Though the morning sun was already cresting the eastern horizon, its heat was not yet sufficient to dispel the misty fogs of the night, and, as far as the dark-brown eyes of Sternheimer’s latest body could see, the deadly swamps were covered in a billowy haze. The ocean of opaque whiteness was only marred by the upthrust tops of the taller trees—pine, cypress, swamp oak.
The bull boomed yet again. Closer to hand, a stooping eagle sank swiftly into the mists, then reemerged, broad wings beating for altitude. In its cruel claws some long animal writhed and jerked. Too short and broad, thought Sternheimer, to be a snake; most likely a large lizard then, or an immature crocodile. As he pressed his two thumbs to the identification plate of the door, he watched the avian hunter flap away westward with its catch. “Braun? Sternheimer, here. How was your trip?” The voice from the transmitter sounded weary unto death. “A bloody balls-up, David, from start to finish. Jay Corbett is dead, and Erica too, probably. Both my … this body’s legs are becoming gangrenous, and I’m going to have to make a transfer soon.”
“Were you able to get the devices out, Braun, and the precious metals?” Dr. Sternheimer snapped. He could not have cared less about his subordinate’s physical ills: bodies, after all, were expendable.
Braun sighed deeply. “Oh, we got them out of that volcanic valley, David—over a hundred packloads, in all.”
Sternheimer smiled broadly, admiring his expanse of even white teeth reflected up at him from the polished metal surface of the table. “What’s the total tonnage, Braun? One of the cargo copters is down for maintenance, but I can send the other two up and—”
Braun sighed once more. “That won’t be necessary, David. Those packloads and animals are scattered along two hundred miles of mountain trails, along with the corpses of the guards and packers.”
The smile quickly disappeared. When Sternheimer spoke again, his voice was cold and tight, tight as the clenched teeth behind the almost immobile lips. “You had better start at the beginning, Dr. Braun.”
“As you wish, David, as you wish. Corbett and I deduced that the volcano was on the verge of a major eruption, and he determined that if we could block the fissure that served it as a safety valve, we—”
“Yes, yes, I know all that, Braun. I approved it, remember?” Sternheimer found it difficult to keep the frustration and anger out of his voice.
“Well, David, we must have miscalculated somewhere along the line. The eruption was two days later and infinitely more violent than we had imagined it would be. We had forded the Catawba River and were skirting the northwestern flank of an odd rectangular plateau-making as rapid a progress as we could, since we were expecting a pursuit of some kind in the absence of an eruption—when a terrible earthquake occurred. We lost half the packtrain right there, David. A good half-mile of cliffs collapsed outward and buried them—men, mules, ponies, everything!
“The animals which survived went wild, of course—panicked, bolted, threw their riders or fell on them. That’s what happened to my left leg; it was fractured and partly crushed when my mule fell. The mountain over the volcano must have literally exploded, because huge chunks of superheated rock fell all over the place. The piece of granite that landed on top of Corbett must have weighed all of twenty or thirty tons, David, and was still too hot to touch a day later.
“David, poor Erica was a brick, then. She reorganized our remaining men, set up camp right there on the spot and sent out patrols to round up as many of the animals as could be found. She set my leg, splinted and bandaged it and had a horse litter rigged up for me. It developed that we still had most of the devices, although almost all of the metals had been buried, as had our transceiver and all our extra weapons and ammunition.
“That night, it looked like the whole world was ablaze, with forest fires in every direction, as well as the continuing fireworks from that damned volcano. The only thing that saved us from being roasted alive was that Erica had had the forethought to burn off all the underbrush in the area, while the wind was being sucked northward in the immediate aftermath of the initial eruption. As it was, we had to shelter as best we could under rock overhangs and in crevices to escape the night-long falls of hot ash from the volcano and windborne embers from the fires.”
Sternheimer’s voice gave no indication that he was at all impressed by the tale of horrors. “All right, Braun, that’s quite enough embroidery. Get down to the bottom line, man. Enormous expense and labor went into fitting out your expedition, and I want a damned good reason why it, and you, failed. How did you lose the devices?” He waited for a moment, then, “Well, Braun … Braun, are you there?
Another voice came through the earphones, however. “Dr. Sternheimer, this is Mark Morton speaking. As medical officer for this installation, I must advise you that to interrogate Dr. Braun longer at this time will be to risk his total death. His present body is very near to—expiration, all of its systems having been poisoned by the massive infections in its lower extremities. I have administered to him all the drugs I dare to; any more and he will lose consciousness, and he might not then regain consciousness enough to effect a transfer to a sound body.”
“Oh, very well,” snapped Sternheimer peevishly. “Let the fumbling fool make the transfer. I’ll not deny him life. But put on the base commander now.”
Saul Perlman sounded apologetic. “All I know, David, is that some friendlies rode into the base here, with Dr. Braun on a travois, having found him tied to the saddle of a dying mule. He was out of his head with pain and fever, and they only brought him to my base because the chief had recognized the mule as one of ours.
“The point at which the game hunters found him is well to the west of the planned route of return; therefore, surmising that—out of his head as he was—he might have strayed from the main party, I had one of the scout copters manned and we made two full-range sweeps to the north.” He paused, then added, “We found what was left of them on the second. I’ve but just come back from there.”
“And … ?” probed Sternheimer. “Eighty kilometers almost due north of Broomtown and nearly seven kilometers west of the mapped route, they were apparently ambushed. From the conditions of the remaining bodies, I’d say they all died a week or ten days ago. We found the corpses of twenty-two men, nine mules and four ponies at what looked like the site of the ambush; all the human bodies had been stripped and hideously mutilated and every scrap of trappings and loads had been removed from the dead animals. The mules had all been skinned, David, and so”—he gagged and gulped—“had several of the men!”
“Now there’s a practice I’ve never heard of,” said Sternheimer.
“Neither had I,” Perlman continued. “The tribes around here don’t do such things, but I’ve heard traders speak of some tribe or tribes well north of here which are incredibly savage and bestial. Let’s hope they’re not migrating south.”
“Any sign of Erica Arenstein?” demanded Sternheimer. “None,” replied Perlman. “And we searched very carefully, very thoroughly, for all that the stenches were almost unbearable in places. And from the little that poor Braun has been able to tell us, I think she was killed or captured sometime prior to that final fight.
“Somehow, Braun and at least two others got away. At least, we found two whole and clothed bodies of men who had been sent along as guards. One was about fifteen kilometers south; he and his animal had fallen into a gorge and we were lucky enough to spot them from a copter. The other was dragged in by some of the locals, and they were gone before we could question them.”