He was aware, though, when The Shemibob hoisted him up under one arm and Vana under the other and began running toward the jungle, away from the mountain. Something huge and dark rolled by them. A
boulder. Then it stopped, and he was being carried past it.
By then, so he was told later, the temblors had ceased. But the avalanche pouring down the mountainside was shivering the ground. Despite this, the snake-centaur managed to stay on her feet—a good thing she had so many of them—and to get them to the edge of the jungle. Trees lay across each other or leaned at different angles. Here and there were some small boulders that had rolled or leaped across the highway and crashed into the bushes or the trees. The Shemibob deposited them behind a rock and then turned to see what had happened to the others.
Deyv had gotten most of his wits back, but he wished he hadn't His right shoulder and his left leg hurt very much. He groaned, then asked, "Why did she have to throw me?"
Vana said in a dull voice, "Because she had to. You would've been hit by a flying boulder. As it was, the impact almost bounced her off into the hole."
"Aejip and Sloosh?"
"The Archkerri was almost hurled off when that boulder shot away like a stone from a sling," The
Shemibob said. "But he wasn't, and he's somewhere near us. The others are safe, too. Except, I regret to say, Phemropit. Jowanarr is also down in the chasm. She almost made it, but the side of the highway dipped too far. And she fell."
She peered through the dust that was beginning to settle around them. By then, the avalanche had spent its fury. Deyv heard a faint wail, and he asked, "Who's crying?"
The Shemibob said, "Feersh. She's wandering around stumbling over rocks and tree branches, and if she doesn't stop, she'll fall into the chasm, too."
Vana asked, "How could she have survived?"
"I don't know," The Shemibob said. "Her daughter must have pointed her in the right direction.
Certainly, the Yawtl wouldn't help her."
She reared up even further, and she shouted, "Hoozisst, you thief! Bring that bag to mel"
She muttered, "I left the bag by the edge. Would you believe it, that greedyguts walked across the highway while it was still swinging, and he came back with my bag. He was going to run off with it!"
Presently the Yawtl, grinning slyly, came to her and handed her the bag.
"I was saving it for you, O Shemibob."
"Sure you were," she said, smiling savagely. "So why didn't you look for me?"
"I was just going to put it in a safe place."
"Which is where it is now. Do you really think you could get away with it? Go bring that poor blind woman here before she steps over the edge."
"I'd rather lead her onto thin air," Hoozisst said. "I owe her a death."
"Get her!" The Shemibob said sternly.
Apparently, Hoozisst wasted no time in telling Feersh that her daughter was dead. She came to them wailing even more loudly, though whether because she felt grief for Jowanarr or for her worsened plight, no one knew.
Presently Sloosh, followed by the two animals, came to the boulder. He said, "It was fortunate that I'd not had the cube unstrapped from my back. I was just about to ask that it be taken off when the quake struck."
Jum, knowing that his master was in pain, whined while licking his face. Aejip lay down by Vana but rose a moment later and moved away. Sloosh said, "What's the matter, Vana?"
"The Shemibob was wrong," she said, her face grim with pain. "My time has come sooner than she predicted."
39
WHILE Sloosh straightened Deyv's leg and then set it with two long splints of wood, The Shemibob helped Vana. The baby came swiftly, impelled by the shock of the earthquake and his mother's narrow escape from death. He was rather small but healthy, and after The Shemibob had cleaned him and wrapped him in a cloth from her bag, she put him in Vana's arms.
Sloosh unfolded the vessel so that mother and child would have a warm, comfortable, and safe place to rest. Vana herself carried the baby into it, but she reeled with weakness. Deyv gave his breechclout to
The Shemibob, who washed it and, after it had dried, used it to diaper the baby.
The Yawtl went out to peel bark off an utrighmakL tree to make bark-fiber cloths. It wasn't his wont to do service for others, but he must have thought that he might get back into the good graces of The
Shemibob by being useful. The work also took him away from her. "Out of sight, out of mind" was an ancient proverb but still applicable.
Both Deyv and Vana ate and drank much and spent time directing their healing substances, Vana to her torn tissues and Deyv to his broken bone and swollen muscles. Vana also began nursing the baby.
Other temblors of a lesser energy came, and the vessel was lifted a dozen times into the air an inch or so, but the shocks were of little consequence. Hoozisst, in the midst of working the bark, found time to make a crutch for Deyv. It was shortly after this that Deyv and Vana were called from the vessel. He hobbled on the crutch; she darned the baby against her breast
What Sloosh had summoned them to see was a pool of some silvery stuff that had filled the fissures. It was, Sloosh said, a liquid metal, no doubt made by the ancients. It must have been in a huge container or containers which had been long-buried by accumulating dust or washdowns from the mountains. Or perhaps by a cataclysm. In any event, the containers had ruptured, and now the liquid was seeping out.
Sloosh didn't have to point out the strange qualities of the liquid metal. In the fissure into which
Phemropit had fallen the stuff was flowing over its edges. And there on its surface bobbed boulders, large and small. And Phemropit and dead Jowanarr.
"Stay upwind of it," the Archkerri said.
He indicated a large bird that was also floating on the shiny gray surface.
"It flew over and then dropped as if shot. The metal, if it is metal, gives off poisonous vapors."
Though standing twenty feet away, Deyv could smell a bitter odor. It caught at his throat and made his eyes water.
The Shemibob brought out a rope from her bag, a thin gossamery material through which the light shone. She attached a stone to one end of the rope with a sticky stuff.
"To give it weight," she explained.
Then, holding her breath, she ran near the edge of the fissure. She cast the rope out with such accuracy that the stone landed on Phemropit near its snout and stuck to its surface. Immediately, she backed away, the rope running through her hands. When she stopped, Sloosh got in front of her, his great hands closing around the rope. They pulled together, and the stone-metal creature turned its nose toward the edge. At The Shemibob's command, the Yawtl left his bark pounding to help pull. All three, tugging hard, slowly drew Phemropit along the side of the fissure.
By then the silvery liquid metal had drained off Phemropit's detector and ray holes. It flashed that it was aware of what they were doing. The Shemibob used her light-device to tell it that when it was over the highway, it must use its tracks to help itself off. The creature replied that it had already thought of that.
Though the rubbery material of the highway had sagged, it had started to contract in order to shorten itself. Most of it was floating on the silvery liquid, but a section was still curved underneath. This arc was near the other side of the fissure, downwind. Those hauling Phemropit could not go to that side to pull the creature over the part under the surface. They had to strain to drag it over the end of the "bridge"