He licked dry lips and wiped perspiration from his brow. He was a hero, ready to rescue maiden, townspeople, world itself. But none of them appeared to want to be rescued.
7
Twenty-five miles southwest of Wisdom Creek, Molly Zaldivar did want to be rescued. At that moment she wanted it very badly.
Her old blue electric car had whined up the rocky mountain road, three thousand feet above the plain; below her she saw the flat, dry valley with the little town of Wisdom Creek huddled around the twin spires of the transflex tower and the church. But now the road went no farther. It dipped, circled a spur of the mountainside, and went tumbling into the other valley beyond. From here on she would have to walk . . .
But that she could not do.
Above her she heard the restless, singing rustle of the creature Cliff Hawk called a sleeth. She could not see it. But she could imagine it there, tall as a horse but far more massive, black as space and sleek as her own hair. And she knew that at that moment she was closer to death than she had ever been before.
She tiptoed silently back to the car, eyes on the rocks over her head. The singing sound of the creature faded away and returned, faded away and came back again. Perhaps it had not detected her. But it might at any moment, and then. . .
Molly entered the car and closed the door gently, not latching it. Breathing heavily—partly from nerves, partly from the thin, high air around her—she picked up her communicator and whispered, "Cliff? Will you answer me, Cliff, please?"
There was no sound except for the faint rustle of the sleeth, and the even fainter whisper of wind around the mountaintop.
Molly bit her lip and glanced over her shoulder. She dared not start the car's motor. It was not very loud, but the sleeth was far too close; it was a wonder it hadn't heard her coming up the trail. But the road sloped sharply away behind her. If she released the brakes the old car would roll on its out-of-date wheels; it would rattle and creak, but not at low speeds, not at first. And Cliff had told her that the sleeth would not wander more than a few hundred yards from the cave mouth. She was very close now, but the car would roll out of range in not much more than a minute . . .
And then what? Cliff did not answer. She had to see him—had to stop whatever he was doing, teamed with the rude, hard man who owned the sleeth. She would never be any closer than this, and what hope was there that the sleeth would be elsewhere if she tried again another time anyway?
"Oh, please, Cliff," she whispered to the communicator, "it's Molly and I've got to talk to you. . . ."
There was a rattle of pebbles and dust, and Molly craned her neck to look upward in sudden terror.
There was the sleeth, eyes huge as a man's head, green as the light from a radium-dial watch. It was perched over her, the bright, broad eyes staring blindly across the valley. It was graceful as a cat, but curiously awkward as it floated in its transflection field, clutching at the rubble with claws that were meant for killing.
It did not seem to have seen her. Yet.
Molly froze, her ears tuned to the singing rustle of the sleeth. Its huge muscles worked suppley under the fine-scaled skin, and the eyes slowly turned from horizon to horizon. Then it drifted idly back behind the rock, and Molly dared to breathe again. "Oh, Cliff," she whispered, but only to herself. She could not bring herself to speak even in an undertone to the communicator.
But even terror fades; the monkey mind of a human being will not stay attuned even to the imminent threat of death. Molly became aware of her cramped position on the scarred plastic seat of the car, cautiously straightened her legs and sat up.
If only Cliff Hawk would hear her message and come.
If only the sleeth would drift over to the other side of the mountain, give her a chance to make a mad dash for the cave mouth and the men inside.
If only—she was stretching for impossibles now, she knew—if only poor Andy Quam would respond to her plea for help, and come charging out of the transflex tower with weapons, and wisdom, and the strength to do whatever had to be done to stop Cliff from going through with this dreadful work. . .
But they were all equally impossible. Cliff couldn't hear her, the sleeth wouldn't go away. And as for Andy Quam. . .
Even in her fear she couldn't help smiling. Poor old Andy, sober and serious, loving and stuffy, full of small rages and great kindnesses . . . of all the rescuing heroes a girl might imagine, surely he was the most unlikely.
The singing sound of the sleeth grew louder again, and fearfully she looked upward. But it did not appear.
Even the Reefer would be welcome now, she thought—that gaunt yellow-bearded giant who was Cliff Hawk's ally in his folly. She was afraid of the Reefer. He seemed like a throwback to a monstrous age of rage and rapine, a Vandal plundering a peaceful town, a Mau-Mau massacring sleeping children. He had always been polite enough to her, of course, but there was something about him that threatened devastation. Not that any additional threats were necessary. What Cliff was doing was bad enough in itself! Creating sentient life at the atomic level—trying to breed living, thinking tissue of the same stuff that was at the core of the sapient stars themselves. And worst of all, trying to duplicate in the laboratory the kind of life that made some stars rogues, pitted them against their fellows in a giant struggle of hurled energies and destroying bolts of matter.
She grinned suddenly, thinking again of Andy Quam: imagine pitting him against the Reefer! Why, he . . .
Molly Zaldivar sat bolt upright.
She had just realized that the singing sound of the sleeth was gone. The only noise on the mountain was the distant, moaning wind.
She waited for a long moment, gathering her courage, then slipped quietly from the seat. She stood beside the vehicle, ready to leap back inside and flee, however useless that would be—but the sleeth was still out of range.
Carefully, quietly she took a step up the rock path, then another. A pebble spun and grated under her feet. She paused, heart pounding—but there was no response.
Another step—and another . . .
She was at the top of the path now. To her right the cave mouth waited, rimmed with crystal, a rubble of junked laboratory equipment in front of it. No one was in sight. Not even—especially not—the sleeth.
Molly broke into a trot and hurried toward the cave mouth.
At that moment the sleeth appeared, rocketing over the crest of the mountain, coming down directly toward her like a thrown spear. She could see its great blind eyes staring directly into hers; it was moving at sonic velocities, hundreds of miles an hour; it would be on her in a second. "Cliff!" she shrieked, and flung herself toward the cave mouth.
She never reached it.
From inside the cave a great puff of black smoke came hurtling out in a perfect vortex ring. The concussion caught her and lifted her off her feet, threw her bruisingly to the ground. The sound followed a moment later and was deafening, but by then Molly was past caring; explosion, painful skin lacerations, raging sleeth, all blended together in a slow fading of sensation, and she was unconscious.
What was real and what was dream? Molly opened her eyes dizzily and saw the gaunt, bleeding face of Cliff Hawk staring down at her, aghast. She closed them again, and someone—someone, something, some voice—was calling to her, and she saw Someone trapped and raging, commanding her to come . . .
"Wake up! Confound you, Molly!"