Later, as the shadows closed in, he said, "We need to eat, Earl. Climbing to that peak will take energy the rest haven't got. Of course, we could leave them here and send help later."
Or forget them. The simplest way, but he didn't hint at that. The bait had been enough. He could learn from the way it was taken.
"We could," said Dumarest, "if we find help. If that help is willing to do as we ask. If it can find them when it tries."
"An old man," said Bochner. "A captain without a ship. A woman."
"People."
"True, but there are so many people." Bochner looked into the shadows. "With water there could be game. If so, it would follow trails-need I tell you what is obvious?"
They set snares made of woven wires and waited and caught small, furred creatures which squeaked and died and were skinned to roast over a fire created by sparks struck from steel. Daylight provided more food from the snares which had been set overnight, and again they began to climb. At dusk, the vegetation had developed into tall trees which soared like the columns of an ancient cathedral, their upper branches plumed to hide the sky. Progress was easier, but slowed by the thick humus which held the damp consistency of mud.
And there was no more game.
Its lack puzzled Bochner.
"There are fruits," he pointed out. "And there should be things to eat them. There are insects and yet no apparent lifeform adapted to prey on them. See?"
With his boot he scraped back a portion of the dirt, revealing a host of scurrying beetles. The fruits, small, hard-skinned, now rotting, lay where they had fallen.
Dumarest looked at the trees, the immediate area. Life took many forms, but always it followed certain patterns. The large preyed on the small and where there was food there was something to eat it. The animals they had snared and eaten had been rodents, ratlike things with teeth and jaws adapted to an omnivorous diet. They had been fairly plentiful further down the slopes-why not here?
Threnond said, "What's the matter? Are we lost?"
"No."
"How can you tell?" The dealer in items of death was hungry and irritable and conscious of his overriding fatigue. He set down the radio and moved off into the shadows clustered between the boles. "While you decide, I've something to attend to. A natural function-you understand."
A delicacy he had demonstrated before, but not with such abruptness. Dumarest took a step after him, halted as Bochner rested a hand on his arm.
"Let him go, Earl."
"There could be danger."
"Always there is the possibility of danger, my friend. In the wine you drink, the food you eat, the bed in which you sleep. We are surrounded by perils, but to guard against them all is beyond the ability of man. We take what precautions we can and, for the rest we trust to luck. If our luck is good, we continue to survive. If it is bad-" he shrugged, "then we cease to have cause to worry."
And no man should be fool enough to burden himself with the welfare of another-a point Bochner hadn't emphasized but had left in no doubt. A tenet of his philosophy revealed in the tone of his voice, the expression of his eyes, the words chosen to illustrate a meaning. When a man played cards, he betrayed more than he guessed to a skilled observer and Dumarest had assessed his motivation. The cult of self, the way of the feline. The law of the beast who has only one instinct, one drive. To survive at all costs. To live. To continue to exist, for without personal existence there was nothing.
And yet he had dived into the ocean, risking death to save another.
"Threnond!" Dumarest raised his voice. "Shan? Shan, where are you?"
Silence, broken only by the rustle of feet in the humus as the woman and Egulus came to join them. A silence which held a sudden, brooding menace.
"Shan!"
"He can't be far," whispered Dilys. "There was no need for him to go far."
"Shan!" Dumarest looked up and around, feeling the old, familiar prickle of impending danger, the primitive warning which had served him so well before. "Stay together," he said. "Keep watch. Bochner, you light a fire. Hurry!"
He moved to where a clump of saplings stood between separated trees. As flame rose from the fire the hunter had built, Dumarest cut down four of the slender poles, trimmed them, sharpened their ends to form crude spears.
As Dilys took hers, she said, "Why this, Earl? Trouble?"
"Maybe not. Just hold on to it, in case. Use it to lean on if you like."
"Sure, just like an-"
She broke off as he lifted a hand, listening. From above and to one side, falling with a gentle rustle through the leaves, came something which twisted and turned to land like a flattened snake.
"A belt!" Egidus lunged forward. "By God, it's a belt!"
After it came nightmare.
It dropped with a thin chatter of castanets, veiled, gems flashing in the firelight, fans and parasols flared and shimmering with a nacreous sheen. A thing which followed the bole, suspended on a thin strand, swinging, touching Egulus, who yelled and sprang back and yelled again as he fell, to roll helpless on loam.
To stare with horror at the mammoth spider dropping towards him.
"Earl! My God! What-"
Dilys spoke to empty air. Dumarest was gone, lunging forward with a speed which, in the firelight, made him seem little more than a blur. To halt, spear upraised, butt on the loam beside the fallen captain, the sharpened point buried deep in the mat of fur covering the spider's thorax, wood shredding beneath the snap of its mandibles, silk pluming from the pulsing spinnerets forming clouds of gossamer which drifted like a mantle to clog his head and arms.
A silken shroud from which he tore himself with desperate energy.
"Earl!" Bochner shouted from where he came running, "Above!"
A hint of movement in the shadows and another monstrous creature plummeted, to strike and seize and lift its prey to the lair it owned high in the topmost branches of the trees. Dumarest sprang aside, steel lifting from his boot, point and edge cutting at the snapping castanets of the mandibles, stabbing at the gems of the eyes. Ichor dripped on his hand, and an acrid stench filled his nostrils as hooked limbs tore shreds from his padding. Limbs which jerked as they were slashed, to lie severed on the loam, twitching as the body of the creature twisted on its suspending filament, to attack with mindless ferocity again, to die as Bochner impaled it with his wooden shaft.
"Back!" The hunter looked up. "Back, Earl! There could be more!"
"Get to the girl!" Dumarest stooped, grabbed the captain by the arms and dragged him upright to his feet. Bochner hadn't moved. "Damn it, man! Get to the girl!"
A fraction of hesitation and the hunter obeyed. Dilys stood beside the fire, eyes wide, spear trembling in her hand as she stared into the shadows. From above, from all sides, came a thin cluttering, a scrape and rustle of chiton, the impact of limbs against branches and leaves as things edged forward through the upper layers of vegetation.
"A nightmare." Egulus looked ill. "A thing from hell itself. It almost had me. It would have had me but for Earl, Threnond?"
He hadn't been as lucky. Dumarest held out the belt he had recovered, together with the spears.
"Is it his?"
"I don't know. It could have been." Egulus shivered. "What now?"
"We build up the fire. Gather fuel-go with him, Bochner. Keep guard while he picks up what he can."
"And me, Earl?"