Where the camp had been set and death was waiting.
Chapter Twelve
It came as the dying sun gilded the tips of the spires and Chenault was busy probing the star rays for signs Agutter may have left behind. A search as yet barren and which would have created disappointment in an ordinary man but which only caused him to move faster as he touched and scanned the walls. Toetzer had joined him, Shior following as if by accident. It was Hilary who screamed the warning.
"Look out! Danger! Be careful!" Then, the harshly strident blasting of a gun. Shior had been fast, reacting by instinct, firing at something he hadn't recognized. A broad, disc-like creature edged with scrabbling legs which dropped from the side of a spire to land and rear with snapping mandibles. A thing six feet across, two thick, armored like a crab, the carapace the dull hue of the spire on which it had lurked.
One followed by others, a flood as it died beneath a storm of shattering lead.
"Helmets! Close helmets!" Dumarest snapped the order into the radio as he snatched up a gun. Vapors could be emitted by the things, acid sprays, numbing gases-in Ryzam no possibility could be ignored. "Massak! Guard the women! The rest of you-move!"
They advanced behind a hail of bullets which smashed through armor, spilling greenish ichor, pulpy flesh, oddly shaped organs. A curtain of protection from which Chenault stumbled, Toetzer following, Shior standing to cover their retreat. An act which cost him his life.
Dumarest saw the movement as, again, Hilary screamed a warning. Things seeming to peel from the spires, falling to land, scrabbling, rearing, darting forward with startling speed. Swamping the lone figure, muffling the blast of his gun, absorbing the missiles Dumarest poured into them.
"Hui!" Massak roared his anger. "Those damned things! They've got him!"
Tearing through his armor with mandibles like shears. Ripping at the soft flesh exposed beneath the protection. Feeding on his body and blood.
"Back!" Dumarest caught the mercenary and threw him toward the bales. "Hold your position. All of you! Back! Back, I say! Back!"
He fired again, a long burst which emptied the clip, sending more broken and shattered disc-things to join the others twitching on the ground. Reloading he looked at the spires, seeing them flake into new creatures which glided down to join the feast. Tearing into their injured fellows with savage ferocity. Cannibalism common among all such predators living in a hostile environment.
"We must press on." Chenault lifted a hand, pointing. "I thought I saw Agutter's sign down there."
"We can't." Dumarest fired again, a short burst which sent broken things twitching to one side. "There must be millions of them. They coat the spires. Waiting dormant until aroused." He fired again adding, grimly, "They're waking now."
There were too many to kill and he knew it. Already they must fill the crevasses behind them, blocking off the path to the hands, the edge of Ryzam. The raft couldn't carry them all and it would take too long to return with the others. The only hope of survival was to keep the creatures away from them. To hide their scent and presence.
"Cease fire! Freeze! Seal your suits!" Dumarest snarled as Vosper continued to fire. "Obey, damn you! Obey or I'll gun you down!"
Movement had attracted their notice and the scent of water vapor expelled from lungs and sweat had brought the things in for the kill. Shior's death had provided irresistible bait. Sealed the suits would prevent the smell of water escaping and, while motionless, the small party could ape the rocks, the lifeless surround.
"Lice." Toetzer echoed his disgust. "Like a swarm of lice. Vermin lusting to feed. Fruit of evil and degeneracy and the instrument of vengeance against those-"
"Shut up, Jem!" Hilary was sharp. "This is no time for you to start preaching."
Massak, more practical, said, "What now, Earl?"
Dumarest studied the situation. The creatures had fed, those replete now clinging to the rock, blending into it, their carapaces, he guessed, absorbing the weak energy from the sun. Others, still questing for food and water, had slowed and would soon again become dormant. The sun, lowering, would be giving less energy and, with darkness, the things would probably enter some kind of brief hibernation.
But the night could bring other perils less easily seen and combated.
"Tama, move slowly and check on that sign you saw." The surrogate, a machine and not a man, needed no armor or suit, yielding no attractive scent. Only its movement could bring unwelcome attention. "Don't go too far and freeze if anything shows an interest. The rest of you rip open the bales. Load up with food and water. Set extra containers to one side. Toyanna, pick those you want to carry the casket." Dumarest waited, then, into the radio, said, "Tama?"
"There's an opening. A wide crack, narrow at the top, fretted at the bottom. Debris is lying around. I think some of your bullets must have shattered a wall of some kind." Chenault added, "Agutter's sign is to one side and above it."
The path they needed to take if the old instructions were valid.
Dumarest said, "All of you get ready to move. Head for that opening. You stay with me, Toetzer. Massak, you cover the rear. Ready? Move!"
He stood, waiting, Toetzer at his side, a pile of cans of water at their feet. Before them gaped the mouth of a ray leading from the clearing, one of the seven points forming the star. It lay opposite the one with the opening. As the column crossed the clearing and the creatures began to stir Dumarest picked up one of the cans.
"Now, Jem. Do as I do. Throw them as far as you can."
The container left his hands, thrown with all the power of back and shoulder muscles, hitting to bounce and slide deeper into the opening. Another, a third, Toetzer's falling short. He gave a strangled cry and, without warning, ran after it, snatching it from the rock, unsealing it before hurling it from him in a rain of glittering droplets.
"Feed, you spawn of hell! Drink the blood of man and give him the fruit of his earned torment! Drink, you vileness and filth of degeneracy!"
"Come back, you fool! Back!"
Dumarest snatched up his gun, its blast cutting short the sound of the thin, insane babble coming from the speakers. Bullets ripped into the other containers and smashed racing creatures into twitching pulp. As Toetzer came stumbling toward him Dumarest backed, following the others.
"Here, Earl!" Massak was beside him, gun blasting flame. "He'll never make it."
A judgment based on experience. Toetzer was too far, moving too slowly, falling as they watched to be covered with a mass of ravenous creatures. His screams echoed from the speakers, dying as the two men fired and continued to fire until the creatures and the man were dead, unfeeling flesh.
Firing again as they backed into the opening to bring rock showering down from the roof. A barrier Dumarest sealed with a final burst then, satisfied, turned to look at a cavern of nightmare.
There was a glow in it, a pale luminescence stemming from things which hung like elongated fruit from points high on the walls and roof. Others glowed lower down, some of different shapes from the others, some, as he watched, appearing to twitch.
"Bunch up," he ordered. "Keep a sharp watch- you women watch the roof."
He studied the floor as they moved forward to where the cavern narrowed to a gaping tunnel. It was littered with debris, scraps and fragments of darkish brown material, the sheen of broken metal, shreds of what could have been plastic. The residue of earlier inhabitants or those who had followed Agutter's path. As he neared one of the glowing bundles it moved, bobbing on its stem, jerking as if it contained something alive and struggling to escape.