“Why would anyone want monsters?” Dane looked to the blob and then away. He didn’t like to remember the details of that recent struggle, though he had no sympathy for the monster who had lost.
“Maybe not monsters for the sake of monsters,” Tau acknowledged. “These are probably experiments of some sort. But there are other uses for such radiation. Suppose such a box were planted on a holding, how long could a settler stick it out if his livestock began to mutate to this extent? It would be an excellent way to clear off a world. Or, if they could make it work on human beings—”
Dane sat up. Tau was giving voice to fears he shared. But Meshler was more interested in the first part of the medic’s speculation.
“Why would they want to get rid of settlers?”
“You know more about your own planet than I do. Ask yourself that. I am wondering whether that thing can climb,” Tau watched the blob. “Also how long before it is hungry again—”
Dane stood up. There were huge reptiles on his native world, which, engorging a large meal, were then sluggish for days thereafter. One could never judge unknown fauna by what one knew of other species, but they could hope this was the case now. He turned to look for the haze marking the barrier. They should be able to see it from here and mark out a path if the brach was successful and the force field went out.
“There is no reason—” Meshler was still wrestling with the problem of the settlers being the target. “There is no reason here. And this, this kind of experiment, it can’t be known by the Council.”
“Good. Let us get out, and you can tell them all about it,” replied Tau. “Is the field still up,” he asked Dane.
“Yes.” The thin haze was unbroken. How long before they must conclude that the brach had failed? And how long before that blob would uncoil and be hungry again? Could it climb? He would rather not guess, though his treacherous imagination kept suggesting that there was no reason in the world to believe it could not.
Resolutely he concentrated on the matter at hand, to calculate the nearest point of the haze. He thought that lay to the north, and he said as much.
“The question is, do we stay here, or do we try to reach the field before our visitor comes out of his after dinner trance,” Tau said. “I’m wondering how many more surprises may be lurking in the undergrowth.”
He had gotten so far when Dane saw the flicker of the haze. Had the brach been successful? But the barrier steadied, and he choked back his cry, only to see a second flicker before the force field disappeared.
“It’s off!”
“We move!” Tau stooped to pick up something Meshler had laid beside his pack. It was the torch made from the branch. The medic weighed it in one hand, as if he meditated its use as a club, then thrust the butt in his belt.
Dane took a careful bearing on the nearest point of freedom. Beyond that the land was clear, and they could make better time. He gave a last glance at the blob, but that remained so quiet that one could believe it a rock outcrop.
He kicked the ladder out, feeling its weighted end thump on the ground, and swung over. But as he descended, he continued to peer between the supports to watch the blob. He wished that they did not have to turn their backs on the thing to flee.
There was thick brush between them and the open, matted stuff through which Meshler had earlier guided them. As they ran for that, Tau pulled the torch from his belt.
“How inflammable is this woods?” He came level with the ranger to ask.
“This is winter, and the leaves are dried. They will fall in the spring when pushed off by new growth. What would you do?”
“Set a wall behind us—make sure we won’t be ambushed by other nasty surprises.”
Again they locked hands, and Meshler led them through the bush. When they could see the open land, Tau brought from one of the loops of his belt a sparker and touched it to the soaked torch. The thing blazed fiercely, and the medic turned, whirled it about his head, and hurled it into the thicket through which they had forced their way.
That’s a perfect beacon,” Dane protested.
“Maybe so, but it’s the best answer, short of setting on the field again—which we can’t do—to deter a tracker. I don’t fancy anything from that horror pen sniffing on my trail!”
They ran, speeding out into the open. When they stumbled into the road left by the crawlers, there was a growing line of fire behind.
“Where now?” Dane fully expected Meshler to turn back to the lamp-guarded way. But instead he faced in the other direction.
“We still need transportation—more than ever if they hunt us down after that—” He gestured to the fire, not only spreading a red and yellow ring at ground level, but also now setting tall candles by igniting trees.
“We just walk in and ask—” Dane stood where he was. “That’s about as stupid as kicking that blob—”
“No.” At least Meshler had some sense left. “We wait.” He looked about, hitching the pack off his shoulder. “That place up there might do.”
The place up there was a cut made by crawler treads running between slightly higher banks. There was cover, though of a meager sort, in some crumbling ridges of soil. Had they blasters, it would have been a place for an ambush. Was Meshler thinking that the fire would draw attention—bring a vehicle here they could take? But without weapons?
“What will you do?” he demanded. “Wave them down?”
For the first time he heard a rusty noise. Could it be that Meshler was laughing?
“Something like that. If we are lucky and someone comes to see what is happening.”
He took something from his pack, but what it was Dane could not see. It appeared the ranger was not going to explain his plan. The sensible thing was to jet off—he and Tau—and leave Meshler to his folly, but they were not left time for decision. The clank of a crawler in operation came to their ears.
With Tau, Dane speedily took cover behind the all-too-slight ridge. The ranger was on the other side of the road and had so well melted into the landscape that Dane had no idea where he lay.
Whoever drove the crawler was pushing that machine to its top speed. The engine and frame were protesting the resulting shaking with a medley of small noises. They could see it nosing into the cut, and it clanked on past them, while Dane waited tensely for Meshler’s attack. When that did not come, he gave a sigh of relief. The ranger must have thought better of his wild idea.
As the crawler continued, a dark shape separated from the opposite ridge and came down into the road. What followed Dane could not see clearly, but he thought that Meshler had tossed something on the rear of the machine. The crawler ground on for a couple of rounds of its treads, and then vapor began to wreathe it in.
From the cabin sounded coughing and shouts indistinguishable to the Terrans. The door swung open on one side, and a man threw himself out and rolled to the ground, followed by another. There was a spat of blaster fire aimed straight up into the night. By that Dane saw two more men drop from the cabin, clawing at their faces and yelling. The blaster fell from the grip of whoever had held it and lay in one of the ruts, beaming its deadly ray along the ground, sending the full of its charge back within the narrow walls of that deep track.
Reflection from that continued to give them a limited view of what was going on. The crawler, cabin doors hanging open, kept on, but the men who had fallen or jumped from it were lying still. Two more had made valiant efforts to draw hand weapons. One got his free of the holster before he went limp.
Now Meshler appeared, sprinting along beside the road, leaping for the crawler, catching an open door, being dragged until he pulled himself up to wriggle in. The heavy machine ground to a stop.