The Gates of Creation

Wolff was a little sick himself. Feeling the earth tremble under him had been like being caught in an earthquake. In fact, that was what he had thought when it first happened.

Somebody yelled behind him. He spun to see Palamabron trying to get back through the gate through which he had just stepped only to go flying vainly through the frame. He must have been following them and waited until he thought they had gone some distance from the gate. Now, he was trapped as much as they.

More so, since Wolff had use for him. Wolff shoved the others away from Palamabron's throat and shouted at them to leave him alone. They drew back while Palamabron shook and his teeth chat­tered.

"Palamabron," Wolff said, "you have been sentenced to death be­cause you broke truce with us and murdered your cousin."

Palamabron, seeing that he was not to be killed out of hand, took courage. Perhaps he thought he had a chance. He cried, "At least I did not eat my own brother! And I had to kill him! He attacked me first!"

"Enion was struck in the back of the head," Wolff said.

"I knocked him down!" Palamabron shouted. "He started to rise when I seized a rock and hit him with it. It was not my fault he had his back turned. Would you ask me to wait until he had turned around?"

"There's no use talking about this," Wolff said. "But you can go free. Your blood will not be on our hands. Only, you can't stay with us. None of us would feel safe to sleep at night or turn our backs on you."

"You are letting me go?" Palamabron said. "Why?"

"Don't waste time talking," Wolff said. "If you don't get out of our sight within ten minutes, I'll let the others at you. You'd better leave. Now!"

"Wait a minute," Palamabron said. "There's something very sus­picious about this. No, I won't go."

Wolff gestured at the others. "Go ahead. Kill him."

Palamabron screamed, turned, and ran away as swiftly as he could. He seemed weak, and his legs began to move slowly after the first thirty yards. He looked back several times, then, seeing that they were not coming after him, he quit ru

The earth swelled behind him and built up until it was twice as high as his head. At the moment it gained its peak, Palamabron looked over his shoulder again. He saw the giant wave racing to­wards him, and he screamed and began to run again. The wave collapsed, the tremors following the collapse upsetting Palamabron and knocking him off his feet. He scrambled up and continued to go on, although he was staggering by now.

A hole opened up ahead of him. He screamed and darted off at right angles to it, seeming to gain new strength from terror. The hole disappeared, but a second gaped ahead of him. Again, he raced away, this time diagonally to the hole.

Another wave began to build up before him. He whirled, slipped, fell hard, rolled over, and stumbled away. Presently, the swelling, which had risen directly between Palamabron and the Lords, grew so high that it walled him off from their sight. After that, the wave froze for a moment, rigid except for a slight trembling. Gradually, it sub­sided, and the plain was flat again, with the exception of a six-foot long mound.

"Swallowed up," Vala said. She seemed thrilled. Her eyes were wide open, her mouth parted, the lower lip wet. Her tongue flicked out to trace with its tip the oval of both lips.

Wolff said, "Our father has indeed created a monster for us. Perhaps, this entire planet is covered with the skin of ... of this Weltthier."

"What?" said Theotormon. His eyes were still glazed with terror. And though he had been shrinking during the starvation on the last world, he now seemed to have dwindled off fifty pounds in the past two minutes. His skin hung in loops.

"Weltthier. World-animal. From German, a Terrestrial language."

A planet covered with skin, he thought. Or maybe it was not so much a skin as a continent-sized amoeba spread out over the globe. The idea made him boggle.

The skin existed; there was no denying that. But how did it keep from starving to death? The millions and millions of tons of proto­plasm had to be fed. Certainly, although it ate animals, it could not get nearly enough of these to maintain itself.

Wolff decided to investigate the subject, if he ever got the chance. He was as curious as a monkey or a Siamese cat, always probing, pondering, speculating, and analyzing. He could not rest until he knew the why and how.

He sat down to rest while he considered what to do. The others, Vala excepted, also sat or lay down. She walked from the "safety zone," placing her feet carefully with each step. Watching her, he un­derstood what she was doing. Why had he not thought of that? She was avoiding contact with the plants (hairs?) that grew from the holes (pores?). After traveling on a circle with a radius of about twenty-five yards, she returned to the gate area. Not once had the skin trembled or begun to form threatening shapes.

Wolff stood up and said, "Very good, Vala. You beat me to it. The beast, or whatever it is, detects life by touch through the feelers or hairs. If we navigate as cautiously as ships going through openings in reefs, we can cross over this thing. Only trouble is, how do we get past those?"

He pointed outwards to the horny buttes, the excrescentoid hills. The hairs began to crowd together at their bases, and beyond the buttes they carpeted the ground.

She shrugged and said, "I don't know."

"We'll worry about it when we get to it," he said. He began walk­ing, looking downwards to guide himself among the feelers. The Lords followed him in Indian file, with Vala again being the only ex­ception. She paralleled his course at a distance of five or six yards to his right.

"It's going to be very difficult to hunt animals for food under these conditions," he said. "We'll have to keep one eye on the hairs and one on the animal. A terrible handicap."

"I wouldn't worry," she said. "There may be no animals."

"There is one I'm sure exists," Wolff said. He did not say anything more on the subject although it was evident that Vala was wondering what he meant. He headed towards the "tree" in a branch of which he saw the nest. A circular pile of sticks and leaves, it was lodged at the junction of the trunk and a branch and was about three feet across. The sticks and leaves seemed to be held together with a gluey substance.

He stepped between two feelers, propped his club against the tree, and shi

Immediately thereafter, the mother returned. Larger than a bald eagle, she was white with bluish chevrons, furry, monkey-faced, fal­con-beaked, saber-toothed, wolf-eared, bat-winged, archeopteryx-tailed, and vulture-footed.

She shot down on him with wings folded until just before she struck. The wings opened with a whoosh of air, and she screamed like iron being ripped apart. Perhaps the scream was intended to freeze the prey. If so, it failed. Wolff just let loose of the trunk and dropped. Above him came a crash and another scream, this time of frustration and panic, as the beast rammed partly into the nest and partly into the trunk. Evidently, it had expected to have its momen­tum absorbed by Wolff's body. And it may have underestimated its speed in its fury.

Wolff hit the ground and rolled, knowing that he was disturbing the feelers but unable to prevent it. He came up on his feet, clumps of glued-together sticks and leaves raining around him from the shat­tered nest. He got to one side just in time to escape being hit by the body of the half-stu