Chapter 13

The forest swarmed with living things. Here in the dark they had been crawling upon us. Every branch of this leafy tree-top angle had something staring at us; the darkness was suddenly glowing with a myriad little green torches which were their eyes. They all winked on in an instant, as though at a signal, or at the sound of Snap’s shout and the hiss of his bolt.

Insects? I suppose I should call them that. With a glance I saw that they were of many sizes and shapes; tiny little things with eyes like lanterns; things of many legs, finger-length, hand-length, and some as long as my forearm. Brown-shelled things, with eyes glowing on stems. There was one quite near us, a smooth, brown-shelled body; a round head on top, as big as my fist. And these things had heads like little distended brains.

What horrible jest of nature this was, with miniatures of the Wandl workers, crawling here, unable to stand erect, groping with little pincers. And miniature brains with naked, shriveled bodies.

It seemed that the eyes of that little brain were fixed on me with a baleful green glare in the darkness. Anita and Venza were floundering to their feet in horror. They all but slipped from the limb. The weapons and devices they had arranged there slid off and went down into the darkness unheeded. From above us came Snap’s horrified shouts and the hiss of his bolts.

“Here!” I gasped. “My hand--Anita, Venza, jump!”

I shoved Anita upward. The little eyes suddenly were all in movement, advancing upon us. Anita floundered, fluttered, got into the air and mounted toward Snap. Again Venza slipped off the limb. I lunged and drew her up. Green eyes nearest us came swooping. I did not dare fire a bolt; it was too close to Venza. I flung the entire weapon at the green eyes, but I missed.

The little thing bit Venza’s arm. She screamed and her flailing hand hit the tiny distended head. Its hideous little scream mingled with hers. It floated downward, massed and purple-red with gushing blood.

I struggled upward with the inert form of Venza under one arm. Anita was mounting, free. Snap came lunging down.

“Fired every bolt in the damn weapon!” He saw the unconscious Venza. “Good God, Gregg!”

Never have I heard such anguish in his tone. “Gregg, she isn’t...”

“One of them bit her. Help me.”

He floundered up with her, a hundred feet above the tree-tops of that horrible forest. The little lanterns of eyes down there had all winked out. The open starlight was over us.

Anita came swimming, then Venza stirred. She murmured, “ ... all right.”

She had fainted. It seemed nothing more; but I found her upper arm swelling. She tried to bend her body and sit up; but it threw us all out of balance.

“Lie straight,” Snap murmured. “Venza, are you all right?”

“Yes. Why not?” And then she laughed. It sent a shuddering chill over me. “What’s the fuss about? Let’s get away from here. Somebody will be coming.”

She was swimming now and we let her loose, but stayed close by her. The reddish firmament was like an inverted bowl. The curving Wandl surface gave us a narrow little vista, the forest rolling up from the horizon in front. Then we saw where the forest seemed to end. Water was beyond it: a ribbon like a broad river, and beyond that, frowning mountains, terraced and spired with jagged peaks.

Snap and I suddenly recalled the gravity ray projectors. We tried them; found that they would fling little beams of two varieties. Pencil points of radiance, they seemed to have an effective range of no more than a few hundred feet.

I let myself drift downward, experimenting. The tiny beam struck the forest-top. I felt the projector pulling violently downward in my hand. I clung to it. I was being drawn swiftly down by the attractive gravity force of the ray. The forest rose rapidly under me: I was all but flung upon it before I could find the other controls.

Then the ray altered its nature; the projector in my hand pulled me steadily up. But after a few hundred feet, I felt I was mounting only of my own momentum, with gravity and air-friction retarding me.

Snap had tried similar experiments. We rejoined the swimming girls. I stared into Venza’s face; it was pale but she did not seem distressed. She winked at me.

“How’s your arm, Venza?”

“It hurts, but I guess it’s all right.”

I turned to Snap. “I guess we can work these things. Get Venza to cling to you.”

Our progress now was far less difficult. Venza clung to Snap’s ankles and Anita to mine. With the repulsing rays directed downward, we had a strong upward and forward thrust. We went forward with great thousand-foot bounds. The forest rolled back under us. We came over the gleaming river. It seemed several miles broad. It appeared to have a swift current.

I saw sunlight upon the mountain ahead. The darkness had been paling. Now day suddenly burst upon us. The sun, smaller than on Earth, mounted swiftly up. It was a flattened, distorted, dull-red disc, blurred by Wandl’s strange atmosphere. We were in a dim red daylight.