West Of The Sun Part 4

Behind her eyes he glimpsed the primitive thing, deeper than thought, not like a part of her but a force that sustained her, himself, all others: the three billion of Earth, the small grieving spirit now flown away into the trees. "Yes, Adam. I would have told you sooner, but we all had a lot on our minds."

"Even before we got in orbit, you saw us settling--staying----"

Dorothy grinned then. "No-o, Paul. I just wanted the baby. Could have been born on the ship. The Federation said no, but...."

Gradually Paul began to realize it. "But you said yes."

She leaned to him, no longer smiling. "I said yes...."

The forest floor hushed footsteps; some coolness lingered. Paul walked in front, then Dorothy, and Wright marked blazes on the tree trunks.

Paul glanced backward often, to capture the receding patterns. At the third such pause the lifeboat was no longer visible--only a sameness of trees and spa.r.s.e young life groping through shadow for the food of the sun. In this depth of forest there was no brush; the going was easy except for the nuisance of purple vines that sometimes looped from tree to tree. Paul searched for any change of light ahead.

The boat held all but what they wore, the two rifles, the three pistols holstered at their hips, the three knives, three sealed ration packages. Damage had prevented locking the door of the boat: to rob, an inhabitant of Lucifer would need only intelligence enough to solve the sliding mechanism. They had seen no life but that huge nocturnal leaf eater, the small fliers, a white worm, and now a few timid ten-legged scuttlers on the warm ground and midge-like specks dancing in shafts of sunlight. Too quietly, Wright said, "Stop."

Paul raised his rifle as he turned. Only untroubled forest. Wright's warning hand lowered. "Almost saw it. Heard nothing, just felt a--watching. Might be in my head. Let's go on. And don't hurry."

It would have been possible to hurry, even with an eye on the compa.s.s.

It would have been possible, Paul thought, to run in panic, fall whimpering and waiting. But you wouldn't do it....

No shape in this dim region could be right or wrong; the trees themselves were no sweetly familiar beech or pine. They halted at sight of a new sprawling type of vine, uprooted where a break in the forest ceiling admitted more sunshine. The earth displayed hoof-prints like a pig's. Some scattered tuberous roots were marked by teeth; Dorothy sniffed one. "Spud with garlic for a papa." Paul pocketed a sample. She said, "Not that Lucifer cares, Doc, but what time is it?"

"My watch says we've been walking fifteen minutes. Take it slow."

Wright presently added: "I've had another glimpse. Not a good one.

Furry, gray and white--white face, splashes of white on a gray body seven or eight feet tall. Human shape. We may be all right if we don't bother him."

"Or blunder into territory where he doesn't want us."

"There is that, Paul."

"Human shape," said Dorothy evenly. "How human?"

"Very. Upright. Good-sized head.... Ah--hear that?" It was Ann's voice, calling, from someplace where there should be sunlight. "Don't answer just yet--no sudden noises."

Close to Paul, Dorothy whispered, "The baby--I don't want to tell the others quite yet."

That made it real--so real that in spite of a patch of beckoning blue Paul had to turn to her.

Behind Wright, he saw it, among the pillars of the trees, retreating in fluid slowness till it was only a black ear, part of a white-furred cheek, an iridescent green eye showing, like a cat's, no white. But the blue was also real....

The edge of the forest was a ma.s.s of young growth fighting for the gold coin of sunlight. "Shield your faces"--Wright was panting--"could be poisonous leaves." They broke through to a red-green field, the slim silver of the undamaged boat, the certainty of friends, an expanse of lake no longer blue but sickly white. The boat's nose was thrust under an overhang of branches. Ann Bryan was unsteady and wan, but there was welcome in her gray eyes for Dorothy, who joined her at once and whispered with her. Sears' fat affectionate face carried a determined smile. Ed Spearman came forward, alert and commanding.

Wright asked, "How long have you been out in the air?"

"An hour." Ed was impatient. "Sealed overnight. Nothing in the boat for a test of the air, no point in waiting. You----"

"Okay." Wright watched brown wings over the lake. "What are those?"

"Birds or some d.a.m.n thing. The white on the lake is dead fish. I suppose the ship blew under water or the impact killed them. Our Geiger says the water isn't radioactive. We haven't gone into the meadow--been waiting for you."

In the south the meadow reached the horizon--twenty miles of it, Paul remembered from the air view, before jungle again took over. Near by, threads of smoke were rising straight from the gra.s.s. "Abandoned fires? We scared off----"

"Maybe," Spearman said. "Seen no life except those birds."

"Bat wings," Sears Oliphant remarked. "Mammalian, I think--oh my, yes.

Can't have furry birds, you know, with a taxonomist in the family, hey?"

Spearman shrugged. "Must get organized. How much damage, Paul?"

"The boat itself. Both wings off, radio dead. Couldn't lock the door...." It was like an Earth landscape. Tall gra.s.s carried oatlike ruddy seed cl.u.s.ters on green stems. The lake was bordered by white sand except close by, where jungle reached into water. There was casual buzzing traffic above the gra.s.s, reminiscent of bees, wasps, flies. Far up, something drifted on motionless wings, circling. And ten or fifteen miles to the west there was the calm of hills--rounded, old, more green than blue in a sleepy haze, but to paint them, Paul thought, you would shade off into the purple. Paul went on, absently: "We'll have the charlesite of the wrecked boat of course. That gives this one a theoretical twenty hours of jet. We have ammunition for long enough to learn how to use bow and arrow, I think."

Ann muttered, "Paul, don't----"

"What?" Spearman was disgusted. "Oh, you could be right at that, Paul.

Hard to realize.... Well, we must make some kind of camp."

Wright began: "Some knowledge of the life around us----"

"Oh my, yes----"

"We'll have to make a camp before we can do any exploring, Doc. Here, out in the open. See anything in the woods?"

"Something followed. More or less human----"

"So we know the camp has to be in the open."

"Do we, Ed?" Wright watched the distant bat wings. Spearman stared.

"Can't chance a forest we don't know."

"Still, I mean to look things over a bit. Feel not so good, Ann?"

"All right," she said, glancing from Wright to Spearman, silently begging to know: _Who is leader?_ "Slightly slap-happy, Doc."

"Mm, sure." Wright hitched his rifle. "Going to look at that nearest smoke. You come, Paul--or you, Ed. One of you should stay here."

Spearman leaned against the lifeboat, still-faced. "Paul can go if he wants to. I think it's a risk and a waste of time."

Paul watched him a moment, frightened not by a man whom he had never quite been able to like, but by the withdrawal itself, the sense of a barrier to communication. _We start with a division on this first morning of the world...?_ Paul hugged his own rifle and followed Wright into the long whisper of the gra.s.s.

4

Moist heat pressed down, but the air of the meadow was sweet. There were marks of trampling as well as the swath the boat had cut--trails, places where something might have crouched. Under his breath Wright asked, "Feel all right, Paul?"

Truth was more needed than a show of courage. "Not perfect, Doc. Am I flushed? You are, a little."

"Yes. Trace of fever; may wear off. Here's something----"