It was not moving. It hung there in the air, poised above the dune. The moon-silvered ribs of Hoot’s ship looked like a smashed toy when measured by its size.
“Living?” asked Hoot.
“Perhaps,” I said.
“Then we best prepare to defend...”
“We sit right here,” I snapped. “We don’t raise a hand against it.”
It was watching us, I was sure. Whatever it was, it might have come out to investigate the wreckage of Hoot’s ship. There was nothing to indicate that any part of it was alive, but the greenish hub, for some reason I couldn’t put a finger on, had the look of life about it. It might turn around in a little while and go away. And even if it didn’t, we were in no position to start banging away at anything that moved.
“You better slide down into the trough,” I told Hoot. “If we have to make a run for it, I can scoop you up.”
He waggled a tentacle in disagreement. “I have weapon you may need.”
“You said you had no weapon.”
“Dirty lie,” he booted, cheerfully.
“You could have taken me,” I protested, angrily, “any time you wished.”
“Oh, no,” he said. “You came as my befriender. Had I told you, you might not have come.”
I let it pass. He was a tricky devil, but for the moment he was on my side and I had no objections.
Someone called back of me and I swiveled my bead around. Sara stood on top of the next dune and off to the left of her, two heads poked above the ridge. She was planted on the crest, with her silly rifle at the ready and I was scared stiff that any minute she might start throwing lead.
“Are you all right, captain?” she called to me.
“I’m all right,” I said.
“Can we be of any help?”
“Yes,” I said. “You can lug my pal back to camp with you.”
I said camp because, for the life of me, I could think of no other way to put it.
Out of the side of my mouth, I snarled at Hoot. “Cut out the goddamned foolishness and slide down into the trough.”
I switched my attention back to the wheel. It stayed where it was. I still had the feeling that it was looking at me. I twisted around and got my feet planted under me, ready to take off if the situation should demand.
I heard Hoot go sliding down the slope. A moment later Sara called to me.
“What is this thing? Where did you find it?”
I looked around and she was standing over Hoot, staring down at him.
“Tuck,” I yelled, “get down there and help Miss Foster. Tell Smith to stay exactly where he is.”
I could envision that damn fool of a blind man trying to follow Tuck and getting all fouled up.
Sara’s voice was plaintive and a little sharp. “But captain...”
“He’s lost just like us,” I told her. “He doesn’t belong here and he’s in trouble. Just get him back to camp.”
I looked back at the wheel. It had finally started to move, revolving slowly, almost majestically, walking up the dune slope and looming higher every minute.
“Get out of here,” I yelled at Tuck and Sara, without looking back.
The wheel stopped. It was almost at the crest. Very little of it was hidden by the dune. It loomed high into the sky.
Now that I had a better chance to look it over, I saw that the strange thing about it was that it was actually a wheel and not just something that might look like a wheel. Its outer rim was formed of some sort of very shiny substance, with a tread ten feet across, but perhaps no more than a foot thick. For all its massiveness, it had a slender look about it. As it had climbed slowly up the dune, the rim had picked up sand and carried it up its rearward surface, with the sand spilling free as the wheel moved forward. The greenish hub floated in the center of the wheel-and floated was the word for it, for the fragile spokes, despite the number of them, could not have held the hub in place. And now I saw that the spokes, thin as they were, were crisscrossed by even finer wires (if they, indeed, were wires) to make the entire area between the hub and rim a sort of spider web. The thought stopped there, however, for the hub itself had no semblance to a spider. It was simply a sphere of some sort, hanging in the center of the wheel.
I looked quickly over my shoulder and there was no sign of the others. The slope of the dune was scarred with deep tracks, where they had climbed it.
I got to my feet and went sliding down the slope and labored up the face of the dune. At the top, I turned and had a look. The wheel had stayed where it was. I went down the rope and climbed the dune behind which I had left the others. They were all down there, I saw, and the wheel still hadn’t moved. Maybe this was the end of it, I thought. The wheel might have come out to have a look and now, satisfied at what it had seen, might go about its business.
I went sliding down the slope and Sara came climbing up meet me.
Her face was very solemn. “We may have a chance,” she said.
“A chance of getting out of here?”
“You told this Hoot of yours what happened,” she said. “He seems to know about this sort of thing.”
I was astonished. “I wasn’t even sure he knew what I was talking about,” I told her.
“He didn’t understand entirely, but he asked some questions and now they’re working on it.”
“They?”
“Tuck and George are helping. George is very good at it. It seems he is able to pick out the door.”
“George would be able to,” I said.
“I wish you’d stop not liking George,” she said.
It was no time to get into a hassle with her, so I went on down the dune.
The three of them were squatting in a row-or at least the other two of them were squatting and Hoot was lying there, with his legs buried in the sand. Tuck was staring fixedly ahead and Smith had an intense, excited look upon his flabby face. All Hoot’s tentacles were extended straight in front of him and the tips of them were quivering.
I looked where Tuck was looking and I couldn’t see a thing. There was just the slope of the other dune pitching upward to the sky.
I stood quietly behind them and Sara came up and stood beside me. We didn’t stir a muscle. I didn’t know what was going on, but whatever it might be, I didn’t want to interfere. If they thought there was a chance to bust that door wide open, I was all in favor of it.
Suddenly Hoot’s tentacles went limp and sagged down to the ground. Tuck and Smith slumped in, upon themselves. It was quite apparent that whatever they had tried had failed.
“More strength we need,” said Hoot. “If all of us, perhaps...”
“All of us?” I asked. “I’m afraid Fm not good at this sort of thing. What is it you are trying?”
“We strain upon the door,” said Hoot. “We try to pull it
‘ open.”
“It still is there,” said George. “I can sense the edges of it.” “We can try,” said Sara. “That’s the least that we can do.” She squatted down beside Hoot.
“What do we do?” she asked.
“You try to visualize the door,” said Tuck.
“Then you pull,” said Hoot.
“Pull with what?’ I asked.
“With your mind,” Tuck said, nastily. “This is a time, captain, when a big mouth and muscles do not help at all.”
“Friar Tuck,” said Sara coldly, “that was very much uncalled for.”
“That’s all he’s been doing,” Tuck declared, “ever since we set foot upon the ship. Yelling at us and pushing us around.”
“Brother,” I said, “if that is what you thinks once we’re out of this...”