The gravity in those cells is set at one and seven tenths Earth normal. He would have too many muscles!” She put her arm around Rab with casual affection.
The gnome’s bubble darted suddenly forward, disappeared through the solid wall.
“And you abandoned all this, just to get away from the Zugs?” Naismith asked. “Why?”
“When they mutated, they became very strong and very intelligent. The Old City is full of tunnels and passages, too many ever to flush them all out. That’s why you Shefthi were created. We never needed a warrior caste before—not for thousands of years.”
“If they’re so intelligent, why not deal with them?”
Rab gave him a surprised look. “The Zugs are predatory upon man,” he said slowly. “They eat our flesh, and plant their eggs in our bodies. There are men at this moment, hidden away down here, paralysed, while Zug larvae grow inside them.
Yes, we could deal with the Zugs, but only on their terms.
Do you think you would like that, Shefth?”
Naismith said stubbornly, “But why try to kill them with weapons like this?” He touched the gun at his chest. “You could be safe inside one of those bubbles, shooting them down with force-rods. They wouldn’t have a chance.”
Rab exchanged glances with the girl beside him, then looked around. The other bubbles had spread out; neither was within earshot.
“Listen to me, Shefth,” he said in a low voice. “Are you really as ignorant of the Zugs as you pretend?”
“I don’t remember anything about them,” Naismith said flatly.
“Then you are probably doomed, because Pendell has gone ahead to find one, and it will not be hard. You must realize this: these creatures are the fiercest man-killers in the history of the universe: but they are not mindless animals. If we hunt them with superior weapons, they stay in hiding. That is why you have no armor that will protect you for more than an instant, and no gun more powerful than that one. If you were trained, there would be one chance in two of success; as it is, you will have only a few seconds to kill the Zug before it kills you. It is incredibly fast and agile. It—”
He broke off suddenly as the gnome’s bubble reappeared ahead. The expression on the little man’s face was one of malicious triumph.
“Quickly,” said Liss-Yani in an urgent voice.
“You must hold your fire until it is almost upon you,” Rab finished tensely. “It will dodge your first flame and come at you from a different direction. Your only chance is to antici-pate that direction, and—”
A scattered chorus of shouts broke out from the bubbles behind them. Tense, hand on his gun, Naismith stared around.
What he saw was nothing more frightening than a small bald man in white robes, who had just entered the corridor from a narrow opening ahead. His pale blue eyes stared across at Naismith without expression; then he turned and was gone.
“Now the Zug will certainly come,” Rab muttered. “That was a scout.”
“A man?” Naismith asked incredulously. “There are human beings serving them?”
“I told you,” Rab began, then stopped abruptly. From the opening ahead, something else had emerged into view.
Naismith’s hand slapped his chest instinctively, came up with the cool metal of the gun, even as his mind registered the incongruity of what he was seeing. The thing that was now hurtling toward him with incredible speed, winged, glittering, was no Zug—it was an angel.
Naismith had an impression of blazing eyes, a manlike face of inhuman beauty, powerful arms outstretched.
In that frozen moment, he was aware of the passengers in the bubbles, all facing around, bright-eyed, intent, like spectators at a boxing match. He saw the gnome’s bubble begin to move.
Then his jaws clenched, and the view-disk sprang into being in front of his face. The angel disappeared; in its place was a many-legged monster, red-eyed, clawed and hideous.
“Zug!” shouted the voices around him. Then the beast was upon him.
Naismith fired. A spear of flame shot out of the pistol, blue-bright, twenty feet long. The monster wheeled in mid-air, seemed to vanish.
Naismith whirled desperately, knowing as he brought his gun around that he had no chance. He saw the gnome hanging close behind him in his blue bubble, almost close enough to touch.
There was no time for conscious thought: he simply knew.
The gun fired in his hand: the lance of flame shot out, straight through the gnome’s insubstantial body.
A wailing chorus went up. The gnome, unharmed, whirled to look behind him. Then he began to howl with fury.
Drifting in the air, its huge body still writhing, armored tail lashing, the Zug lay with its massive head cut half from its body, and a trail of violet-red blood streaming from the wound.
The spectators in their bubbles began to close in, shouting with excitement. Rab and Liss-Yani were hugging each other.
Naismith felt himself begin to tremble. It was over; he was still alive.
“How did you do it?” How did you ever do it?” shouted one of the candy-striped fat men, edging nearer, cheeks shining with pleasure.
“Pendell was too close,” Naismith said with an effort. “He came up behind me, knowing the Zug would use him for cover.” He took a deep breath, and smiled at the gnome.
“Thank you,” he said.
Pendell flinched as if he had been struck; his face writhed.
As laughter burst out around him, he turned and darted away.
The view-disk in front of Naismith’s helmet had winked out again. Curious, he turned to look at the Zug: and where the monster had been a moment before, an angel lay slain.
The pale head, half severed, was noble and beautiful; the eyes stared blindly. The great limbs tensed spasmodically; the sharp tail curled up and then was still.
Chapter Fifteen
Naismith was dreaming. Part of his mind knew that his body was afloat, curled up in mid-air in the green-walled cubicle; another part was drifting through dream images, memories, distorted and menacing—the pale Zug, more horrible than in life, with fangs and gleaming eyes, looming toward him, while he hung paralysed, unable to reach for the gun…
Naismith groaned, trying to awaken. The image faded. Now he was wandering through the deserted corridors of the Old City, somehow confused and blurred together with the corridors of the spaceship. The greenish faces of Lall and Churan floated into view; they were dead, their dull eyes turned up.
And a part of his mind, separate from the other two, was watching in fascinated horror as a door trembled, about to open.
The crack widened. In the darkness, something stirred, came into view…
Naismith awoke, with his own hoarse cry echoing in his ears.
His clothing was sweat-sodden; his head ached, and he was trembling all over. A shout echoed in the distance, outside the cubicle. For a moment he wondered if he were still dreaming: then the sound came again. It was a shout of alarm, or fear.