Chapter 3: Snake-Devil's Trail

Dalgard drew the waterproof covering back over his brow, making a cheerful job of it, preparatory to their pushing out to sea once more. But he was as intent upon what Sssuri had to tell as he was on his occupation of the moment.

“But that is not even a hopper rumor,” he was protesting, breaking into his companion’s flow of thought.

“No. But, remember, to the runners yesterday is very far away. One night is like another; they do not reckon time as we do, nor lay up memories for future guidance. They left their native hunting grounds and are drifting south. And only a very great peril would lead the runners into such a break. It is against all their instincts!”

“So, long ago--which may be months, weeks, or just days--there came death out of the sea, and those who lived past its coming fled--” Dalgard repeated the scanty information Sssuri had won for them the night before by patient hour-long coaxing. “What kind of death?”

Sssuri’s great eyes, somber and a little tired, met his. “To us there is only one kind of death to be greatly feared.”

“But there are the snake-devils--” protested the colony scout.

“To be hunted down by snake-devils is death, yes. But it is a quick death, a death which can come to any living thing that is not swift or wary enough. For to the snake-devils all things that live and move are merely meat to fill the aching pit in their swollen bellies. But there were in the old days other deaths, far worse than what one meets under a snake-devil’s claws and fangs. And those are the deaths we fear.” He was running the smooth haft of his spear back and forth through his fingers as if testing the balance of the weapon because the time was not far away when he must rely upon it.

“Those Others!” Dalgard shaped the words with his lips as well as in his mind.

“Just so.” Sssuri did not nod, but his thought was in complete agreement.

“Yet they have not come before--not since the ship of my fathers landed here,” Dalgard protested, not against Sssuri’s judgment but against the whole idea.

The merman got to his feet, sweeping his arm to indicate not only the cove where they now sheltered but the continent behind it.

“Once they held all this. Then they warred and killed, until but a handful lay in cover to lick their wounds and wait. It has been many threes of seasons since they left that cover. But now they come again--to loot their place of secrets--Perhaps in the time past they have forgotten much so that now they must renew their knowledge.”

Dalgard stowed the bow in the bottom of the outrigger. “I think we had better go and see,” he commented, “so that we may report true tidings to our Elders--something more than rumors learned from night runners.”

“That is so.”

They paddled out to sea and turned the prow of the light craft north. The character of the land did not change. Cliffs still walled the coast, in some places rising sheer from the water, in others broken by a footing of coarse beach. Only flying things were to be sighted over their rocky crowns.

But by midday there was an abrupt alteration in the scene. A wide river cut through the heights and gave birth to a fan-shaped delta thickly covered with vegetation. Half hidden by the riot of growing things was a building of the dome shape Dalgard knew so well. Its windowless, doorless surface reflected the sunlight with a glassy sheen, and to casual inspection it was as untouched as it had been on the day its masters had either died within it or left it for the last time, perhaps centuries before.

“This is one way into the forbidden city,” Sssuri announced. “Once they stationed guards here.”

Dalgard had been about to suggest a closer inspection of the dome but that remark made him hesitate. If it had been one of the fortifications rimming in a forbidden ground, there was more than an even chance that unwary invaders, even this long after, might stumble into some trap still working automatically.

“Do we go upriver?” He left it to Sssuri, who had the traditions of his people to guide him, to make the decision.

The merman looked at the dome; it was evident from his attitude that he had no wish to examine it more closely. “They had machines which fought for them, and sometimes those machines still fight. This river is the natural entrance for an enemy. Therefore it would have been well defended.”

Under the sun the green reach of the delta had a most peaceful appearance. There was a family of duck-dogs fishing from the beach, scooping their broad bills into the mud to locate water worms. And moth birds danced in the air currents overhead. Yet Dalgard was ready to agree with his companion--beware the easy way. They dipped their paddles deep and cut across the river current toward the cliffs to the north.

Two days of steady coastwise traveling brought them to a great bay. And Dalgard gasped as the full sight of the port confronting them burst into view.

Tiers of ledges had been cut and blasted in the native rock, extending from the sea back into the land in a series of giant steps. Each of them was covered with buildings, and here the ancient war had left its mark. The rock itself had been brought to a bubbling boil and sent in now-frozen rivers down that stairway in a half-dozen places, overwhelming all structures in its path, and leaving crystallized streams to reflect the sun blindingly.

“So this is your secret city!”

But Sssuri shook his round head. “This is but the sea entrance to the country,” he corrected. “Here struck the day of fire, and we need not fear the machines which doubtless lie in wait elsewhere.”

They beached the outrigger and hid it in the shell of one of the ruined buildings on the lowest level. Dalgard sent out a questing thought, hoping to contact a hopper or even a duck-dog. But seemingly the ruins were bare of animal life, as was true in most of the other towns and cities he had explored in the past. The fauna of Astra was shy of any holding built by Those Others, no matter how long it may have been left to the wind, and cleansing rain.

With difficulty and detours to avoid the rivers of once-molten rock, they made their way slowly from ledge to ledge up that giant’s staircase, not stopping to explore any of the buildings as they passed. There was a taint of alien age about the city which repelled Dalgard, and he was eager to get out of it into the clean countryside once more. Sssuri sped on silent feet, his shoulders hunched, his distaste for the structures to be read in every line of his supple body.

When they reached the top, Dalgard turned to gaze down to the restless sea. What a prospect! Perhaps Those Others had built thus for reasons of defense, but surely they, too, must have paused now and then to be proud of such a feat. It was the most impressive site he had yet seen, and his report of it would be a worthy addition to the Homeport records.

A road ran straight from the top of the stair, stabbing inland without taking any notice of the difficulties of the terrain, after the usual arrogant manner of the alien engineers. But Sssuri did not follow it. Instead he struck off to the left, avoiding that easy path, choosing to cross through tangles which had once been gardens or through open fields.

They were well out of the sight of the city before they flushed their first hopper, a full-grown adult with oddly pale fur. Instead of displaying the usual fearless interest in strangers, the animal took one swift look at them and fled as if a snake-devil had snorted at its thumping heels. And Dalgard received a sharp impression of terror, as if the hopper saw in him some frightening menace.

“What--?” Honestly astounded, he looked to Sssuri for enlightenment.

The hoppers could be pests. They stole any small bright object which aroused their interest. But they could also be persuaded to trade, and they usually had no fear of either colonist or merman.

Sssuri’s furred face might not convey much emotion, but by all the signs Dalgard could read he knew that the merman was as startled as he by the strange behavior of the grass dweller.

“He is afraid of those who walk erect as we do,” he made answer.

Those who walk erect--Dalgard was quick to interpret that.

He knew that Those Others were biped, quasi-human in form, closer in physical appearance to the colonists than to the mermen. And since none of Dalgard’s people had penetrated this far to the north, nor had the mermen invaded this taboo territory until Sssuri had agreed to come, that left only the aliens. Those strange people whom the colonists feared without knowing why they feared them, whom the mermen hated with a hatred which had not lessened with the years of freedom. The faint rumor carried by the migrating runners must be true, for here was a hopper afraid of bipeds. And it must have been recently provided with a reason for such fear, since hoppers’ memories were very short and such terror would have faded from its mind in a matter of weeks.

Sssuri halted in a patch of grass which reached to his waist belt. “It is best to wait until the hours of dark.”

But Dalgard could not agree. “Better for you with your night sight,” he objected, “but I do not have your eyes in my head.”

Sssuri had to admit the justice of that. He could travel under the moonless sky as sure-footed as under broad sunlight. But to guide a blundering Dalgard through unknown country was not practical. However, they could take to cover and that they did as speedily as possible, using a zigzag tactic which delayed their advance but took them from one bit of protecting brush or grove of trees to the next, keeping to the fields well away from the road.