DARK IS THE SUN

25

DEYV leaped from the doorway onto the hull. The creature was lying on its side parallel to a rocky beach. Its hull, though wet, was not too steep. He scrambled up on hands and feet, gripped the edge, and looked over. Whatever had constituted the deck was gone now. If it had been flesh or a leathery skin, it had decayed along with the sails and the flower-eyes and other organs subject to corruption. Only a skeleton remained, bones sticking up from the interior of the hull—if hard metallic objects could be called bones.

In three heaps along the bottom of the hull were smaller bones. These could be the skeletons of its young, the flippered sausage-things. They had died in the womb after the mother had perished.

Deyv looked along the hull. When a wave receded from the beach, it exposed most of the mouth. The lower jaw extended along and from the bottom of the bow and was set with rows of huge triangular teeth. It protruded about six feet more than the upper jaw, which was a fixed part of the bow.

Sloosh had tied one end of Deyv's rope to a chair, which he'd unfolded from the deck of the ancients'

vessel. The other end of the rope he had thrown to Deyv, who worked his way along the edge of the hull.

Then the Yawtl and Vana jumped out and joined him. They dragged the vessel along the dead beast until the doorway was past the jawed bow. The others came out to help. In a short time, they had the vessel up on the beach and partway into the forest. When its conical nose was secured between two trees, they looked for food. After stuffing their bellies with fruit, nuts, and berries—several of them vomiting afterward because they had eaten too much too quickly—they cleaned out the vessel. Sloosh collapsed it and had it strapped onto his back.

The plant-man went off to explore the inside of the ship-beast. It was easy to get into it from the beach, since it was lying on its side. Aejip went hunting for meat with Vana. Deyv went exploring with Jum.

The only large eminence in sight was a cone-shaped mountain about fifteen hundred feet high. When he had toiled near to its top, Deyv saw that they had landed on an island. After working around threequarters of the mountain, he became depressed. The horizon was bare of land. Either the lake was larger than any he'd ever seen or they had floated onto an island far out at sea.

He brightened when it occurred to him that it wasn't going to make any difference to him. He hadn't the slightest intention of pushing on and out. Vana and he could make a boat with a sail and return to the mainland. Neither knew how to operate a sailboat, but they could learn. If none of their group could teach them, he would watch the sail-beasts and see how they moved against the wind.

He tried not to think of them and the monster fish. Perhaps he and Vana would be lucky enough not to be swallowed along with their tiny craft. They wouldn't be as noticeable as the vessel of the ancients, which had been bumped into and tossed around a number of times, presumably by giants who'd seized it in their jaws but whose teeth had slid off the hard stuff.

Deyv decided that if he'd come this far up the mountain, he might as well go to the very top. With two hundred feet more altitude, he just might be able to see land. The path curved around and through the thick brush, which was stripped of branches along the edges. The numerous droppings showed that some large herbivores had used the trail, though so far he'd seen none.

When they'd ascended a hundred feet as the khratikl flies, Jum stopped. His bristling hairs and soft growl told Deyv that there was danger ahead. Quietly, he urged the dog onward. Though reluctant, Jum obeyed. The slope became abrupt close to the top, forcing them to dig into the mingled soft dirt and eroded stones to keep from slipping backward. Then the soil ceased, and the tip became a hard rock spire. There was nothing alarming on it, only a little monkey-like creature with huge red eyes and a low cooing cry.

Jum pointed his nose toward the forest to their left. Deyv went ahead of the dog into the foliage. He held the sword in one hand and his tomahawk in the other. Slowly, he brushed past the bushes and the lowgrowing branches of daunash trees. He made sure that he didn't step on any twigs.

Ahead he could see that the mountain dropped off. There was a cliff there, though he couldn't see how high it was. Out beyond its edge was something that shimmered, danced, expanded, contracted. It seemed to be about ten feet in diameter at its smallest; twenty, at its largest. Out from its center stuck a large log which had been roughly flattened on top. The other end rested on the lip of the cliff.

It was a bridge that disappeared at the other end into the shimmering.

Deyv could hear nothing, but the dog's sensitive ears had certainly detected something. Whatever the sound was, it had put fear into him. Now, seeing the shimmering, Deyv felt afraid too. And he also felt nauseated. This thing was u

He turned his head away to keep from vomiting. He was so dizzy that he had to sit down. Jum pressed against him, his tail between his legs. He wanted desperately to run away.

After a while Deyv became less sick. But when he looked with one eye at the shimmering, he felt his nausea return full-strength. Was this the abode of some deity or demon? If so, would he or she or it need a log bridge to get to the ground? It didn't seem likely, On the other hand, what did he know about such beings? Especially those of strange lands.

Sloosh was the one to deal with this, if anyone could. Deyv felt that it would be best to stay away from the place. He stood up but, his curiosity overcoming his dread, glanced again at the swelling shrinking brightness. Then he saw footprints in the earth at the near end of the log.

That scared him even more. Had the dweller come out into the forest?

He whirled, feeling for a terrible second that something horrible beyond imagination was standing behind him. He gasped with relief. Only the forest was behind him.

But whoever lived in that thing might be returning home at this moment. Deyv had better get away—fast

He retraced his path with an eager Jum behind him. When they reached the trail they walked swiftly down it. Deyv had to use all his self-control to keep from a headlong flight But the rule was that you never ran in the jungle unless someone was definitely after you or you were after someone.

When he got back to camp, he was greeted by the Yawtl.

"You look as if you'd seen a ghost."

"I've seen something worse," Deyv said. He hurried onto the skeleton of the ship-beast. Sloosh wasn't there. A little while later, the Archkerri came out of the jungle burdened down by clusters of fruit.

When the plant-man heard the whole story, he said, "I won't say that you should have at least followed those tracks."

"You just said it"

"No, I said I wouldn't say it. I had to specify what it was I wouldn't say, otherwise you wouldn't know what I was referring to. Anyway, let's all go up there."

The slaves refused to go. Feersh's children dared to go only because they were afraid to be far from their mother. Besides, they didn't want to be at the mercy of the slaves. Vana quit butchering the two large rodents she'd shot and put them in the vessel for safekeeping.

As they got near the shimmering, though they couldn't see it yet, Jum dropped back. Deyv didn't call him; he didn't blame the dog. His own heart was hammering, and the hairs on the back of his neck felt as if they were bristling. When the party got within sight of the phenomenon, they felt the same sickness and dread he'd experienced. Only Sloosh had the courage to go to the near end of the log, and he looked as little as possible at the thing into which it disappeared.