He grinned, though. In truth, the twin moons of Mars were a rare sight to see and you could go a year or more without ever glimpsing Deimos or Phobos. The reason for this was simple, for, although both moons ride closer to the surface of their primary than does Earth’s satellite, they have a very low albedo—so low as to render them virtually invisible to the eye most of the time. You have to know precisely where to look—and when—in order to see them at all, except by accident.
Now that Suoli’s cry of delight and surprise had roused him from his rest, he offered the saddle to Zuarra, but she dismissed the gesture impatiently.
“Ride on and rest further, O Brant,” she said in clipped tones. “You are weary, but I am young and strong.” Was there a trace of scorn in her voice? Brant shrugged, caring little.
Both women walked wrapped in the burnous-like robes, he noticed, for the air was chill here at the edges of the plateau, bitterly cold, from the air currents which came across the antarctic barrens from the southern pole. Brant thumbed the dial of his heated suit to a higher setting.
In another hour they had come to the very edge of the ancient continent. Here the dry rock was cloven asunder by a thousand narrow crevices, and the footing was treacherous with loose rock. He dismounted and led the loper forward cautiously, testing his footing every few steps.
The problem was, simply, how to get down to the dead sea bottom? They were a hundred yards above the level plains of the dustlands, and a loper is bad at climbing. For a time they skirted the brink, looking for safe ways of descent, and at length they discovered that for which Brant had been watchful—a series of crumbling ledges of rock strata, like a great stair.
They began going down, taking great care, guiding the loper, who hissed and squealed with alarm, not liking the descent very much.
Zuarra clambered down on lithe and limber legs, with the agility of an acrobat, assisting the nervous Suoli from ledge to ledge, while Brant and the loper took up the rear.
He led the restive beast down, cautious step after cautious step, wary of the treacherous ground under his boot heels. Once, eons before, this had been the continental shelf, washed by the waves of one of the lost, age-forgotten oceans of primal Mars. Here and there, between the mineral outcroppings, the Earthsider spied fossil shells, strange and unearthly in their shapings, but unmistakable.
He wondered briefly if, a billion years from now, the seas of his distant homeworld would dry to sterile deserts, and the shores of Europe and Africa and the two Americas would resemble this crumbling, time-eroded cliff. …
Shortly thereafter, Suoli screamed. There was stark terror in her tones, that were very unlike the cry of pleasure with which she had greeted her rare glimpse of the hurtling moon.
Brant had his back turned to the dustlands and was trying to urge the reluctant reptile down from one broken ledge to another, when that shrill cry rang out. Growling a startled curse, he tried to turn, but thin plates of rock broke beneath him and he came down on his backside and would have perhaps fallen farther had not his hand been tangled in the loper’s reins.
The stubborn reptile planted its forefeet firmly, and in so doing, broke Brant’s impending tumble into the abyss.
Struggling to free his gun-hand from the tight reins, Brant looked beneath him … and the marrow froze in his bones at the sight that met his gaze.
Wriggling from its hidden lair between two ledges of rock strata, a hideous form emerged to their view.
It was the dreaded rock dragon; he should have known this tier of crumbling ledges made a perfect hiding place for the deadly reptiles.
It must have measured fifteen feet from fanged, gaping maw to wriggling, barbed tail. Its scaly length—the middle parts as big around as the Earthsider’s upper thigh—was mailed in thick, overlapping scales of the same dull, liver-color as the rocks amidst which it made its home.
Zuarra was directly in its path.
As for Suoli, the frightened girl cowered on the far corner of the ledge, uttering piercing squeals, fluttering her plump little hands foolishly at the serpent, as if hoping to shoo it away.
It was not a true serpent, the rock dragon, for while its slithering length was serpentine, three sets of short, bowed legs, armed with birdlike claws, sprouted at even intervals down its length.
Zuarra was frozen, facing the deadly thing. And her hands were empty of weapons.
Sharp claws clutching and closing upon the thin ledge, squealing under its fierce clench, the dragon reared above her, jaws agape. Its jaws bore retractable fangs, hollow like hypodermic needles, and as the dragon extruded them into view, all three of the travelers saw the oily, colorless fluid that dribbled out.
The bite of a rock dragon contains no poisonous venom, true; but those fangs inject into living flesh a substance that causes instantaneous paralysis. Once those fangs closed upon Zuarra, she would be helpless to resist while the mud-colored thing wound a loop of its scaly length about her torso, to drag her down into its hole to be devoured at leisure.
And Brant could not free his wrist from the entangling reins.
4 The Gun
While Brant straggled to free his wrist from the reins, Zuarra cast a quick glance about her in desperation, seeking some weapon wherewith to defend herself. But nothing met her gaze that could help battle against the rock dragon.
She turned an imploring look at her “sister,” who cowered whimpering in the far corner of the ledge, and cried out to her for help. But the soft little woman only buried her face in her hands, ignoring Zuarra’s plea for assistance.
The six-legged serpent had crawled entirely out of its burrow by this time, and reared above the helpless woman, fanged and drooling jaws agape, seeming to savor the feast of warm flesh that stood so temptingly near. One set of clawed feet clutched the rocky ledge, the two other sets opened and closed on empty air, claws clashing together with a rasping, ugly sound that made both women shudder.
Then it bent its hideous head down toward its fear-frozen victim, its lithe and serpentine body curving into the shape of the letter “S.”
The dripping fangs were fully extruded from the gums by now. Within more moments, those clutching claws would close upon Zuarra—the huge serpent would whip one coil of its long, wriggling body about her, and the fangs would sink into her throat or breast. Then there would be nothingness for the tall woman, a rapidly spreading numbness sucking her down into a bottomless well of darkness… .
The horrible jaws bent nearer and nearer to her face. Time seemed to slow down to an agonizing crawl. The limits of the world shrank until only she and the rock dragon existed. Oddly, Zuarra had never felt so thoroughly alive before: the blood sang through her veins, the cinnamon expanse of the desert bore an indescribably gorgeous coloration, the air was sweet and cool in her nostrils.
It seemed to the woman that she was simultaneously aware of every muscle and sinew and tendon in her body. Every cell and nerve and tissue of her body tingled with vitality. Her heart beat desperately against her ribs like a trapped bird fighting against the bars of its narrow cage.
What thoughts or memories flashed through her seething brain in that endless infinity of a moment, she could never afterward recall.
Brant strove, but could not free his gun hand. But with the left hand he clawed free the second pistol from its holster at his other hip and tossed it to where Suoli cowered whimpering.
“Catch, girl—!” he bawled.