The Blue Dwarfs Page 2

  Glannon swallowed.

  "You've got paper and a stylus, right?" Harper went on, addressing Glannon. "Write him a note"—he pulled out a small compass, aligned it and made an observation—"that we've gone towards the north-northwest to reach the river."

  Glannon did as he was told. Only after he had laid the sheet of paper in the grass next to the unconscious Cislarczik did he dare say: "But he doesn't have a compass! How is he going to know where the north-northwest is?"

  Harper shrugged. "That's his problem. He didn't have to behave like an idiot."

  They went on, not bothering themselves any further about the unconscious man they were leaving behind. Harper, anyway; Glannon was considerably more sensitive than Harper and worried. Harper's blows had been hard and pitiless. If Cislarczik lay unconscious any longer than the grass needed to spring back up and obliterate all sign of Harper's and Glannon's trail, he would have no choice but to follow the slope back down towards Greenwich. Whether or not he would find the town or go on past was a moot question.

  Harper's pace was energetic, as though the heat no longer affected him. Glannon found it hard to keep up. The thought of plenty of cool water at the river gave him a little extra strength.

  An hour went by. Then they began to hear a dull roar from somewhere in front of them. A little later they saw a dark line cutting through the grass ahead and 10 minutes after that they spotted the cloud of water vapor shimmering above the deep river gorge. In the glare of the sun a long, narrow rainbow stretched out of the spray and arced across the rushing stream.

  2/ THE DEVIL'S BREW

  They had been lucky. While Milligan and Pashen were still busy setting up the tents, Freddy and Mullon had taken a long walk around the area of their camp and in the process had found a small pond in the middle of some thick bushes. It was fed by two rivulets coming down from the western mountain wall. The pond had no outlet—which meant only evaporation and seepage balanced the steady inflow of water.

  The pond was no more than a few steps away from the tents. Single trees grew along the banks and spread their branches so far across the water that they met in the middle. No wonder, then, that Mullon had not seen the pond from the helicopter.

  Once the tents were up, Mullon passed out the breakfast rations. With them came water from the newly discovered pond, which perhaps tasted strange but it was good and was delightfully cool.

  Afterwards, Mullon saw to the chores which were routine at any camping site: collecting soil, plant and water samples; drawing provisional maps; and determining the expedition party's current position.

  It was noon when Mullon was finished and then he called for a two-hour rest period. Following that, at 2200 hours—early afternoon on Grautier—Mullon and Pashen took off in the helicopter to fly along the valley and add more details to the maps in both directions.

  Meanwhile, Freddy was writing the written report of the expedition and Milligan had nothing to do but stand watch over the camp. Since there had as yet been not the least sign of any animals—beetles and butterflies excepted—he did not consider his task a very difficult one. He sat in the shade, his back against a tree trunk, and after a drowsy half-hour fell asleep.

  Freddy found him thus when she had finished writing her report an hour later. She let him go on sleeping and considered for awhile what she could do that would be useful. She finally turned towards the pond she and Mullon had discovered that morning.

  It was refreshingly cool in the shade of the giant tree at the edge of the water. Freddy found a small patch of grass and lay down. The heat of the day, made bearable by the shade and water-evaporation, and the stillness had a drugging effect. Freddy no longer fought to keep from falling asleep.

  But then, in the undergrowth behind her, she suddenly heard a light rustling. She sat up and looked around. At first she saw nothing but the bushes, standing dusty and unmoving in the sun. After awhile, however, the rustling repeated itself and at the same time a branch of a bush little more than a yard away from Freddy moved.

  Freddy stared in terror. She carried no weapons with her. She wanted to get up and run away but at that moment the fist-sized head of a creature like none she had ever seen before appeared between the branches.

  Freddy did not move. The head emerged farther from the bush and behind it came a broad and flat scaly body. The large, yellowish eyes seemed to be sizing Freddy up. The wide mouth was half-open, revealing a row of sharp teeth. The animal moved, by undulating along its flat belly, producing the rustling sound that had alerted Freddy.

  A snake, Freddy thought in alarm. The creature pushed itself farther out of the underbrush and raised itself so far up on its forebody that its repulsive head swayed back and forth less than two feet away from Freddy's face. She could smell the stench that the reptile seemed to gush forth,

  If only Milligan would come!

  He was asleep, the idiot! How could he sleep when he had watch duty?

  The snake oozed farther. Freddy forced herself not to follow the movements of its head with her eyes. She was in the first place afraid of falling into some kind of trance and in the second place it was possible the back and forth motion of her eyeballs could be a movement the snake would notice.

  Freddy did not know how long she sat there, unmoving.

  Then there was a light humming to be heard from the south. It rapidly swelled into the familiar roaring of the helicopter.

  Horace was coming back!

  For a few seconds Freddy's heart beat wildly with joy. Then, however, it struck her that Mullon would not be able to see her from the helicopter and that he did not even have any intention of landing: he was planning to fly on to survey the northern end of the valley.

  The strange noise bothered the snake little. For some time its head swayed in a somewhat slower tempo but as the humming faded away into the north it took up the old pace again and continued to stare at its victim with cold, yellowish eyes.

  Freddy sensed that she would not be able to hold out much longer. Sooner or later the moment would come in which she simply collapsed, her nerves gone and her muscles no longer able to support her.

  Somewhat later she heard a voice calling in the distance. It came nearer, then fell away and finally approached so closely at one point she could clearly understand it:

  "... Freddy! Mrs. Mullon! Freddy... !"

  It was Milligan. He had awakened and begun to search for her.

  Let him come here! Freddy prayed.

  But Milligan did not come any nearer. His calls grew more distant again.

  If she did not want to simply fall victim to the snake, Freddy realized she would have to attempt something on her own initiative.

  How fast was a snake?

  If I leap up and into the bushes, maybe it won't be able to follow me, Freddy considered. Or, better yet, if I let myself fall backwards into the water. Can snakes swim?

  Of course they can swim, you stupid girl! You saw a grass snake swimming in a pond on Earth not six months ago.

  Whatever! I've got to do something!

  Slowly, ever so slowly, so that no movement could be seen, Freddy tried to put her weight on her right leg. A stab of pain shot through her foot and Freddy came within a hair of crying out.

  With numb feet I won't get half a yard, she thought. Alright then, I'll have to go backwards into the water.

  She hesitated momentarily—like someone who clings to the hope that, the apparently inevitable may yet be avoided by a miracle at the last moment.

  And then the miracledid happen!

  Freddy suddenly heard a burst of odd noises from the bushes, sounding like the shouting of a small child.

  The snake's pendulations slowed as it heard. After the series of noises had been repeated a few times, Freddy heard crackling and rustling in the brush and then she noticed the shadows of some sort of movement. The temptation to turn her head and look was great.

  But Freddy remained unmoving. Her heart began to beat faster as she saw the snake c
ompletely stop swaying, let its forebody sink back to the ground and slither away off to the left.

  Freddy waited until she could no longer hear the rustling of the snake.

  Then she simply allowed herself to fall to the side. The blood flowed back into her numb feet and legs, causing pain almost unbearable. Moaning, she rolled over and looked in the direction in which the snake had disappeared.

  What she saw was extraordinary. A small, light-grey creature, rather resembling an Earthly Rhesus monkey, crouched on the low-hanging branch of one of the huge trees at the water's edge and watched curiously the snake crawling through the grass towards the tree's trunk.

  When the snake reached the trunk and began to wind its way up, the little monkey let forth a mocking-sounding "Guhr-guhr-guhr!", leaped down from the branch and landed on the ground little more than a yard behind the snake.

  The snake noticed that it had been fooled and turned. The monkey sat motionless in the grass. The snake, nearsighted as it was, raised its forebody into the air and began to sway in search of its victim.

  The monkey sprang out of the way. The snake's ugly head moved for it like lightning but the monkey was agile enough to dodge the attack. It leaped a bit closer to the shore. The snake followed and the game repeated itself. Once again the monkey sat motionless for awhile, then suddenly sprang up, avoiding the pouncing snake's head with an unbelievably skilful turning manoeuvre and leaping closer to the water's edge.

  At length the monkey sat on the tip of a tongue of land that protruded a few yards into the water. Retreat was cut off, since the tiny peninsula was only a pace wide and the snake would not let its victim escape if it tried to spring past. To the rear there was only the water of the pond and Freddy had no reason to doubt that this little monkey was any less water-shy than his Earthly counterparts.

  The monkey however continued to stare at the snake boldly and curiously. It did not seem to be afraid.

  Freddy watched as it remained where it was, unmoving, while the snake moved within a foot and a half of it. Then—and Freddy screamed loudly in fear for the life of her small savior—the monkey quickly sprang and clamped its jaws around the snake's throat, right below the head.

  The snake reared up, trying to either shake its tormenter or to reach it with its teeth. Neither ploy worked. The monkey held tight. The snake, in its convulsive and whirling struggles to throw the monkey off, came ever closer to the water's edge. Twisting and turning, the snake's forebody went past the peninsula's edge, taking with it the monkey who had long lost his contact with solid ground.

  Freddy leaped to her feet. She saw how the monkey suddenly let go of the snake's throat—at just the right moment to be propelled back onto land by the snake's lashing movements. Suddenly free of the extra weight, the snake slid a little farther off the bank and splashed heavily into the water.

  The monkey, safe on shore, watched what happened to his enemy and cried triumphantly: "Kekekeke!"

  Then something took place that made Freddy shudder to watch. The pond suddenly became alive. The water began to bubble. Small jet-black shapes shot from all sides towards the snake.

  The reptile started to rear up and thrash about with its broad, flat tail but the little black fish had seized their prey and would not let it go.

  In a few moments nothing remained of the snake but a slowly sinking skeleton.

  Freddy, who had watched the gruesome spectacle speechlessly, felt something touch her leg. She looked down and saw the small, grey-furred monkey looking back up at her with large and curious eyes.

  Freddy bent down to take hold of it and strike its fur. The monkey willingly let her do it but after awhile seemed to become impatient. It sprang a short distance away, then chattering, boldly stopped and raised an arm as though wishing to show Freddy the way.

  She followed him, which he seemed to enjoy tremendously. He pushed into the bushes and swung up onto one of the higher branches. Then he raised his arm again and pointed in the same direction as before.

  Freddy had the impression it was trying to lead her somewhere. She followed it for a time, making an effort to mark her trail so that she could find her way back to the pond.

  Only when the monkey left the brush which ringed the pond for some hundred yards and gestured to the western mountain wall did Freddy decide she had gone far enough and that she ought to turn back if she did not want to get lost. So she stopped. The monkey was not agreeable at all to that. It started to chatter and pointed a few times with evident impatience in the direction it wanted to lead Freddy. Finally it hopped back to her, sat down and raised both arms to her as though begging. Its eyes looked large and sad.

  Freddy did not give in. When the monkey realized she could not be convinced to follow any farther, it hopped around her a few times, cried out a number of times with strange sounds and finally sprang off towards the west. Freddy could see it until it reached the rocky wall. The stone had the same light grey color as its fur and thus Freddy could no longer see the oddly comical animal.

  Rather thoughtfully, Freddy remained where she was and looked around to see if there was a second snake somewhere in the vicinity. Then she tried to figure out her little rescuer. It was known that monkeys in general and Rhesus monkeys in particular could often behave like human beings to an amazing degree.

  But what Freddy had just experienced here seemed to go far beyond that. She was ready to admit that her rescuer had considerably more brain inside its skull than its Earthly counterparts.

  She turned to go back to the pond and from there to the camp. At that moment something rustled and crackled in the bushes. Freddy took a terrified step back.

  Then Milligan came panting out of the brush, a gun in his hand. He looked around and discovered Freddy.

  "Thank God!" he cried. "I thought for sure that... " Freddy's anger, brought forth in her helplessness against the snake had long since flown. "You were almost right!" she answered with a relieved laugh. "For a moment there I was just about to say goodbye to this lovely world."

  She told him briefly what had happened. Milligan's embarrassment increased with every word. "And all that," he finally said, "just because I went to sleep! If Mullon wants to skin me alive, it'll serve me right."

  "Don't worry—he won't," Freddy assured him. "Nobody had any idea how dangerous this place is. Anyway, I should have told you when I went off by myself."

  Milligan nodded, still not very happy. "I hope Mullon doesn't think different than you!"

  Mullon agreed with his wife, however, saying later: "We know now what the situation is. I think that after today no one will sleep while they're standing watch." He glanced at his wife. "Nor will anyone run off without first telling someone where they're going."

  Otherwise the story of the little monkey interested Mullon more than anything else. Freddy had memorized carefully the exact point in the western rock wall where she had seen the animal disappear and Mullon decided to investigate the wall as soon as possible. Freddy's small rescuer was the first representative of the primate class the settlers on Grautier had discovered.

  Following Freddy's suggestion—the discoverer has the right to name the discovery, of course—the monkey species was dubbed 'Mungos'. Freddy had studied galactic biology in Terrania before going with Mullon and knew that an animal of the same name was to be found on Earth; she had decided that the name 'Mungo' fit her discovery.

  Mullon and Pashen had returned with the helicopter towards 2500 hours. According to the custom now in effect on Grautier, a three-hour rest period was called, to last until shortly before 2900 hours. Mullon had the intention of catching at least one of the black pond-dwellers before the evening was done—the fish that Freddy had escaped only because her feet could no longer carry her and to whom the monkey had so determinedly and inexorably led the snake.

  The attempt to catch one of the monkeys in the western mountain wall was set for early the next morning. Mullon believed that it would be a long and difficult undertaking.


  As things worked out, it was not quite as difficult as he imagined it would be.

  Also at 2500 hours that day, Harper and Glannon left their cool, shaded rest spot under the overhanging riverbank and took up the march once more. They had paused there for more than 12 hours. Of Cislarczik they had seen nothing more.

  Though the sun was still relatively high in the sky, the greatest heat was over. Harper and Glannon maintained a brisk pace: a little less than three miles an hour, according to Harper's estimate. That speed was considerable when one considered that in the first place they were going steadily uphill and that in the second place the gravity was 20% greater than Earth's.

  Harper did not seem to be concerned any further about Cislarczik but Glannon worried all the more.

  Harper did not spare himself or his companion. Mile after mile passed beneath their feet. In the radiance of the setting sun, the mountains appeared noticeably closer for the first time At sunset Harper ordered a short rest pause; then, half an hour later, set off again. "I hope you don't think nights are for sleeping," he growled to Glannon. "I want to see those mountains close up tomorrow morning!"

  Glannon nodded indifferently and answered: "That's alright with me. Just be sure your feet will hold up, though."

  Harper did not reply. They went on, his illuminated compass showing them the way. Until midnight their pace did not bring them any significant discomfort—aside from a numb feeling in the legs. The ground had soaked up the day's heat and was radiating it slowly back into the open air.

  But then it grew cold. Harper and Glannon tried to force their way through the chill by walking more quickly but the faster they moved the greater the pain in their legs.

  Harper had to call another halt, which they spent sitting on the ground, rubbing their hands together and waving their arms in an attempt to keep warm.

  Then they ran on.

  So it went for the next 14 hours. Then, out of the darkness before them, the first glow of day appeared—a golden glimmer on the highest mountaintops, reflected from the rising sun.