Small in the distance, Clemdish sat with his back against a rock, his legs sprawled before him and the packs resting to one side beneath the protection of one arm. Dumarest shaded his eyes with the edge of his hand. Farther back, almost invisible against the faint haze still rising from the ground, the tiny, antlike figures of scouting men could be seen as they swung in a circle around the station. The landing field itself was below the horizon, since Scar was a dense but small planet.
Dumarest turned and felt the soft touch of a breeze against his perspiring face. From where he stood the ground fell sharply away in an almost sheer drop before it eased into a gullied slope running down to the sea.
There was no sand and no shore as such. The winter rains which had lashed the high ground for eons was gradually washing the soil and rock into the sea. A sullen red beneath the sun, its surface was broken only by the occasional ripple of aquatic life, calm in the knowledge that, given time, it would spread over the planet in unquestioned domination of the entire world.
Dumarest moved and a rock, loosened by his foot, fell tumbling, bouncing high as it hit stone and rolling until it dropped over the edge of the cliff and fell into the sea. Ripples spread, shimmering in shades of crimson and scarlet, dull maroon and glowing ruby, the colors fading and blending as the disturbance spread, the tiny waves dying at last.
He turned, looking back to where Clemdish sat sprawled in sleep, and then looked back at the sea. With one slip he could easily follow the rock. A fall could break his leg or send him tumbling from the cliff.
Carefully, he lowered himself down to where a boulder thrust from the dirt, a temporary resting place. Budding growths thrust smooth protrusions to either side, and Dumarest smiled at the evidence of his suspicions. The wind was from the sea, but released spores had been driven back against the side of the hill rather than carried over the summit. Better still, if the wind was steady the spores would be driven back to their original sites. The chance of scattering with the resultant crossbreeding would be diminished. Logically here, if anywhere on Scar, the fungi would breed true.
Dirt showered from beneath a foot as he moved and he froze, feeling sweat running down his face, fingers like claws as he gouged at the soil. More dirt shifted; a small rock fell. There was a sudden yielding of hardened surface, a miniature avalanche, gathered momentum as it slid towards the cliff.
Dumarest rolled, his muscles exploding into a fury of action as he released his grip and threw himself sideways to where a rock thrust from the slope. He hit it, felt it shift beneath his weight and threw himself still farther, rolling as the stone joined the showering detritus. He choked on the rising dust, rolled again and spread arms and legs wide in an effort to gain traction. Desperately he snatched the knife from his boot and drove the blade to the hilt in the ground. It held, and he clung to it, trying to ease the strain on the blade, rasping his booted feet as he fought to find purchase.
Beneath him the sea boiled with the shower of falling stones and dirt.
The knife held. His boots found something on which to press. The fingers of his free hand dug and found comforting solidity. The dust dissipated and, after a long moment, he lifted his head and looked around.
He hung on the edge of a sheer drop, his feet inches from where moist soil showed the meshed tendrils of subterranean growth. To one side showed more wet earth, graying as it dried beneath the wind and sun. Above lay apparent firmness.
He eased towards it, moving an inch at a time, pressing his body hard against the dirt so as to diminish the strain. His boots stabbed at the mesh of tendrils, held, and allowed his free hand to find a fresh purchase. He crawled spiderlike up the slope to comparative safety. Finally, knife in hand, he reached the secure refuge of a shallow depression in a circling cup of embedded stone.
His face down, he fought to control the quivering of his muscles, the reaction from sudden and unexpected exertion. Slowly the roar of pulsing blood faded in his ears and the rasp of his breathing eased, as did the pounding of his heart. He rolled and looked at the knife in his hand, then thrust it at his boot. He missed and tried again, this time stooping to make sure the blade was in its sheath.
He stiffened as he saw the cluster of hemispheres at his side.
They were two inches across, marbled with a peculiar pattern of red and black stippled with yellow. He had seen that pattern before. Every man at the station had seen it, but it was essential to be sure.
Dumarest took a small folder from his pocket. It was filled with colored depictions of various types of fungi both in their early stages of growth and at maturity. He riffled the pages and found what he wanted. Holding the page beside the hemispheres at his side he checked each of fifteen confirming details.
Slowly he put the book away.
It was the dream of every prospector on Scar. It was the jackpot, the big find, the one thing which could make them what they wanted to be. There were the rare and fabulously valuable motes which could live within the human metabolism, acting as a symbiote and giving longevity, heightened awareness, enhanced sensory appreciation and increased endurance.
There was golden spore all around him, in a place which he had almost died to find.
* * *
Clemdish lifted his head his eyes widening as he looked at Dumarest. "Earl, what the hell happened to you?"
He rose as Dumarest slumped to the ground. His gray tunic, pants and boots were scarred; blood oozed from beneath his fingernails; his face was haggard with fatigue.
"I told you not to go," said Clemdish. "I warned you it was a waste of time. What the hell happened? Did you fall?"
Dumarest nodded.
"You need food," said the little man, "water, something to give you a lift." He produced a canteen; from a phial he shook a couple of tablets and passed them to Dumarest. "Swallow these; get them down." He watched as Dumarest obeyed. "I was getting ready to come after you. Man, you look a wreck!"
"I feel one." Dumarest drew a deep breath, filling his lungs and expelling the vitiated air. The drugs he had swallowed were beginning to work; already he felt less fatigued. "I fell," he said. "I went down too far and couldn't get back. The surface was like jelly. It refused to support my weight."
"It wouldn't." Clemdish dug again into his pack and produced a slab of concentrates. "Chew on this." He watched as Dumarest ate. "I tried to tell you," he reminded. "I told you climbing those hills was a waste of time. You could have got yourself killed, and for what?"
Dumarest said nothing.
"You've lost your markers too," pointed out the little man. "Not that it matters. We've got plenty more, too damn many." He scowled up at the sun. "A waste of time," he muttered. "Too much time."
"All right," said Dumarest. "You've told me. Now forget it."
"We can't," said Clemdish. "We daren't. We've got to get back before it gets too hot."
He rose from where he sat and kicked at a clump of mottled fungi. Already the growths were much larger than they had been when Dumarest began his climb. The entire land surface of the planet was literally bursting with life as the growing heat of the sun triggered the dormant spores into development. The pace would increase even more as the summer progressed, the fungi swelling visibly in the compressed and exaggerated life cycle of the planet.
To the visiting tourists it made a unique spectacle. To the prospectors and those depending on the harvest for their living it meant a dangerous and nerve-racking race against time.