“Those” came lightiy, drifting across the torn clearing caused by the descent of the globe. They flapped gossamer wings once or twice to keep air-borne, but their attention was manifesdy centered on the ship.
And what were they? Birds? Insects? Flying mammals? Travis could almost believe the four small creatures were a weird combination of all three species. Their long narrow wings, prismatic and close to transparent, resembled those of an insect. Yet they had bodies equipped with three legs, two smaller ones in front ending in there clawshaped digits, one larger limb in back with even more pronounced talons. Their heads seemed to be set directly on their shoulders with no visible neck and were round at the top, narrowing to a curved beak, while their eyes—four of them!—protruded on short stalks, two in front and two in back. And their triangles of bodies were clothed in plushy fur of a pale and frosted blue.
Slowly, in a solemn, silent procession, they drifted toward the ship. The second in line broke out of formation, dipped groundward. Its hind claws found anchorage on a stub of broken branch and its wings folded together above its back as might those of a Terran butterfly.
The two last in line flapped back and forth across the open port twice and then wheeled, flew off, mounting into the sky to clear the treetops. But the leader came on, until it hung, beating wings now and then to maintain altitude, direcdy before the entrance of the ship.
It was impossible to read any expression in those stalked eyes, a brilliant blue. But none of the four Terrans felt any repulsion or alarm as they had upon their encounter with the nocturnal desert people. Whatever the flyer was, they could not believe that it was either agressive or a possible danger to them.
Renfry expressed their common reaction to the creature first:
“Funny little beggar, isn’t he? Like to see him closer. If they’re all the same as him here, we don’t have to worry.”
Why the technician should refer to the winged thing as “he” was obscure. But the creature was attractive enough to hold their concentrated interest. Ross snapped his fingers and held out his hand in welcome.
“Here, boy,” he coaxed.
Those brilliant bits of blue winked as the eye stalks moved, the wings beat, and the flyer approached the port. But not close enough for the Terrans to touch. It hung there, suspended in mid-air for a long moment. Then with a flurry of beating wings, sparking rainbows, it mounted skyward, its partner taking off from the brush below at the same moment to join it. A few seconds later they vanished as if they had never been.
“Do you suppose it is intelligent?” Ross watched after the vanished flyer, his disappointment mirrored on his usually impassive face.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Ashe replied. “Renfry,” he spoke to the technician, “you have your journey tape now. Can you reset it?”
“I don’t know. Wish I had a manual—at least some type of guide. Do you suppose you can find such a thing here?”
“Why are you in such a big hurry to leave, chief? We only got here and it looks like a pretty good vacation spot to me.” Ross raised his head a little to eye the dome where opal lights played under the sun’s rays.
“That is just why,” Ashe replied quiedy. “There are too many temptations here.”
Travis understood. To Ashe the appeal of those waiting buildings, of the knowledge which they might contain, must be almost overpowering. They could postpone work on the ship, delay and delay, fascinated by this world and its secrets. He knew the same pull, though perhaps in a lesser degree. Before it trapped them all, they must struggle against that enveloping desire to plunge into the green jungle, slash a path to the opal dome and see for themselves, what wonders it housed.
Ashe was sorely tempted. And because he was-the man he was, he must be fighting that temptation now, believing that if he once plunged -wholeheartedly into exploration, he might not be able to stop. Also Renfry was offering them an excuse to do just that by wishing for some aid in the problem of the tape.
An hour later the three of them did leave the ship, Renfry remaining in charge there. Using the lowest beam of the blasters, they cut a path into the woods. Travis picked up a flower head. Five wide petals, fluted, crinkled a little at the tips, were a deep cream in color, shading orange at the heart. Resting on his palm, those petals began to move visibly, closing until he held a bud instead of a flower. He could not toss away the blossom. Its color was too arresting, its spicy scent appealing. He worked the short stem into one of the latches of a belt pouch, where, the heat of his hand removed, the flower opened once again. Nor did it fade or droop in spite of the shortness of its stem.
Now, out of the direct rays of the sun, the Terrans found the air cool, moist, heavy with the odor of too luxuriant vegetation. Not that those odors were unpleasant—in fact, they were overpoweringly good. Spicy scents warred with perfumes and the sharper smell of earth as their feet scuffed through the mass of dead leaves.
“Whewl” Ross waved his hand back and forth in front of his face as if to set up a reviving current of air. “Perfume factory—or what have you I I feel as if I were burrowing through about a ton of roses!”
Ashe appeared to have lost some of his sombemess since they had left the ship. “With another of carnations thrown in,” he agreed. “I think I can detect”—he sniffed and then sneezed— “some cloves and maybe a few nutmegs into the bargain.”
Travis breathed shallowly. He had welcomed the mixture of perfumes minutes earlier. Now he found himself wishing instead to face a wind with a burden of sage and pinon in place of these cloying scents in their thick abundance.
The jungle grew clear up to the base of the opaline building. And the structure itself doomed far higher from ground level than had appeared true from the port of the ship. They worked their way along, hunting the entrance which must exist somewhere, unless the inhabitants had all worn wings.
Oddly enough—though there were windows in plenty of stories above, many opening on small airy balconies—the first story showed no openings at all. Here were panels set in carved frames alternating with solid blocks of the opal material. And each panel was patterned in a gleaming mosaic, not forming any recognized design but merely wedding color to color in blending shades.
The Terrans cut their way through underbrush and reached the end of the wall. This was a large building occupying the space of a normal Terran city block. But around the corner they found the door, at the head of a curling ramp. The portal extended almost the full height of the first story and it was open, a carved archway. The frame was like frozen lace, with here a curve and there a point cracked and gone.
They hesitated. Save for the sighing of the wind, the sound of leaf against moving leaf, and some small twitters and squeaks from the unseen inhabitants of the green world which lay about the foot of the ramp, there was quiet—the quiet of the forgotten.
Ashe stepped onto the ramp, his soft-shod feet making not the slightest whisper. He climbed the gentle slope almost reluctantly, as if he did not really want to know what waited within.
Travis and Ross came behind. There were pockets of dead leaves caught in the curves of the ramp, and more drifted inside the open portal. They shuffled through them, to come into a hall which was breath-taking in its height. For it went up and up, until they were dizzied when they tried to follow its inner spiral with their eyes. And covering this expanse was the great opaline dome. The sunlight shone through it, painting rainbows on walls and on the ramp which climbed in a coil along the walls, serving other archways of fetter-lace on every floor level.