When the weed was all gleaming silver again and the sound of the cone was quite gone, Horne did several things with almost hysterical swiftness. With his left hand he punched the firing key that started the skiff's small jet. Simultaneously, with his right hand, he wrenched canopy back a few inches and triggered the stunner directly into the creature, praying that the thing had at least enough of a nervous system to feel it.
It had. The creature began a slow, enormous flopping that shook the weed island and threw the skiff around so violently that Horne was tumbled with bone-cracking force against ‘the side, where he managed to hang on. After a few minutes the motion subsided and he looked up and saw that the canopy was clear. The shaking of the weed had subsided outside. He shut off the jet and peered cautiously over the stern, pushing the canopy back. The thing, not liking the stunner's shock, had floundered deep in the water and only ripples from underneath rocked the weed. Horne waited until they had died away and crept to the bow of the skiff. Then with the utmost reluctance he entrusted himself to the weed again.
When he had hauled the skiff into open water again he clambered into it and dried himself and pulled his clothes on, and then took a couple of deep pulls on a flask he had found among the meager stores. The dim “star” was still visible, this time moving away toward the eastern horizon. He looked after it, hatefully. He'd been lucky this time, but it was in no sense a victory.
If they were hunting for him on Skereth they knew why he was here and where he was most likely to go to Rillah, Ardric's home city. Their course across this landlocked sea was also the course to Rillah, and they would inevitably be there long before him. So he would have to change all of his plans, such as they were. He would not head straight for Rillah now, but would have to land somewhere many miles out of his way and circle around to come at the city from another direction. Because, of course, they would be waiting for him.
They. Impersonal word, meaning Federation officials possibly, Skereth police certainly, the local authorities of Rillah, and, if Ardric was alive yet, Ardric himself. The whole damned city would be watching for him, and he wouldn't have a chance if they saw him.
CHAPTER VII
Weariness and black despair came over Horne. What's the use, he thought, I might as well have let them take me back there. I might as well go over the side and have done with it. Or else try and get away from Skereth, out to one of the fringe worlds. There are lots of places where a man can lose himself.
Lose himself is right. No, the devil with that kind of a life.
Ninety-seven crewmen and thirty-eight passengers, and a good ship, and they say I did it. They say I was a lousy drunken negligent murderous fool.
Horne clenched his fists and beat them gently against the gunwale. Every time he thought he had it fought down and under control it came back on him and the agony was just as great as ever.
He looked over the dark sea toward Rillah, where the last gleam of the cone's light was disappearing. It would pass on above the coast and the coastal range and the outer and inner valleys, heading out across the vast plain beyond them where the city stood at the junction of two rivers.
"I'll be damned if I'll let him get away with it,” he said aloud and fiercely. The face of Ardric came clearly into his mind, the nice clean-cut intelligent face that was perhaps just a little too thin in the mouth and too flinty in the eyes — only you'd never think of that until the bastard had stuck the knife right up to here in your back.
"If he is alive,” said Horne softly, “I'll make him sorry the day he didn't die in the wreck of the Vega Queen!"
He got out his chart and set a new course, far south of the one he had followed before. The flying cone was now out of sight entirely. He set the speed lever wide open and the skiff leaped over the black water, streaking bright fire behind it.
Night and day are long on Skereth, and the twilights in between are slow and lingering. It was still dark when Horne finally made his landfall on a deserted coast, hiding the skiff under a tumble of rock where the over-frowning cliffs had fallen on the narrow beach. Dawn saw him crossing the saddle of a mountain pass, walking with a dogged steadiness, his few supplies slung between his shoulders and his long lean body bent to the slope of the rise. When full morning came he had reached the foothills above the plain and stood looking out at a tawny emptiness apparently as vast as the sea he had left behind him.
He drank deeply at a spring, ate a few mouthfuls of his remaining food, slept for a time in a crevice of the rocks, and went on again. And the long, long day dragged on.
Noon. The invisible orange-yellow sun stained the clouds with streaks of gold and bloody crimsons and unexpected mauves. Heat filtered like a physical substance through the cloud-layers, filling the space between land and sky so that even the wind that blew, and blew and never stopped blowing across the flat plain could not cool it. The looped windings of a river seemed like molten brass running from some huge crucible, and the spiny trees beside it were the color of dun flame. Yellow grasses grew waist high, rippling under the furnace wind, and every so often the colors in the sky would darken to a sullen purple and everything that moved became still and waited.
It was just before the breaking of one of these storms that Horne saw the watchtower. It was obviously very old, a broken relic leftover from an earlier and ruder day. It had probably had no watcher in it since men took to the sky and the use of artificial eyes and ears. But Horne did not like it, even so. It made him feel helpless and exposed. On the rare occasions when he had sighted a cone — he had purposely chosen a route away from the regular flight lanes — he had been able to lie hidden in the long grass until the danger was past. But this tower was stationary and he was going to have to pass it, and there was no possibility of concealment.
The first gust of the storm, a blast that made the normal gale seem feeble, blew him to his hands and knees and then the slatey darkness clapped down and hid the tower and everything else under cloud and driving rain. The idea occurred to Horne to use the storm as cover. The wind was blowing his way. He let it take him.
And take him it did. It drove him staggering this way and that and the rain came in solid torrents like a waterfall and the lightning was amazing. He had never tried walking in a Skereth storm before and he found out very quickly why it was not a good idea. You lost all idea of direction and the thunder made you deaf and the lightning, blind and the rain drowned you standing up. He caught glimpses of the tower two or three times, outlined in a shaking glare, and then he didn't see anything any more until a deep gully opened suddenly right under his feet, choked to its banks with rushing water. He whirled around, dropping to all fours and clawing away to avoid being blown into the gully, and with incredible abruptness men appeared around him — he was not sure how many, two, three, four, staggering at him, reaching out to grab him.
There had been watchers in the tower, then. Even this far out from Rillah they were waiting for him. They had seen him from a distance and guessed that he might try to get past the tower in the storm. They were not going to let him.
Horne snarled like an animal and sprang at the nearest man.
They fell down on the sodden grass, under the pounding rain. Horne beat with his fists at the man's head. Hands caught him from behind and dragged him off. He turned, crouching, and fought them. They whirled clumsily in the wind and rain and then, all of a sudden, the lightning seemed inside Horne's head and he never heard any following thunder.
When he came to again he was in a stone room with a broken ceiling through which some rain found its way. A modern portable lamp burned brightly in a corner. He was lying on his back on a very dirty floor and four wet and muddy men were looking down at him.