"Just leave him."
The rest moved on into the depths of the cavern, to where tunnels gaped, to the one on the left which led to a long gallery crusted with distorted figures of stone glowing with the pale sheen of organic decay. To a place where the floor was gouged as if by mighty claws and walking was difficult.
They camped when they could go no farther, sleeping in sacs inflated and washed clean by tanked air. Stripping to lie close as Dumarest and Massak shared the watches sitting alone in the brooding stillness of a world beneath a world.
***
There had been no cairn. Chenault looked at the hand Dumarest extended toward him, then, slowly, produced the paper he'd found in the eroded can.
Reading it Dumarest said, "I can go no farther. May God help all poor fools who search for an empty dream. If any find this be warned and think of Samu Lowski." Folding the sheet he handed it back. "You lied."
"Can you blame me? How far would any of you have gone after reading this?"
"As far as we've come now. Too far, perhaps." Dumarest looked at the sacs, those within. Awake now, eating from cans, drinking, easing their bodies. "You could have picked a stronger team."
"I took what I could get." Chenault dismissed the subject. "We're here now and must make the best of it. The source can't be too far-Ryzam isn't that large. If it lies at the center a few more days should do it. Less if we have no trouble."
And, after they found it, they would have to get out.
A problem Dumarest ignored; worrying about future difficulties made them no less.
He said, "How are you? Physically, I mean."
"I can manage."
"That isn't what I asked. You should conserve your strength. What are the coordinates of Earth?"
"They're-" Chenault broke off his near-automatic response. "No. Not yet. I'll give then to you when we find what we're looking for."
They pressed on, suffering from weariness of previous effort, the debilitating effect of heat and the dehydration it caused. The helmets were open now; Vosper's continued good health having proved the safety of the air, but still the enervating heat remained. Lopakhin provided the explanation.
"It must be due to hysteresis. Look." He waved his gun violently in the air and held it out for Dumarest to touch. The metal was uncomfortably warm. "We must be cutting through lines of force of some kind. That generates the heat."
"At our speed?"
"I know, Earl. It's unusual. Normally it needs a high velocity but, apparently, not in Ryzam." The artist shrugged. "All I can suggest is that we remove the suits."
A suggestion followed, the weight and bulk tucked in a niche to be retrieved on their return. A pragmatic arrangement: if they could survive the journey in they should be able to survive it out. Massak marked the spot with a daub of paint sprayed from a can, lifted it, smiling, sent more to mark the wall higher up.
"I've used it all along," he explained. "I've been in caverns before and once fought an engagement in an underground installation. I got lost then and if it hadn't been for someone with more brains I'd have died. He used wire to mark the path but paint is just as good."
An elementary precaution and Dumarest had taken it but his markings had been more subtle. If any of the group panicked and wanted to run he didn't intend to provide them with an easy path to follow. Now, more than ever, safety lay in numbers.
The column had lengthened a little, stretching as difference in strides accumulated to create gaps and openings. Dumarest called a halt, bunching them close, moving forward to check what lay ahead. The vast gallery they had been following changed to a vaulted cavern with low-sweeping roofs, curved walls, a floor which undulated like a rolling ocean. It leveled as it ran beneath a convex roof cracked, pitted and scarred with crater-like blotches. The air held an acrid, acid smell which caught at his nostrils. The glow from the rock was dimmer than that they had passed.
"Wait!" Hilary caught his arm as he returned. She stood with her head tilted a little as if she heard things silent to others. "Up ahead," she whispered. "I sense it." Her voice rose, the scream chopped off by Dumarest's hand.
"Danger?" He spoke softly into her ear. "Like that you sensed before in the clearing?" He felt her nod. "From above?"
"I can't be sure." She gasped as he uncovered her mouth. "It's just that I know something's going to happen. Something bad."
Lying in wait somewhere in the area ahead. When it struck, Vosper died.
It happened quickly; a blur which ended at his throat to become a thing of nightmare, scaled, spined, the shears of mandibles tearing at his throat. A spider-like thing two feet across swinging on a thread from a crater in the roof. More followed it, bodies which jerked to the impact of bullets to hang broken, spinning like grotesque ornaments on the end of glistening threads.
"Run!" Dumarest barked the order as he fired. "Get clear of this roof! Massak! Mutual cover!"
He ran to the wall behind him, dropped, crouching, gun lifted to blast in rapid but aimed fire at the menace from above. The mercenary followed, both men firing to protect the other, the rest around the casket. A trained maneuver free of the danger of panic-firing and the wildly aimed bullets which could deal unintentional death.
Bodies fell between them to lie twitching on the ground, mandibles tearing at oozing flesh, the creatures feeding as they died.
Hilary screamed, screamed again, the sound ended by the blast of a gun. Mirza shouted curses as she cleared the air above the casket. Running, firing, Dumarest and the mercenary joined the others as they reached the far side of the area. Pulp and ooze marred the transparent surface of the casket. Blood at the throat of the tattooed woman. It jetted through Toyanna's fingers as, looking at Dumarest, she shook her head.
"Hilary!" Lopakhin dropped to his knees beside her, blood on his cheek, more streaming from a lacerated scalp. "Please, for God's sake-"
"Tyner." Her hand rose to touch his cheek. "You're hurt, my dearest. I'm sorry. I didn't want to leave you. But I'm so tired. So very…"
Her voice faded, dying as she died and for a moment there was silence. Then the artist rose, gun in his hands, tears streaming down his cheeks as he emptied the magazine at the craters blotching the roof, the lurking horrors they contained.
Chapter Thirteen
Dumarest turned, gun lifting, lowering as he recognized the woman coming toward him. He sat with his back against solid rock, beneath a roof barely eight feet from the ground. A branch cavern and a safe place for the camp.
"Mind if I join you, Earl?" Mirza Karroum sat as he gestured to the spot at his side. "I couldn't sleep," she explained. "Too many thoughts, I guess."
Accompanied by too many worries. It had been three days since Hilary had died and she looked what she was; an old, tired, disheartened woman. She needed the consolation he could give.
He said, "You should ask Pia to give you something."
"To make me sleep? No. Would you?"
"I'm working."
"You're always working." She looked at him as he sat limned against the glowing rock. A man naked but for shorts and boots; the protective mesh of his own clothing had forced him to discard it because of generated heat. "On guard. Keeping watch. Pushing us all and keeping us a unit. Chenault couldn't have found a better man."
"He needs to rest."
"He's dying." She was blunt. "Pia tries to hide it but I know the truth. He's drawing too deeply on his reserves. Maybe he won't make it. Maybe none of us will."
"We knew that from the beginning."
"True, but still we came. The lure of a dream." She stretched out her hands, turning them to show the brown blotches on the skin. Her left wrist bore a scarlet tattoo. "The brand of the Karroum." She had noticed his interest. "It's applied as soon as possible after birth. To avoid any substitution. Angado had one-you must have seen it."