Fabrache pulled nervously at his beard. "The valley has known a wonderful event; the air still tingles… Is there not something more? " Fretfully he swung his gaunt body around in the saddle, rolling his eyes from side to side. There is pressure upon me."
Etzwane scanned the valley. To right and left, harsh gullies cut into sandstone, the high areas baking white-violet in the sunlight, the deep shadows a black bottle-green. A flicker of motion caught his eye; not a hundred feet distant crouched a large ahulph, considering whether or not to hurl a stone. Etzwane said, "Perhaps you feel the gaze of yonder ahulph."
Fabrache swung about, annoyed that Etzwane had seen the creature first. The ahulph, a blue-black buck of a variety unknown to Etzwane, shook its ear fibers uneasily and started to move away. Fabrache called out in de-da pidgin. The ahulph paused. Fabrache spoke again, and with the swaggering waggishness typical of the higher ahulphs, it bounded down from the jut. Politely it released a waft of "gregariousness "
•The higher ahulphs control four odors, signifying gregariousness, hostility, and two varieties of excitement unknown to the and sidled forward. Fabrache dismounted from his pacer and signaled Etzwane and Ifness to do likewise. Tossing a chunk of cold grain cake to the ahulph, he spoke again in de-da. The ahulph made a fervent and elaborate response. _
Fabrache turned to Ifness and Etzwane. "The ahulph watched the battle. He has explained to me the sequence of events. Two copper disk-ships landed at the end of the valley and remained there almost a week. Persons came out to walk around. They stood on two feet, but exuded a nonhuman odor. The ahulph paid no attention to their appearance. They did nothing during their stay and came outside only at dawn and dusk. Three days ago, at noon, four black globes appeared a mile overhead. The disk-ships were taken by surprise. The black globes sent down lightning bolts and exploded both disk-ships, then departed as abruptly as they had come. The ahulphs watched the wrecks, but felt diffident about approaching. Yesterday a large disk-ship dropped from the sky. After hovering an hour, it lifted the hulk which had suffered the least damage and carried it away. Fragments of the second hulk remain."
"Interesting news," murmured Ifness. 'Toss the creature another morsel of grain cake. I am anxious to inspect the shattered hulk."
Fabrache scratched his chin where the first hairs of human race. The innumerable races of lower ahulphs vent only hostility and an attractive scent. The ahulph mentality at times seems to resemble human intelligence, but the similarity is misleading, and attempts to deal with ahulphs on a basis of human rationality end in frustration. The ahulph, for instance, cannot understand working for hire, no matter how carefully the matter is explained. his beard had their roots. "I must admit to a diffidence not unlike that of the ahulph. The valley holds an uncanny presence which I do not care to test."
"Do not apologize," said Ifness. "You are not known as the Lucky Little Survivor for nothing. Will you await us here, in company with the ahulph?"
"This I will do," said Fabrache.
Ifness and Etzwane set off up the valley. They rode a mile, the sandstone rising to either side in crags and juts. The valley floor widened to become a sandy flat, and here they found the hulk of the second ship. The outer skin had been rent and torn in a dozen places; one entire section had disappeared. From the gaps spewed tangled metal and viscous oozes. The top surface had been exploded into tatters, which lay scattered across the plain; the ground below showed rings of white, green, and yellow powder.
Ifness gave a hiss of vexation. He snatched out his camera and photographed the hulk. "I had expected nothing better than this; still I had hoped. What a trophy had the ship been susceptible to study! A new cosmology, in effect, to compare with our own! A tragedy to find it thus! "
Etzwane felt mildly surprised at Ifness' vehemence: such a display was unusual. They moved closer and the wrecked spaceship exerted an eerie fascination, a strange, sad majesty. Ifness alighted from his pacer. He picked up a fragment of metal, hefted it, cast it aside. He went up to the hulk, peered into the interior, shook his head in disgust. "Everything of interest is either vaporized, crushed, or melted; we have nothing to learn here."
Etzwane spoke. "You notice that a segment of the ship is missing? Look yonder in that gulch: there it has lodged. " Ifness looked where Etzwane had directed. "The ship was attacked first, perhaps, by a burst of explosive force, and then struck again, with energy sufficient to cause the melting. " He set off toward the gulch, about fifty yards distant, into which a pie-shaped section of the ship had wedged itself. The outer skin, dented and distorted but by some miracle untorn, had plastered itself across the narrow opening like a great bronze seal.
The two scrambled up the stones until they could step over to the crumpled metal. Ifness tugged at the edge of a fractured section. Etzwane joined him; by dint of straining the two bent aside the sheet to provide an opening into the hull. A vile odor issued forth: a stench of decay, different from any Etzwane had known before… He became rigid, held up his hand. "Listen."
From below came a faint scraping sound, persisting two or three seconds.
"Something seems to be alive," Etzwane peered down into the dark. The prospect of entering the broken ship had no appeal for him.
Ifness had no such qualms. From his pouch he brought an object which Etzwane had never seen before: a transparent cube half an inch on a side. Suddenly it emitted a flood of light, which Ifness turned into the dim interior. Four feet below a broken bench slanted across what seemed to be a storage chamber; a clutter of objects flung from racks lay mounded against the far wall. Ifness stepped down upon the bench and jumped to the floor. Etzwane took a last wistful look around the valley and followed. Ifness stood surveying the heaped articles against the wall. He pointed. "A corpse. " Etzwane moved to where he could see. The dead creature lay on its back, pressed against the wall. "An anthropomorphic biped," said Ifness. "Distinctly not a man; not even manlike, except for two legs, two arms, and a head. It even smells different from human carrion."
"Worse," muttered Etzwane. He bent forward, studying the dead thing, which wore no garments save various straps for the support of three pouches, one at either hip, one at the back of the head. The skin, a purplish-black parchment, seemed as hard as old leather. The head displayed a number of parallel bony ridges, originating at the top of a protective ring around the single eye and running back across the scalp. A mouth-like orifice appeared at the base of the neck. Pads of matted bristle conceivably served as auditory organs.
Ifness saw something which had escaped Etzwane. He reached for a tubular rod, then lunged forward and thrust. In the shadows at the back of the dead creature's neck was a stir of sudden movement, but Ifness was too quick; the rod struck into a small dark object. Ifness pried the body away from the wall, struck again at the small six-legged creature who had ridden in the pouch at the back of the dead neck.
"Asutra? " asked Etzwane.
Ifness gave his head a jerk of assent. "Asutra and host."
Etzwane inspected the two-legged creature once more. "It is something like the Roguskhoi in the hard skin, the shape of the head, the hands and feet. ".
"I noted the similarity," said Ifness. "It might be a collateral form, or the stock from which the Roguskhoi derived. " He spoke tonelessly; his eyes darted this way and that. Etzwane had never seen him so keen. "Quietly now," said Ifness.
On long, soft steps he went to the bulkhead and turned his light through an aperture.