DARK IS THE SUN

Vana suggested that they didn't have to stop to sleep. They could expand the vessel on top of Phemropit, tie it down, and take refuge in it. The stone-metal creature could keep on going. All he had to do was follow the road.

After that they averaged about twenty-seven miles between sleep-times.

The plant-man didn't like this method of travel. It kept him from communicating with Phemropit unless he walked backward ahead of it with the firefly in his hand. Yawtl, not known for i

"Sloosh can sit on the front end and hold the fly in front of Phemropit's eyeholes," he said. "And

Phemropit can bounce his speech-beams off the mica and up to Sloosh."

"Excellent!" Sloosh said. "I could kiss you for that suggestion."

Hoozisst backed away, saying, "No. I never cared for cabbage."

One thing that bothered them was the absence of natives. They didn't have to worry about being ambushed on the road or attacked when they passed through a village, though this hadn't happened before anyway. What did worry them was that there were plenty of population centers, but all had been destroyed. Something had smashed the stockade walls and the huts and trampled on the inhabitants. Old bones, broken and splintered, lay among the ruins. They looked for tracks of the destroyers, but the heavy rains had wiped them out.

Their questions were answered when they came to another junction. Feersh and Jowanarr consulted a signal-pole, and when they were through they looked pale.

"We should have gone on the shorter road," the witch said. "A Ski

"Skreesh preserve us!" the Yawtl said. "If it's that thing that's been stomping on the villages—and it must be—it could pick up Phemropit and throw it in the ocean. And us along with it."

"Lucidly, we can take the road into the jungle," Sloosh said. "It would have been unfortunate indeed if there hadn't been a function here."

Hoozisst said, "I don't know. If its ears are as big as its feet, it'll hear us. Then all it has to do is to cut through the jungle, and it's got us."

Sloosh said that it would be better to be attacked on the beach than on the jungle road. He wouldn't say why just now. He asked Feersh to "listen" again to the data coming through the signal-pole. She reported that the thing was no longer on the highway. She had no way of knowing where it was now. The highway itself, properly interrogated, could give certain details about creatures or objects on its surface and at least twelve feet above it. But the highway could give nothing about anything off the road unless it was in view of the eyes of the signals.

"You mean that when you were monitoring us, you could see us?" Sloosh said.

"Not as I could with my eyes, when I had them. No. I could feel certain impressions, which I then interpreted. Just as you do not directly see the things shown in your prism, but you interpret them."

"How big was this thing?"

"Its weight was more than the highway sensors could register."

The Yawtl made a strangling noise. "What is the upper limit?"

"A thousand or so tons, I believe."

"Is it bipedal?"

"I think so."

"Skreesh!" Hoozisst cried. He looked down the highway. "Well, at least we ought to see its head while it's a long way off. But it must have a hellishly long stride."

"And since The Beast now extends a little beyond the horizon ahead of us, we won't be able to see his silhouette until he's very close," Vana said.

Sloosh gof down and used his firefly to talk to Phemropit. When he was through, he said, "I've explained the situation to it. It says that it can use its cutting ray on the thing. So why should we worry?"

"That's crazy!" Hoozisst said. "What if it comes out of the jungle and takes us on the side? Phemropit might not be able to turn fast enough to use its ray."

"A good point," Sloosh said. "However, I suggest we go ahead, anyway. Here's what we should do."

33

DEYV, Vana, and the two animals went a half-mile ahead of the others. The first carcass they found had been torn in half and most of the flesh had been savagely ripped or cut off. Not only that. The bones had been cracked and ground. There were pieces of meat and bones with meat sticking to them lying scattered over an area many yards wide. The. skull looked as if teeth, each the size of an elephant's head, had broken it open and then chewed on the bone. Deyv thought that the victim had been one of those colossal hairless animals with long necks and long tails. It must have weighed at least five hundred tons.

Except for the insects, the usual scavengers were missing. In fact, there was none of the normal noises of the jungle. Its tenants were either keeping quiet or had fled.

There was, however, a sound. It seemed to be about a half-mile down the road, though it was difficult to be sure. It seemed to be a heavy breathing mingled with occasional crashes, as if a mountain was being torn down.

They went on, though reluctantly, and then came across three other carcasses of the same kind as the first. These, too, were ripped apart and chewed and mangled with parts strewn on the road and along it.

They found tracks in the forest, prints at least two hundred feet long. They were deep enough that they were clear, despite their size. They looked humanoid, but the toes were armed with claws.

Nearby were big trees that had been uprooted, probably by a kick, and others that had been broken off, as if the thing had stepped on them.

The breathing and the sound like a mountain being torn apart were much louder now. It was a mountain.

No. A tall hill of stone. Boulders soared up from it and fell to earth in the jungle. And then one crashed onto the grass between the forest and the highway.

Jum whimpered. Or maybe, thought Deyv, he himself was whimpering. He certainly felt as if he would like to.

Aejip, glaring, crouched close to the ground. Vana was trembling.

"I think we've gone close enough," she whispered.

"Too close."

In the darkness they could make out the hill, which was perhaps a quarter of a mile away. Or was that the monster?

Another rock, the size of Deyv, hurtled down and struck the highway itself. Jum yelped sharply. Deyv felt warm water trickling down his leg.

Suddenly, the tearing noise ceased. Now all they could hear was the enormous breathing. Was it listening?

Deyv took Vana's hand and with his other hand pointed back down the road. They ran on the grass alongside the highway to soften the sound of their steps. From behind them came a bellow, so loud that it was as if the sky had split open. They ran faster, though a second before they seemed to be racing faster than they'd ever done in their lives.

A boulder smashed into the ground a few feet ahead of them. They ran around it. In the distance, a long ways off, a light flashed off and on. Sloosh was signaling via firefly.

The long way became a short way, and they could see the plant-man and the others sitting on top of

Phemropit. Deyv arrived with Vana close behind him. The cat and the dog had come in ahead by forty feet and were now sitting, panting. He threw himself down by them. He was too winded to speak for a minute. It wasn't necessary, anyway. The others could also see the gigantic dim hulk advancing toward them. The earth shook under its tread, or was it Deyv's frightened imagination? He wasn't imagining the frightful roars issuing from the thing. Nor was his nose fooling him. That rotten odor as of many longdecayed bodies, carried by the wind, was too real.

A beam shot from Phemropit, not the thin tight ray he used for piercing or communication but a fan. It shone on gigantic feet and on very thin—relatively speaking—legs. The rest of the thing couldn't be seen clearly. But it looked as if it was a skeleton from whose bones hung various organs.