A breeze sprang up and rapidly strengthened to a wind. The grass stirred like the fur on a moving beast and the wind extracted a whistling tune from the rough stalks. From over the ridge behind him came sailing on the wind a ball of cloud, like an immense balloon. In Amara’s skies the rare clouds almost always formed compact balls. No one could explain why.
The twin pools of the cloud’s shadows came sliding, far apart, across the plain. One of them overtook Sherret.
Briefly, Yellow was eclipsed, and it was as though he had been plunged into a corner of the Inferno. Everything was fire-red.
The shadow passed. Later he glimpsed it traversing the lake like a moving patch of bright arterial blood. Then the other shadow, moving afar off and so seemingly more slowly, turned the lake water into molten gold as it went. The cloud sank like a satellite over the horizon. The wind lost force and became feeble and directionless.
Sherret resolved to reach the lakeside and there have his first meal and a rest. He struggled on across the unfriendly grass. On and on, and yet he seemed to get nowhere. He began to wonder if the lake were a mirage receding before him. Then, at last, the grass began to cling damply rather than tightly and he found he was plowing into the marshy verge. He halted. There was no definite edge to the lake; he was just walking gradually into it. He squelched back and found a reasonably dry spot. There he spread his waterproof, rested a while, then unfastened his big rucksack.
Captain Maxton had played fair. There was enough concentrated food to last an Earth month. Also plenty of more tasty fare, including ham sandwiches—with mustard. There was whiskey. Assorted utensils. And, in a shining plastic container, a delicate compass with a map folded within the lid compartment. The magnetic field of Amara being what it was, the compass needed to be delicate.
The Captain had also supplied a machete, to double as implement and weapon. Lengths of thin, strong climbing rope, with the comment, “There may be precipices to negotiate. If not, you can always use it to hang yourself.” A battery-powered, electric needle-pistol and a case of small but powerful hand grenades, with the comment, “Hope you won’t need these, but you never know what you might bump into. If it’s too big for the pistol, use the grenades.”
“Thanks, Captain. Of course, if I don’t meet anything and get bored, I can always use the pistol to shoot myself.”
Already that exchange seemed a long time ago.
Sherret bit hugely at a sandwich and studied the map. Its lines ran off into the unknown about ten miles northwest of the lake. On the other side of the blank area the contours of Na-Abiza were sketched in. By the look of it, he had only to keep plugging north-northwest until he encountered them.
So long as the blank area didn’t contain any impassable obstacles. He replaced the map, such as it was, in the compass box and picked up another sandwich. At which moment there came, from somewhere in the sky, a terrible scream.
He started, and looked up.
The scream was coming from a black, winged dot. The dot grew bigger. It was hurtling down at him. As it came, the scream rose rapidly in intensity. It was like having skewers pushed into his ears. The short sound waves seemed to pierce his skull like hard radiation.
He flung himself face down on the waterproof, pressing the heel of his palm tightly over each ear. This must be a Tek-bird. The Jackies had cackled about such a species. Its paralyzing attack cry could split the very sutures of the skull, they said, and thought it a highly humorous end.
In experience, it was a long way from being a joke. Sherret found himself screaming with agony. “Stop, stop, stop!” shrieked his voice inside his skull, which indeed felt as if it were splitting apart.
There came a gusty backwash of air. The thing had passed over. The scream was dropping in pitch—the Doppler effect. Then it cut off abruptly. It left his head singing. Slowly, he sat up, feeling bilious. The marshland seemed to be see-sawing around him.
Apprehensively, he looked around the sky. The Tek-bird was climbing after its swoop and beginning to veer. He feared another swoop—and there was no cover for miles. What was the thing seeking? His eyes? His food?
He glanced anxiously over his little scatter of possessions. The food hadn’t been touched. But the compass box was missing and the compass with it. The Tek-bird, sweeping around in a flat loop, was heading back in his direction. He cringed. But it continued to fly level. As it neared he saw it was a huge, leathery creature like a pterodactyl. In its toothed beak the plastic compass box glinted. Sherret found himself on his feet, yelling and waving.
“Drop that, damn you! Drop it, or by—”
He remembered his needle-pistol and grabbed it. His hands were shaking stupidly. He took a pot shot at the bird. The needle sang away far off target. The Tek-bird flapped by unconcernedly a hundred feet above him and headed out over the lake. He shot twice more, ineffectively.
Quite suddenly the bird went into a steep dive. It plunged like a gannet into the lake, taking the compass box with it. There was hardly a splash. The bird was a practiced diver.
Cursing, he waited for it to re-appear. It did not.
He continued to wait, pacing the limits of the small dry area. A tortured hour dragged by. The lake surface remained unbroken. Tek-birds, it seemed, nested under water. He supposed the compass box was tucked away down there together with sundry other shiny objects this sonic menace with the jackdaw instincts had collected.
Eventually he lost hope. The map was small loss. But the compass… Without it, he was disoriented. No stars could ever shine in Amara’s glowing skies. The positions of the Three Suns could offer little reliable guidance; the crazy path of the planet between them was only confusing.
Of course, he could return to the ship—and Maxton.
But Maxton wouldn’t give him another of the valuable compasses. In fact, Maxton might already have relinquished his rank—and the new captain might well deny Sherret his freedom.
To hell with Goffism. At the moment he knew what was roughly the right direction. He would push on and hope. After all, he might meet an occasional Jackie, or even a Paddy, who might deign to indicate the way.
He plodded around the lake to the western side and struck off on a line he remembered from the map.
The Jackie’s queer warning kept going through his mind.
Beware of those who have only two, of those who become three, of that which becomes many.
Those who have only two what?
Who were those who became three? Three what?
As for that which became many… It could be almost anything, from fruit flies to the sorcerer’s broomstick.
The whole rigmarole was as senseless as most of the Jackies’ remarks—and yet seemed somehow different from the usual run. More typical of the usual run was a saying of the Jackies’, “May you live until the slow burn eats its tail.” He’d never been able to get that allusion. A “slow burn” was archaic English slang, but obviously there could be no connection.
Merely a kind of meaningless poetry? Speculation was dulled at last by the sheer muscular fatigue of endless plodding.
CHAPTER TWO
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HE WALKED for hours, until his feet were sore, and then he walked some more and the soreness wore off. A pair of Jackies cackled at him, but gave him a wide berth. He saw a high speck which might have been a Tek-bird, and he hid beneath a smooth-barked tree until the speck vanished. When he tried to move, he found his jacket was caught. The smooth bark had put forth a protuberance like the claw of a lobster. The pincers had met neatly through the hem and were as firm as steel. He tore himself away. He felt in no mood to linger and experiment. A presentiment was forming that this journey was going to prove tougher than he’d ever imagined. He was content to leave this specimen for some future, and more leisured explorer to collect for his arboretum.