Heim hammered pitilessly: “Why aren’t you asleep? Could it be that Greg came back in your dreams? Have you been thinking that your noisy breed may be powered less by love than by hate? Would you like to chop off the finger that pulled trigger on a man who was trying to do his best for Earth? Can you afford to call anyone a murderer?”
“Go to hell!” Bragdon screamed. “Go to hell! Go to hell!” He crawled off on all fours. Some meters distant, he collapsed and shuddered.
Maybe I was too rough on him, Heim thought. He’s sincere… Fout on that. Sincerity is the most overrated virtue in the catalogue. He eased himself back to the turf. Presently he slept.
Sunrise woke him, level across the Uneasy Lands and tinging Mount Lochan with fire. He felt more stiff and hollow-headed each dawn, but it helped to move about, fix a cold breakfast and boil a fresh supply of water. Bragdon was totally silent; no one else said many words. But as they started the long slog toward the forest—a whole kilometer uphill—Vadász began to sing.
When he had finished, he went on to “Rimini,” “Marching through Georgia,” “The British Grenadiers,” and “From Syrtis to Cydonia.” Heim and Jocelyn panted with him in the choruses, and perhaps Uthg-a-K’thaq, or even Bragdon, got some help too from the tramping rhythms and the brave images of home. They reached the woods sooner, in better shape, than expected.
“Thanks, Endre,” Heim said.
“My job, you know,” Vadász answered.
Resting before they went among the trees, Heim studied the growth more closely. At a distance, by dawnlight, he had seen that it wound across the hills along a fault line, and was as sharply bordered as if artificial. Since the northwestern edge was well above him on a steep rise, he had also made out a curious, churned sweep of soil on that side, which passed around the slopes beyond his purview. Now he was too near to see anything but the barrier itself.
“Not brushy after all,” he observed in surprise. “Only one kind of plant. What do you think of that?”
“We are none xenowotanists,” the engineer grunted.
The trees were about four meters tall; nothing grows high on Staurn. And they were no thicker than a man’s arm. But numberless flexible branches grew along the stems, from top to bottom, each in turn split into many shoots. In places the entanglement of limbs was so dense as to be nearly solid. Only the upper twigs bore leaves; but those were matted together into a red roof beneath which the inner forest looked night-black.
“This’ll be machete work,” Heim said. “We shouldn’t have to move a lot slower than usual, though. One man cuts—that doesn’t look too hard—while the others rest. I’ll begin.” He unlimbered his blade.
Which! Which! The wood was soft, the branches fell right and left as fast as he could wield his tool. In an hour the males ran through a cycle of turns, Jocelyn being excused, and were far into the forest. With the sun still only a couple of hours up, Heim exulted.
“Take over, Gunnar,” Vadász rattled. “The sweat is gurgling around my mouth.”
Heim rose and advanced along the narrow trail. It was hot and still in here. A thick purple twilight soaked through the leaves, making vision difficult where one stood and impossible a few meters off. Withes rustled against him, spring-fly resisting his passage. He felt a vibration go back through the machete and his wrist, into his body, as he chopped. Huh! Odd. Like the whole interlocked wilderness shivering. The trees stirred and soughed. Yet there was no breath of wind.
Jocelyn shrieked.
Heim spun on his heel. A branch was coiling down past her, along her airsuit. Something struck his back. He lifted his machete—tried to—a dozen tendrils clutched him by the arm. He tore free.
An earthquake rumble went through the gloom. Heim lost balance under a thrust. He fell to one knee. Pain shot through the point of impact. The tree before his eyes swayed down. Its many-fingered lower branches touched the soil and burrowed. Leaves drew clear of each other with a crackling like fire. He glimpsed sky, then he was blinded by their descent about his head.
He shouted and slashed. A small space opened around him. The tree was pulling loose its roots. Groaning, shuddering, limbs clawed into the earth, it writhed forward.
The entire forest was on the march. The pace wasn’t quick, no faster than a man could walk on Staurn, but it was resistless. Heim scrambled up and was instantly thrown against a tangle of whipping branches. Through airsuit and helmet he felt those buffets. He reeled away. A trunk, hitching itself along, smote him in the stomach. He retched and dropped his machete. Almost at once it began to be covered, as limbs pulled from the ground and descended for the next grab along their way. Heim threw what remained of his strength against them. They resisted with demoniac tenacity. He never knew how he managed to part them long enough to retrieve the blade.
Above the crashing and enormous rustle he heard Jocelyn scream again, not in startlement but in mortal terror. He knelt to get under the leaves and peered wildly about. Through swaying, lurching trunks, snake-dancing branches, clawing twigs, murk, and incandescent sunlight spears, he saw her. She had fallen. Two trees had her pinned. They could break bones or rip her suit when they crawled across her body.
His blade flew in his hand. A battle cry burst from his mouth. He beat his way to her like a warrior hewing through enemy lines. The stems had grown rigid, as if they had muscles now tightened. His blows rebounded. A sticky fluid spurted from the wounds he made. “Gunnar, help!” she cried in sightlessness. He cleared brush from her until he could stoop and pull her free.
“You okay?” He must shout to be heard in the racket. She lay against him and sobbed.
Another tree bent down upon them. He yanked her to her feet.
“To me!” he bellowed. “Over here!”
Uthg-a-K’thaq wriggled to join him. The Naqsan’s great form parted a way for Bragdon.
Vadász wove lithely through the chaos.
“Joss in the middle,” Heim ordered. “The rest of us, back to back around her. We can’t outrun this mess, can’t stay here either. We’d exhaust ourselves just keeping our feet. Forward!”
His blade caught a sunbeam and burned in its arc.
The rest was chop, wrestle, duck, and dodge, through the moving horror. Heim’s awareness had gone coldly lucid; he watched what happened, saw a pattern, found a technique. But the strength to keep on, directly across that tide, came from a deeper source. It was more than the simple fear of death. Something in him revolted against his bones being tumbled forever among these marching trolls.
Bragdon gave way first. “I can’t… lift… this… any more,” he groaned, and sank to the earth.
Wooden fingers closed about one leg.
Uthg-a-K’thaq released him. “Get in the middle, then,” the Naqsan said. “Hel’ him, you Lawrie.”
Later in eternity, Vadász’s machete sank. “I am sorry.” The minstrel could barely be heard.
“Go on.”
“No!” Heim said. “We’ll all get out, or none.”
“Let me try,” Jocelyn said. She gave Vadász into the care of Bragdon, who had recovered a little, and took his knife herself. Her blows were weak, but they found she could use the tool as a crowbar to lever a path for herself.
And… sunlight, open sky, turf under Lochan’s holy peak. They went a few meters farther before they toppled.