The planet of peril
pleasures beckoned. As it was, he took only enough to intoxicate him
slightly, then, with the bestiality of his savage nature aroused to the
uttermost by what he had drunk, walked unsteadily into the cave where
he had left Vernia bound and helpless.
* * * * *
Grandon was momentarily bewildered by the sudden attack of the
monster that dragged him beneath the black water, but the instinct of
self-preservation came to the rescue even before reason made him aware
of what had happened. His left arm was pinned to his body in the grip
of powerful jaws that would have cut him in two had it not been for his
armor, but the right arm was free; and drawing his sword, he plunged it
again and again into the leathery throat.
He held his breath until it seemed that his lungs would burst, but the
pressure of those jaws did not relax, and he prayed that his blade
might find a vital spot before it was too late.
To his surprise, the water suddenly drained from his helmet and he
tasted air. It was dank, foul air, charged with the offensive odor of
putrefied flesh, but at that moment as welcome to his bursting lungs as
a balmy, sweet-scented zephyr from a fern forest.
The monster ground its teeth ineffectually against Grandon's armor for
a moment, then dropped him on a slimy floor and, putting its huge claw
on his chest, gave vent to a horrible, gurgling roar. He was convinced
that the beast weighed at least a ton, and gave silent thanks to the
skillful armorer who had fashioned that strong breastplate.
The creature continued its disconsolate roaring, which was intensified
a hundredfold by ringing, cavernous echoes, and Grandon noticed that
with each roar the gurgling sound seemed more pronounced and the vocal
tones grew weaker. Slowly the weight on his chest relaxed--slowly the
creature sunk over on its side.
With a quick jerk he rolled from under the mighty claw in time to avoid
the convulsive death struggles of the monster. His sword had not drunk
blood in vain.
Taking his small flash light from its pouch, Grandon surveyed the scene
about him. The reptile lay on its back, its great clutching feet moving
slightly. A thick stream of blue-black blood spurted from a score of
wounds on its neck. The source of the sickening odor was a number of
partly devoured bodies of the lesser reptilians and something which,
horror of horrors, looked like a human foot and shinbone, though the
toes were long, webbed, and armed with sharp claws.
The lair of the great sightless carnivore was an arched cavern which
ended at the water's edge in front of him and appeared to connect with
a series of other caverns behind. As it was impossible for him to
return under water the way he had come, Grandon turned his footsteps
toward the caverns in the rear, hoping that they might open into the
upper passageways where he would have a possible chance of rejoining
his men.
As he journeyed on and on through that intricate maze of dark, damp,
dismal caves, it seemed that they only led him deeper into the bowels
of the earth. Moisture dripped constantly from a thousand pendent,
crystalline points overhead, forming little puddles and tiny streamlets
in the hollows and crevices of the uneven floor. Presently, however,
the floor slanted upward, the dripping ceased, and the puddles
disappeared. His hopes rose.
Quite suddenly and unexpectedly he emerged on the bank of a large
stream. It looked like the one in which he had been plunged some
time before, but he could not be certain, for the surroundings were
different from any he had seen.
What was that? Could it be that he saw a human being moving slowly
along the bank, apparently plucking and eating small fungus growths?
And there, farther on, was another, and yet another, until only a short
distance from where he stood the bank literally swarmed with them. What
could it mean? Did a race of men or anthropoid apes inhabit this region
of eternal darkness?
* * * * *
The creatures paid no attention whatever to his flash light. He turned
it directly on the one nearest him and gasped in amazement. It was
manlike in form, but what a horrible, misshapen, unbelievably grotesque
caricature of the genus homo! It had long, bony, webbed fingers and
toes armed with sharp claws. The smooth, hairless skin was a mottled
silver gray in color, like that of a mackerel. But the face--Grandon
was positive he had never seen anything so hideous in all his Zarovian
wanderings.
It consisted, in front, of a broad, flat nose, and a mouth filled with
huge ratlike teeth, and was minus chin, eyes or forehead. The hairless
pate slanted straight back from the root of the nose and up from the
base of the neck, ending in a conical point at the back. The ears were
human in form, but easily four times as large as the aural appendages
of any man Grandon had ever seen, and the creature kept them constantly
in motion, presumably for the purpose of guarding against prowling
enemies, or locating prey which it obviously could not see.
A stealthy sound behind him caused Grandon to wheel suddenly. There,
not three feet from him, stood a creature similar to the one he had
been watching. It sniffed the air in his direction for a moment with
ears cocked sharply forward, then raised its head and uttered a long,
mournful, wailing shriek.
Before he could sense the import of that cry he was surrounded by a
chattering, excited group of creatures, seemingly materialized from the
darkness around him. Thinking he was about to be attacked, Grandon drew
his sword and awaited the first act of hostility from that narrowing
circle.
To his surprise, they made no move to attack him, but seemed only
curious. One, a trifle bolder than the rest, reached out long bony
fingers and touched his armor, then made a queer, cackling noise. It
reminded him of a sound he had once heard when a boy: a sound which had
haunted his dreams for years afterward--the terrible, mirthless laugh
of an idiot. Others, emboldened by the successful experiment of their
comrade, pawed him over in turn, while the caverns rang with the echoes
of their horrid cackling.
Grandon grew, tired of being man-handled, and attempted to push the
things away from him with outstretched arms. They were apparently
harmless, and he had not the heart to use his sword on them. He
learned his mistake too late, for they took this movement as a sign
of hostility, and a dozen of them pounced on him, bearing him to the
floor, where pinned beneath their combined weight, he could scarcely
lift a finger.
Then, above the shrieking and chattering of his captors, he heard the
familiar click of paddles against the metal sides of a boat. A bright
beam of light flashed over him.
"Oro!" he shouted at the top of his voice. "To the rescue, Oro!"
Would they see him or hear his cry? He listened intently, then shouted
again and again. Once more the rays of the searchlight played on the
struggling mass of creatures that swarmed over him. It hung there. A
hoarse command sounded simultaneously with the noise of hollow metal
scraping on stone. Then there was the clank of armored men running,
followed by the sound of blows and unearthly shrieks of anguish. Two
stalwart marsh-men helped Grandon to his feet as the last of his
captors fled off, howling in dismay.
There was a brief but joyous reunion of commander and men on the bank,
which was rudely broken into by a shower of missiles from out the
darkness. Evidently the eyeless beings knew something about throwing
stones, for they were hurled with uncanny accuracy. Nearly every man
in the company was struck, and several were bowled over, though their
armor protected them from serious injury.
* * * * *
Grandon ordered every one aboard, as he had no stomach for useless
slaughter, and felt pity rather than animosity toward the sightless,
feeble-minded creatures that had attacked him. To him they represented,
not an evolution toward a human type, but rather a reversion from it.
In all probability they had sprung from the same prehistoric
anthropomorphous ancestors as man, but as is always the case,
environment had gradually stamped its mark on them during countless
thousands of generations. Because they had lived in Stygian darkness
with no use for eyes, the organs of sight had disappeared. The brain,
the organ of objective reason, was correspondingly dwarfed. Other
peculiar characteristics, such as the webbed feet and hands and the
froglike skin, would be the natural result of living like amphibious
reptiles.
For some time after they pushed away from the shore, stones continued
to rattle against the boat and splash in the water about it, but on
rounding a curve in the stream the shower of missiles ceased and they
saw no more of the strange creatures who hurled them.
An hour later they emerged from beneath a perpendicular cliff into
broad daylight, shot a swift rapids, and proceeded on a beautiful,
sparkling stream, dotted with verdant islets and flanked on either
side by the great salt marshes. He noticed that these marshes, in all
but the spots that were continually above the sea water, had a type of
vegetation peculiarly their own, for the reason that only those plants
and fungi which could withstand the action of salt would grow in them.
The predominant plant was a rank-growing, jointed cane which seemed to
attain a height of about twenty feet at maturity.
The ocean breeze kept the cane brakes constantly in motion, producing
an odd, rattling sound that had a peculiar, depressing effect on
Grandon. It seemed that these weeds were conspiring against him as
other forces had conspired, to keep Vernia from him, bending their
heads together and whispering their fearful secrets in a language
he could not understand. It was a relief when, toward evening, they
reached the ocean coast and landed for a short time to give the men a
chance to stretch their cramped muscles and steep some liquor.
While they built a fire of dried reeds and prepared the roots, Grandon
and Oro explored the coast for some distance southward without finding
any sign of those whom they sought. They accordingly had four of the
men paddle them across the mouth of the river and traversed the coast
line to the north for several miles. Both were hurrying along, looking
for signs of a camp or a cooking fire, when the sharp-eyed Oro suddenly
uttered an exclamation of surprise and ran down to the water's edge.
Lying on the sand where it had been deposited by the breakers was an
empty food sack.
"They came this way in the boat," he exclaimed. "This sack could have
come from nowhere but the valley of the sabits, and there are no tracks
on the shore."
* * * * *
They hurried back to the camp, and, after a hasty meal, embarked
northward. The sudden, inky darkness of moonless Venus descended
before they had gone far, and the wind rose, making coastwise travel
exceedingly difficult. Toward midnight they sighted a flickering light
ahead. On coming closer they saw a large camp fire surrounded by
recumbent figures and, in silhouette, the curved, serpentine prow of an
Albine boat.
After silently beaching their craft a little way from the camp, they
deployed in a semicircle, then charged. To their infinite surprise they
met with no resistance. The twenty sleeping men on the ground about the
fire did not move a muscle, though they had made enough noise to waken
an army.
Oro comprehended the situation at a glance. The sleeping men, the empty
shells and the food sack, half filled with the now luke-warm beverage.
"Too much kova," he said.