DARK IS THE SUN

15

WITHOUT symbionts to supply food for gas generation, the tharakorm would slowly settle. At least, that was Sloosh's theory. However, if the cell walls did seep gas, they were not doing so swiftly enough for the present crew. Its members would be dead long before it touched the ground. At Sloosh's direction, they punched one spot on a wall with the sword and beat it with the tomahawks. The wall, though thi

A strong wind came up and sped them along for at least a hundred miles. The Archkerri lost the red trail of the Yawtl then.

"We may never find him now," he said. "For one thing, he's alone. He may not be able to make a hole in the cell of his tharakorm. Even if he does, he won't be able to do it as quickly .as we did. Thus, his tharakorm will go much farther than ours. And it is undoubtedly traveling in a different direction from ours. The wind must have shifted and blown him off our path before this big wind came up."

"At the moment," Vana said in a dry, cracked voice, "I care only about getting water to drink. And then some food."

At last the ship-creature landed on the roof of the jungle in the midst of the tossing tops of the trees. The moment it struck, it tilted, and all its crew were rolled off the deck and into the trees. The second it was relieved of their weight, the tharakorm soared and was gone. Deyv, the last to be shed, saw it rise even as he pitched sideways into the foliage. Yelling with fright, he clawed outward. His hands caught liana, which broke, and he fell deeper. Something, probably a branch, struck him, knocking him half-senseless.

Somehow, he caught hold of a thin branch. It broke, and he fell flat on his back on a large branch.

The wind was knocked out of him. For a moment, he didn't know where he was. But once his wits were gathered, he knew that he was, for the time being, safe.

Miraculously, nobody was seriously hurt. Sloosh, by far the heaviest, had plunged deeper. A network of liana had finally held him. Jum had landed almost by the Archkerri's side a few seconds later. Unable to hold on to the branch above Sloosh, the dog had been precipitated, howling, onto the plant-man.

Vana was clinging to the end of a branch bending under her weight. She managed to crawl up it to a thicker part. Aejip was hanging on to the trunk, her claws digging in.

It took a long time for Deyv to work his way above the Archkerri and the dog. He tied one end of his rope to the junction of a smaller branch and to that on which he lay. Sloosh tied the other end of the rope to Jum, and Deyv lowered the dog to a big branch. Sloosh went down the rope then, his immensely strong hands and arms gripping it and supporting his six hundred pounds. Deyv expected the rope to break, but it held.

They rested on the branch a long time, eating fruit plucked from surrounding branches. Once his belly was filled and the juices had eased his thirst, Deyv slept for a while. On awakening, he and Vana began the work of getting the dog and the plant-man to earth. When the four of them had reached the ground, they found the cat devouring the decaying carcass of a 10-pound rodent. Deyv insisted that she share it with the dog. Though she snarled protest, she did as ordered.

Within two sleep-times, they'd healed their bruises, scratches, and contusions. They came out of the jungle onto a wide plain. This was covered with grasses of various kinds, none higher than three feet. It was populated by herds of herbivores, attendant predators, and vast numbers of birds and flying mammals. And, of course, the ever-present insects and quasi-insects.

Halfway across the plain they came across a strange object lying against two small trees. Its cylindrical shape and the cone at one end made Deyv think at first that it was a House of the ancients. It was a hundred feet long, had a diameter of thirty-five feet, and was of some hard greenish material. On seeing that it had no windows and only one entrance, Deyv decided that it wasn't a House. How could anybody have entered it when it was upright? The doorway would be fifty feet above the ground.

"Very curious," Sloosh said. "I don't remember coming across anything like this in my studies."

The round door had no handle, but there was a plate that was slightly inset nearby. Deyv pushed the plate, and the door began to swing inward.

He and Vana jumped back, ready to run if anything dangerous-looking came out. But when the door stopped, it revealed a room empty except for some furniture.

Sloosh buzzed his equivalent of "Hmm!"

Jum growled, and Deyv looked at him. The dog was not facing the cylinder, as he'd expected. He was pointing back toward the direction from which they'd come.

"Oh, oh!" Deyv said. "Trouble. Maybe."

The others also looked. Trotting toward them was a pack of big ugly creatures larger than Jum. Their heads were somewhat doglike but they had two canines which extended at least a foot below the lower jaw. They were somewhat humpbacked, and their rears sloped downward. The bristly fur was gray and marked with small black crosses. Now and then one gave a peculiar high-pitched cry, half-snarl, halflaughter.

When they got about a hundred feet from the travelers, they stopped and seemed to go into a conference.

In the center of the ring they formed was the biggest and the ugliest one, and they seemed to be addressing their horrid cries at him. By now the strong wind carried their odor to Deyv's party, a stench like rotten flesh mixed with a light odor of skunk and garlic.

Vana said, "I don't like this at all. Are they actually talking?"

"I doubt it," Sloosh said. "Their foreheads aren't high enough for that kind of intelligence. It's just a behavior pattern. Which doesn't make them any less dangerous."

The plant-man went up to the doorway and looked inside. "The walls are even thi

Deyv gasped when the giant object lifted up above Sloosh's head.

"It's no cause for wonder," Sloosh said. "Come here. You can raise it easily."

Fearful but afraid to show that he was, Deyv put his hands by the Archkerri's. Sloosh stepped back, leaving him to support it. Deyv cried out because he expected the cylinder to drop. But he had only a little trouble keeping it propped up against the trees. It surely weighed no more than eighty pounds.

He let it down and said, "What is it? It's not a House."

"Not the kind you're used to, anyway."

Sloosh looked at the ugly beasts. "They're breaking up now. I think we should take refuge in this artifact."

The circle had become an extended line, with the leader in front of it. Instead of an immediate advance, as Deyv anticipated, the line spread out to the sides, then the ends began curving in. The predators were not only going to make a frontal attack but also intended to charge on the flanks as well.

Sloosh buzzed that Deyv and Vana should get at one end of the cylinder and he would take the other.

They obeyed, though they wondered what he was up to. Sloosh, having stationed himself below the conical end, shrilled, "Now, you two! Lift up on it and carry it my way!"

It would have been easy to do so if the wind hadn't pressed it so strongly against the trees. They had to lift it up and slide it along at the same time. The side of the cylinder was like a big sail.