E.C Tubb - Eye of the Zodiac

"Iduna! Lift the raft! Lift it!"

"What's happening?" Chaque appeared at the door of a house, Jalch Moore peering over his shoulder. "What's going on?"

"Get to the raft! Move!"

Dumarest fired again as figures appeared on each side of the men. One fell, blood gushing from his mouth, his lungs ripped by the missile. The other, luckier, spun and fell nursing a broken shoulder.

"An attack?" Chaque was quick to grasp what was happening. "The raft, quickly!"

Dumarest covered them as they ran, men pouring from the houses to go after them, spear-points glinting in the firelight. One hit the guide on the forearm, cutting into flesh before the spear dropped free. Then he reached the hovering raft, had flung himself over the edge, Moore following close behind.

"Earl?"

"Coming!" Dumarest ran forward, emptying the magazine, throwing the rifle into the raft, leaping to grab the edge as it rose. Within seconds, he was aboard.

"What happened?" Moore looked stunned. "We were talking quietly when we heard a scream, then shots. You, Earl?"

"Yes."

"Have you gone mad? Do you realize what you did? I was about to learn something, a fact of great importance, and you ruined everything. Iduna! Return at once. We can smooth things out."

She said nothing, increasing their height, the fire now a distant point below.

Nursing his arm Chaque said, "Be careful, girl. Set us down as soon as you can. It would be stupid to run from spears and smash into a mountain."

* * * * *

They landed in a shallow dell in a place high and far from the valley, Iduna setting down the raft gently, guided by the blazing glow of a flare. By the light of a lantern Dumarest examined the guide's arm, finding only a shallow gash, binding it with materials taken from a medical cabinet. Jalch Moore was harder to please.

"You ruined everything," he accused. "Why did you have to fire at shadows? I trusted Hausi and I trusted my own convictions. In both cases, apparently, I was wrong. Or is there some reason why you don't want me to find the Kheld?"

Paranoia, trembling on the brink of complete insanity. Dumarest said, patiently. "It was a trap. They intended to surprise us. While you two were kept in conversation, we were to have been killed. I anticipated them, that's all."

"I don't believe it! Chaque?"

"It's possible," admitted the guide. "A small party carrying a fortune in goods, yes, it's possible. We wouldn't have been the first expedition to be lost in the mountains."

"But the information he was going to give me-"

"Words." said Dumarest. "Empty talk to keep you occupied. You underestimate the old man. He only told you things you wanted to hear."

"No!"

"You were with him for over an hour. What did you learn? Nothing. An entire hour-that alone made me suspicious. With people like the Candarish you trade first and talk afterwards." A thing Chaque should have known, but Dumarest didn't mention that. There was no room for recrimation in such a small party. "We'll eat," he decided. "Eat and rest. In the morning, we'll figure out what to do."

"There is no question about that," said Moore coldly. "We go on."

"To where?"

"Here!" Moore unfolded a map and tapped it with his finger. "Towards the east and upwards to this plateau. There is mention of it in the Eldrain Saga. There could be signs, symbols, evidence of the Kheld. The Candarish could have helped us-but it's too late for that now."

And perhaps too late for many things. Thwarted, Jalch Moore could turn vicious. Dumarest had noted the bulge under his blouse, the weight of a laser. Defied he would use it, killing without consideration, damaging the raft beyond repair, stranding them all. And Earl still had to find the object of his own search.

"If the Kheld exist we'll find them," he promised. "Now, Iduna, how about that food? Chaque, you'd better check the raft while I look around."

The dell was set on the summit of a pinnacle of stone, a dead vent which had become blocked and filled with wind-blown soil. The vegetation was springy, tough fibers matted into a compact whole. A place safe from any but airborne attack-one during which they would starve if anything happened to the raft.

Later, as he sat watching the wheel of the stars, Iduna came to sit beside him.

"Earl, it was my fault, wasn't it."

"The attack? No."

"I've been thinking. If I hadn't rejected that young buck-but I couldn't bear that he touch me."

"He was anticipating," said Dumarest. "If you hadn't fought he would have taken you, hidden you safely away somewhere."

"For later use," she said bitterly. "For him and his friends, and any other man who chose to use me. Animals!"

"You were strange. A female who dressed like a man. He'd probably never seen a woman's naked face before."

"Savages! Beasts!"

"Primitives," he corrected. "With a rigid culture and elaborate customs. You were outside the framework of his experience. Dress like a man-be treated like a man. Had we been killed and you kept alive, the women would have stoned you to death. To them you would have been unnatural. Dangerous. A thing to be destroyed."

She said, oddly, "Do you think I'm unnatural, Earl?"

"No."

"Some men do. They wonder what I look like when naked and hint that my interest lies only with other women. They don't understand."

A lonely child, perhaps. A father who had wanted only sons, an elder brother to emulate. And, if she had worked in the field as she had claimed, then the clothes would have been an elementary precaution to have diminished her attraction.

"It's late," he said. "You should get some rest."

"Sleep while you stand guard?"

"It's what I'm paid to do." He wished that she would leave him, sensing her feminine curiosity, the desire to probe. From behind the raft Chaque coughed, a harsh rasping sound in the stillness. Within the vehicle itself Jalch Moore turned, restless in his sleep.

"Earl!"

He turned as she came towards him, her arms lifted, embracing his neck, her hands pulling him close to press her lips against his own. For a moment he felt the demanding heat of her body. Then, as Jalch turned again, muttering, she drew slowly away.

"My brother-he needs me."

"Yes."

"Goodnight, Earl."

"Goodnight."

The night grew old. Dumarest woke Chaque to stand his turn at watch, then settled down to sleep. He woke with the sudden alertness of an animal, one hand reaching up to the shadow looming above, the other lifting the knife.

"Earl!" Chaque clawed at the hand which gripped his throat, recoiling from the knife which pricked his skin. "Don't! It's me!"

"What's wrong?"

"Something. I don't know what. Listen."

It came from above. A thin, eerie chittering, a peculiar stridation, like the rasp of chitinous wings. Dumarest rose, the rifle in his hands, eyes narrowed as he searched the sky. He could see nothing but the glitter of distant stars, the band of the galactic lens a pale swath low on the horizon. There was no wind, the air like glass.

"I was sitting, dozing I guess, then I heard it," whispered Chaque. "It swept over me and seemed to rise. But I could see nothing. Nothing!"

It came again, apparently nearer. A thin, nerve-scratching sound which filled the night with a peculiar menace. And then, as Jalch screamed in his nightmare, it was gone.

"Earl?" Chaque was shaken, his face ghastly in the starlight. "Was that one of the things we're looking for? One of the Kheld?"

"I don't know."

"If so, I hope we never find them." The guide glanced to where Iduna was soothing her brother. "We remain silent, right? We tell him nothing."

A sound in the darkness, an impression-what was there to report? Yet, to Jalch Moore it would be proof of the existence of what he sought. He would insist on remaining in the dell, setting up his traps, waiting, risking all their lives. And Dumarest had no interest in finding the Kheld.

* * * * *

The days became routine. Waking to eat, to drift deeper into the mountains, to camp at night, to eat again. Twice more they found isolated communities, trading, listening to vague rumors. A mass of conflicting and contradictory stories which sent them on a random pattern of search. And daily, Jalch became more deranged.

"Well find them," he muttered, crouching over his maps. "Here, perhaps? Or here? We must head for the higher peaks." He snarled like an animal as Chaque protested. "You claim to be a guide-why are you so irresolute?"

"Because I have a regard for my skin. The higher we go, the greater the danger. The winds-"

"Do you suggest we return?"

"No." Dumarest leaned over the map. It was rough, inaccurate, the product of speculation and surmise, but some things he recognized. "Here." He rested his ringer on a valley, one to the east. "We could try there."

"A valley, we need the heights!" Jalch Moore was impatient. "The fools know nothing. We must climb high and search the peaks."

They lifted too soon in the day, thermals catching the raft, sending it spinning dangerously close to an overhang.

"He'll kill us," said Chaque as he clutched at the raft's edge. "Earl, can't you take over? Stop him?"

"He's a good pilot." That, at least, was true. Jalch could handle a raft, and to argue now was to invite disaster. Dumarest leaned over the edge, looking below, seeing a snarled jumble of crevasses, ridges, naked stone wreathed with massed thorn. He felt the presence of the woman at his side, the warmly soft impact of her arm against his own.

"What are you looking for, Earl? What do you hope to find?"

"Here?"

"Anywhere. You're a traveler, always moving, always looking. Why?"

"Why do you hunt specimens in the field?"

"A job."

"Which could be done as well by others." He turned to face her, catching the speculation in her eyes. "To each their own, Iduna. You have your ways, I have mine."

"You're hard," she said. "Hard and cold. While I wish I didn't, I do admire you. Envy you a little, perhaps. Has any woman ever owned your heart?"

She frowned as he made no answer, recognizing his silence for the barrier it was. Since the night on the dell, she had made no further advances and he had invited none. A thing which perturbed her, offended her femininity.

"You have loved," she decided. "And you have been loved in turn. What happened, Earl? Did she die? Did you leave her? Does some lonely woman sit on some world, waiting for you to return?"

"Does some man wait for you?"

"No, or if they do they are fools. But no man has ever been really close to me. Always there is something, a barrier, between those who want me and those whom I want." She leaned a little further over the edge of the raft. "What was that? An animal?"

There was nothing, or if there had been it had vanished. A diversion, Dumarest guessed. Something to break the trend of the conversation, to shift it from what she could have considered dangerous ground. He felt the raft shift a little as Chaque came towards them.

"Iduna, you've got to stop him." His head jerked to where Jalch sat at the controls. "He wants to climb to the summit of the range, then quest along the entire area. He's mad."

"He is in charge of this expedition," she said coldly.

"Even so, he is mad. The winds-it has never been done before. He doesn't understand and won't listen. Please, you must make him be more cautious. I-" Chaque broke off, cursing as the raft veered. "The fool! Why won't he listen?"

Dumarest moved back from the edge.

"You're the fool," he said sharply. "You're unbalancing us. Get up to the front, quickly!"

It was too late. As the guide moved an updraft, combined with eddys thrown from the flank of the mountain, cojoined to create a turbulence which spun the raft and sent it crashing against a ridge. A near miss, only the bottom was affected, but it was enough.