He had the passing thought that, if this were an odyssey, it was proceeding all wrong. The hero was not winning.
With Salsbury firmly under his arm, the gorilla swung onto the cliff and began going up, using only its toes and free hand, hooking those blunt fingers over stones so sharp they should have jammed through his palm and out the back of his hand. The climb was totally impossible. That was quite evident. They continued up. Sixty feet off the ground, with Salsbury's head hanging down and pounding with an overflow of blood, they swung into the mouth of a cave where a smaller fire burned, just a few tongues of flames and a pile of hot coals which seemed as much ceremonial as practical.
Keeper, as Victor had come to think of the creature, hooted into the blackness and started back the tunnel, moving more cautiously here because he had to bend some to keep from cracking that magnificent skull against the stumps of broken stalactites. Before they had gone a dozen feet, another light appeared farther back in answer to Keeper's call. In the burgeoning glow, Salsbury saw another half-man lighting a pile of twigs and logs with the end of a torch that, obviously, was always kept lit.
They moved out of the entrance passageway into the heart of the cave-a room fully thirty-five feet wide and fifty long-where ten more half-men were sitting and lying on piles of grass and leaves. The creatures were in various stages of alertness, and they seemed, as a lot, to be in a grumpy mood after being so rudely wakened. They hooted and snarled at Keeper, threw handsful of bedding materials at him. But when they caught sight of Salsbury, they came to sitting positions, their heavy-lidded eyes wide with interest, their paws wiping sleep matter away so they could get a better look.
Victor was the curiosity, the find of the week of the century, perhaps. They could not have much in the way of entertainments in such a beginning society. Salsbury was the equivalent of a circus. If they could have built a zoo, he would have been their star attraction and advertised for miles around. And when he died? Why, they would stuff his body and mount it to be stashed in the equivalent of the ape men's Smithsonian. He knew now how a freak must feel; how it must be to be radically different; not just different in color or the slant of one's eyes which is, alone, enough for some men to stare twice, but so different that the mind boggles a little to contemplate your existence.
Their minds were boggling.
He was deposited on a stone ledge two feet off the floor to one side of the cave. There was no sense in making a try for the entrance to the cave, for the freedom of the night. If Keeper did not pounce on him before he was a third of the way to fresh air, another of the half-men would. He sat and endured the bad breath and prodding. They chattered and jabbered, hooted and yelped at him, then waited expectantly, as if they thought he might reply. He spoke a bit in English, but this did not satisfy them. They only frowned, which was a truly frightening and awesome expression to behold on those craggy faces, and began muttering among themselves again. He imagined they thought him too stupid to speak intelligently.
Some minutes later, female half-men entered the room, their great sagging breasts matted with a softer coating of hair than that which adorned the chests of their huskier menfolk. They moved with a refined gracefulness which Salsbury had glimpsed in the males, bearing bowls of a steaming gray-green gruel. These monsters, he knew, would require large quantities of food to sustain their mammoth bodies and to allow them the speed and versatility of movement they enjoyed. They now were ready to eat
After everyone was served, a white-haired half-man who seemed to be in charge of the group grunted something to the most firm-breasted female. She looked as if she was about to disagree or refuse him, then thought better of it. Timidly, as if she were frightened near to death of Salsbury, she edged up to the ledge where he rested and placed a bowl of gruel in front of him, then skittered nervously out of the cavern into an adjoining room, much to the delight of the men who guffawed and chortled like a bunch of schoolboys planning deviltry of the first order.
Victor had not eaten since that half sandwich hours before entering the portal between probabilities, for he had been too nervous. Since then, he had been put through quite a bit and was nearly physically exhausted. Yet he could not bring himself to eat the soupy mixture that had been placed before him. It was the color of polluted water and swimming within it were bits of dark, stringy meat of questionable origin. The smell that rolled off the surface of the stuff was reminiscent of spoiled meat, rotting vegetables, and stale corn soup. He gagged, shoved it aside, and looked back to the rest of the assemblage.
Keeper and the others were eating heartily and talking animatedly among themselves like women at a card party. The only difference was that these gossipers did not smell of perfumed soaps and bath powders. And they lacked the table manners those matrons would have shown.
The women were called, and everyone had a second bowl of the slop except Salsbury who only wished they would remove his first uneaten portion. Some of the women smiled toothy yellow smiles, and he suspected they were being complimented on their culinary finesse. The firm-breasted half-woman who had gingerly offered him a bowl of gruel took it away, looking at him strangely, as if she could not fathom why an inferior creature like him would not go for civilized food.
When everyone was finished, and when Salsbury had become a rather accepted phenomena, the other half-man who had been with Keeper produced the gas pellet pistol and held it aloft for the assembly to inspect. There were a number of startled grunts, and Victor received several stares of re-evaluation. The only place they would have seen something that well machined would have been down the mountainside in the vacii settlement. Surely the vacii had come among them-though perhaps the aliens would not have bothered experimenting on such a raggedy, moronic group as this-and would have left reminders of their superiority by demonstrating their weaponry a few times.
Put that down! Salsbury shouted.
They looked at him stupidly.
You'll kill each other! That was not really such a bad prospect, but they might also kill him in the process.
The white-haired half-man took the gun from the other's paw and turned it over and over, fascinated with the knobs, lines of design. He was intelligent enough to see just how it was meant to be held, though his own fingers were too large to grasp it as delicately as was intended. His fingers brushed the trigger, fired a pellet into the chest of the half-man who had brought the gun into the caves in the first place.
The creature's chest seemed to expand as if it were a balloon being blown up by a giant with fantastic lung capacity. Then it burst outward, showering gore on those seated nearby. The half-man looked down curiously at its ruined body, grunted something the others of its kind didn't even seem to understand, turned and stared at Salsbury with swiftly glazing eyes, then slumped forward- dead.
The chief dropped the gun, hooting insanely, and danced to his feet, much more agile than he appeared. He was in a fury, waving his arms about, chanting over the fallen body. When he was finished, the corpse had not moved even a fraction of an inch as all of them seemed to expect it might. Keeper reached out and rolled his friend over. Together the half-men inspected the gaping hole that revealed their ex-comrade's innards. Then, almost as one organism, they turned to stare at Salsbury where he sat on the ledge.