The Lavalite World

The sixth day after they'd sighted the palace again, they lost Anana's beast. While they were sleeping, a lion attacked it, and though they drove the lion off, they had to put the badly mauled hikwu out of its misery. This provided for their meat supply for several days before it got too rotten to eat, but Anana had to take turns riding behind the two men. And this slowed them down.

The sixteenth day, they climbed another mountain for another sighting. This time they could identify it, but it wasn't much closer than the last time seen.

"We could chase it clear around this world," McKay said disgruntedly.

"If we have to, we have to," Kickaha said cheerfully. "You've been bitching a lot lately, Mac. You're begi

for many months, but you'd better grin and bear it. Crack a few jokes, do a cakewalk now and then."

McKay looked sullen. "This ain't no minstrel show."

"True, but Anana and I are doing our best to make light of it. I suggest you change your attitude. You could be worse off. You could be dead. We have a chance, a good one, to get out of here. You might even get back to Earth, though I suppose it'd be best for the people there if you didn't. You've stolen, tortured, killed, and raped. But maybe, if you were in a different environment, you might change. That's why I don't think it'd be a good idea for you to return to Earth."

"How in hell did we get off from my bitching to that subject," McKay said.

Kickaha gri

"Yours?" McKay blazed, sulle

"Actually, it belongs to an Indian. Did, I should say. Now its whoever has the strength to take it. Do I make myself clear?"

"You'd desert me?"

"Rationally, we should. But Anana and I won't as long as you help us. So," he suddenly shouted, "quit your moaning and groaning!"

McKay gri

Kickaha said, "Okay. Let's go. Now, did I ever tell you about the time I had to hide out in a fully stocked wine cellar in a French town when the Krauts retook it?"

Two months later, the traveling building still had not been caught. They were much closer now. When they occasionally glimpsed it, it was about ten miles away. Even at that distance, it looked enormous, towering an estimated 2600 feet, a little short of half a mile. Its width and length were each about 1200 feet, and its bottom was flat.

Kickaha could see its outline but could not, of course, make out its details. According to Urthona, it would, at close range, look like an ambulatory Arabian Nights city with hundreds of towers, minarets, domes, and arches. From time to time its surface changed color, and once it was swathed in rainbows.

Now, it was halfway on the other side of an enormous plain that had opened out while they were coming down a mountain. The range that had ringed it was flattening out, and the animals that had been on the mountainsides were now great herds on the plains.

"Ten miles away," Kickaha said. "And it must have about thirty miles more to go before it reaches the end of the plain. I say we should try to catch it now. Push until our hikwu drop and then chase it on foot. Keep going no matter what."

The others agreed, but they weren't enthusiastic. They'd lost weight, and their faces were hollow-cheeked, their eyes ringed with the dark of near-exhaustion. Nevertheless, they had to make the effort. Once the palace reached the mountains, it would glide easily up over them, maintaining the same speed as it had on the plain. But its pursuers would have to slow down.

As soon as they reached the flatland, they urged the poor devils under them into a gallop. They responded as best they could, but they were far from being in top condition. Nevertheless, the ground was being eaten up. The herds parted before them, the antelopes and gazelles stampeding. During the panic the predators took advantage of the confusion and panic. The dogs, baboons, moas, and lions caught fleeing beasts and dragged them to the ground. Roars, barks, screams drifted by the riders as they raced toward their elusive goal.

Now Kickaha saw before them some very strange creatures. They were mobile plants-perhaps-resembling nothing he'd ever come across before. In essence, they looked like enormous logs with legs. The trunks were horizontal, pale-gray, with short stubby branches bearing six or seven diamond-shaped black-green leaves. From each end rose structures that looked like candelabra. But as he passed one he saw that eyes, enormous eyes, much like human eyes, were at the ends of the candelabra. These turned as the two moosoids galloped by.

More of these weird-looking things lay ahead of them. Each had a closed end and an open end.

Kickaha directed his hikwu away from them, and McKay followed suit. Kickaha shouted to Anana, who was seated behind him, "I don't like the looks of those things!"

"Neither do I!"

One of the logoids, about fifty yards to one side, suddenly began tilting up its open end, which was pointed at them. The other end rested on the ground while the forelegs began telescoping upward.

Kickaha got the uneasy impression that the thing resembled a ca

A moment later, the dark hole in its raised end shot out black smoke. From the smoke something black and blurred described an arc and fell about twenty feet to their right.

It struck the rusty grass, and it exploded.

The moosoid screamed and increased its gallop as if it had summoned energy from somewhat within it.

Kickaha was half-deafened for a moment. But he wasn't so stu

Anana said, "Kickaha, you're bleeding!"

He didn't feel anything, and now was no time to stop to find out where he'd been hit. He yelled more encouragement to his hikwu. But that yell was drowned the next moment when at least a dozen explosions circled him. The smoke blinded him for a moment, then he was out of it. Now he couldn't hear at all. Anana's hands were still around his waist, though, so he knew she was still with him.

He looked back over his shoulder. Here came McKay on his beast flying out of black clouds. And behind him came a projectile, a shell-shaped black object, drifting along lazily, or so it seemed. It fell behind McKay, struck, went up with a roar, a cloud of smoke in the center of which fire flashed. The black man's hikwu went over, hooves over hooves. McKay flew off the saddle, struck the ground, and rolled. The big body of his hikwu flipflopped by, narrowly missing him.

But McKay was up and ru

Kickaha pulled his hikwu up, stopping it.

Through the drifting smoke he could see that a dozen of the plants had erected their front open ends and pointed them toward the humans. Out of the ca

Behind him were two small craters in the ground.

Miraculously, McKay's moosoid had not broken its neck or any legs. It scrambled up, its lips drawn back to reveal all its big long teeth, its eyes seemingly twice as large. It sped by McKay whose mouth opened as he shouted curses that Kickaha couldn't hear.

Anana had already grasped what had to be done. She had slipped off the saddle and was making motions to Kickaha, knowing he couldn't hear her. He kicked the sides of the beast and yelled at it, though he supposed it was as deaf as he. It responded and went after McKay's fleeing beast. The chase was a long one, however, and ended when McKay's mount stopped ru