When the scouts at last reached the summit, they turned to look back into the valley of the lake. That smooth sheet of water occupied perhaps half of the basin. And it seemed to Travis that the mirror surface reached closer to the wrecked ship today than it had when they passed it the afternoon before. He said as much, and Ashe agreed.
“Water has to go somewhere and these rains feed all the streams heading down there. Another reason why we must make this a fast job. So—let’s get moving.”
But when they turned again to follow the line of the heights,
Travis halted. A very thin and watery sunlight broke through the clouds, carrying with it little or no warmth as yet, but providing more light. And—he peered intendy westward and downslope on the other side of the hills…. No, he had not been mistaken! That sunlight, feeble as it was, reflected from some point in the second valley. From water? He doubted that, the answering spark was too brilliant.
Ashe and Ross, following his direction, saw it too.
“Second ship?” Ross suggested.
“If so, it is not marked on our charts. But we’ll take a look. I agree that’s too bright to be sun on water.”
Had there been survivors from the other crash? Travis wondered. If so, had they established a camp down there? He had heard enough during the past few days to judge that any contact with the original owners of the galactic ships could be highly dangerous. Ross had been pursued by one of their patrols across miles of wilderness, and had escaped from a form of mind compulsion they exerted only by deliberately burning his hand in a fire and using pain to counter their mental demand for surrender. They were not human, those ship people, and what powers or weapons they did possess were so alien as to defy Terran understanding so far.
So the three took to cover, making expert use of every bit of brush, every boulder, as they advanced to locate that source of reflection. Again Travis was amazed by the skill of his companions. He had hunted lion, and Hon in the beast’s native mountains is very wary game. And he could read trail with all the skill imparted to him by Chato who knew the ways of the old raiding warriors. But these two were equal to him at what he always considered a red man’s rather than a white man’s game.
They came at last to lie in a fringe of trees, parting the grass cautiously to look out on an expanse of open land. In the middle of it rested another globe ship, but this one was entirely above ground and it was small, a pygmy compared to the giant in the other valley. At first superficial examination it looked to have been landed normally, not crashed. Halfway up, the curve facing them showed the dark hole of an open entrance port, and from it dangled a ladder. Someone had survived this landing, come to earth herel
“Lifeboat?” Ashe’s voice was the slightest of whispers.
“It is not shaped like the one I saw before,” Ross hissed. “That was like a rocket.”
Wind sang across the clearing. Under its push the ladder clanged against the side of the globe. And from the foot of the strange ship some birds tried to rise. But they moved sluggishly, flopping their wings with an awkward heaviness. And the wind brought to the three in hiding that sweetish, stomach-turning odor which could never be mistaken by those who had ever smelled it. Something lay dead there, very dead.
Ashe stood up, watching those birds narrowly. Then he walked forward. A snarl came from close to ground level. Travis’ spear came up. It sang through the air and a brown-coated, four-footed beast yelped, leaped pawing in the air, to crash back into the grass. More of the gorged carrion birds fluttered and hopped away from their feast.
What lay about the foot of that ladder was not a pretty sight. Nor could the scouts tell at first glance how many bodies there had been. Ashe attempted to make a closer examination and came away, white-faced and gagging. Ross picked up a tatter of blue-green material.
“Baldies’ uniforms, all right,” he identified it. “This is one thing I’ll never forget. What happened here? A fight?”
“What ever it was, it happened some time ago,” Ashe, livid under tan and skin stain, got out the words carefully. “Since there was no burial, I’d say the crew must all have been finished.”
“Do we go in?” Travis laid a hand on the ladder.
“Yes. But don’t touch anything. Especially any of the instruments or installations.”
Ross laughed on a slightly hysterical high note. “That you do not need to underline for me, chief. After you, sir, after you.”
Thus, Ashe leading the way, they climbed the ladder, entered the gaping hole of the port. There was a second door a short distance inside, doubly thick and with heavy braces, but it, too, was ajar. Ashe pushed it back and then they were in a well from which another ladder-like stair arose.
Somehow Travis had expected darkness, since there were no windows or wall outlets in the outer skin of the globe. But a blue light seeped from the walls about them, and not only light, but a warmth which was comforting.
“The ship’s still alive,” Ross commented. “And if she is intact—”
“Then,” Ashe finished softly for him, “we’ve made the big find, boys. We never hoped for luck like this.” He started to climb the inner ladder.
They came to a landing, or rather a platform from which opened three oval doors, all closed. Ross pushed against each, but they all held.
“Locked?” Travis asked.
“Might be—or else we don’t know how to turn the right buttons. Going on up, chief? If this follows the pattern of that other one, the control cabin is on top.”
“We’ll take a look. But no experiments, remember?”
Ross stroked his scarred hand. “I’m not forgetting that.”
A second ladder section brought them through a manhole in the floor of a hemisphere chamber occupying the whole top of the ship. And, before they were through that entrance, they knew that death had come that way before them.
There was one body only, crumpled forward against the straps of a seat which hung on springs and cords from the roof. In front of that rigid corpse, which was clad in the bluegreen material, was a board crowded with dials, buttons, levers.
“Pilot—died at his post.” Ashe walked forward, stooped over the body. “I don’t see any sign of a wound. Could be an epidemic which attacked all the crew. Well let the doctors figure it out.”
They did not linger to explore farther, for this find was too important. It was too necessary that the news of this second ship be relayed to Kelgarries and his superiors. But Ashe took the precaution of drawing the ladder into the globe’s port after his two younger companions had descended. He made his way down by rope.
“Who do you think is going to snoop?” Ross wanted to know.
“Just a little insurance. We know there are primitives in the northern end of this country. They may be the type to whom everything strange is taboo. Or they may be inquisitive enough to explore. And I don’t fancy someone touching off a com again and calling in the galactic patrol or whoever those chaps wearing blue are. Now, let’s get to the transfer on the double!”
The weak sunlight of the early morning had increased in strength. The air was growing noticeably warmer, and danker, too, as the moisture-laden grass about them gave up its burden of last night’s rain. The process of travel resembled running through a river choked with slimy, slapping reeds, save that the ground underfoot was firm. The men panted up the heights, down past their refuge of the stormy night, to the plain of the lake, skirting the glade where scavengers were busy with the remains of the sabertooth’s kill.
As they came out into the open Ashe broke astride and swept one hand down in an emphatic order to take cover. That herd of mixed bison and horses which they had startled the night before was in movement once more, cutting diagonally across their path. And the animals were plainly in flight from some menace. Sabertooth again? The bison, though, tons of heavy bone and meat not to be faced down with ease, appeared able to take care of themselves with those sweeping horns.