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Chan hurried along after Friday, through the archway, past the little Malacostracan seated on its flat dais, finally out into open air. The overcast had cleared, the sun was blazing. He caught the sulfurous odor of black rock baking in early afternoon heat, and felt that he had never smelled anything so good. Half an hour ago he would have taken odds against his smelling anything ever again of his own free will. He could still feel those questing tentacles at his ears.
Friday Indigo, a few feet in front of Chan, paused by the group of big Malacostracans guarding the entrance to the building. He rattled off an outlandish sequence of whistles and clicks. Two of the creatures reared up on their back legs, so that their waving eyestalks and purple-black carapaces loomed over Chan.
“I told them to escort you to the shore,” Friday said. “You must go directly to the beach, and straight into the water. If you seek to do anything other than that, they will stun you and drag you back here for their further instructions. After you leave, they will remain on the shore until you emerge from the water in your suit at dawn tomorrow morning. They will then escort you here. If you seek to linger on the beach tomorrow, they will stun you and drag you back for further instructions. Do you have any questions before I hand you over to them?”
“Suppose that the waves are too rough for me to go into the sea?”
“That will be your misfortune. It is useless for you to try to communicate with them, because they are Level Fours and of limited intelligence. Your failure to enter the water will be considered a deviation from instructions, and they will stun you—”
“ — and drag me back here for further instructions. I get it. I’ll see you tomorrow — right on time.”
The two Malacostracan guards placed themselves one ahead of and one behind Chan and moved away across the burned rock. They took a different path from the one that Friday Indigo had used, angling away to the right. Soon they were at the edge of the bare area and moving into waist-high scrub. They went forward confidently along a trail marked by flattened plants. They passed through a small clearing. Chan wanted to pause there, but he was too aware of the black canes. He kept walking, taking a quick glance at the open supply cases and the cans and boxes scattered on the ground next to them. The earth was scuffled and marked by the imprint of many clawed feet.
This was where Deb and the others had made their camp. If Chrissie and Tarb came here when they escaped, they had been too smart to linger. But where had they gone? Not back into the water. The breakers during the night would have been enormous.
Chan moved his hand up to close his helmet. The Malacostracan guards took no notice. To them, a human without a suit probably looked naked and u
He flicked a switch on his gauntlet controls. Again the guards ignored him. Provided that he kept moving, that seemed to be all that they cared about. He adjusted the radio to the general communication frequency and increased the reception volume. He heard a background hiss and that was all. If Chrissie and Tarb were able to broadcast — if they had even escaped with their suits — they were not doing so. But that also made sense. A distress signal or any other form of message was also a beacon, advertising the location of its source.
Chan kept walking and listening, and heard nothing. They were emerging from the shelter of the vegetation. He saw the shore with its line of breakers, smaller and less threatening now, maybe fifty meters ahead.
It was time for him to take a chance. If his signal was picked up, the Malacostracans should think it came from the sea and the sunken Hero’s Return.
He added a transmission circuit. “Chrissie and Tarb. Can you hear this?”
Still the bland hiss, and the beach was within thirty meters.
“If you are receiving, stay in hiding. The part of the shoreline near your camp is guarded by the Malacostracans. Everyone on the Hero’s Return is alive and well” — true at the moment, presumably, but not for long unless Chan did something about it — “and we will be in touch with you as soon as we can. Repeat: stay hidden. If you are caught, the Malacostracans will execute you.”
Chan saw no reason to add that the deaths would be drawn-out and agonizing. In any case, he was at the edge of the shore and there was no time for more words. Again he tried to do what he had seen Deb do earlier. He marched straight ahead until the water lapped about his waist, then dived forward into the approaching wave.
This time he was more successful. Chan felt his heels briefly break the surface, then he was under and on his way. He swam as fast as he could. In one evening and one night on Limbo, he had to say good-bye to everything and everyone forever.
35: THE ONLY ANSWER
Chan had thought that the most difficult part of his return would be the first two minutes. He was wrong.
From the moment that Deb had appeared at the Hero’s Return to tell the others that she had been forced to leave the land, everyone had naturally been desperate to know what was happening ashore. They wanted to hear about Chan’s meeting with the Mallies. They wanted information , and compared with that his emotions or feelings were a very low priority.
He gave a lengthy but highly edited version of events after Deb had been forced to leave, concentrating on what he had seen of the Malacostracans and confirming their confidence that they could open the Link entry point at will and fly their ships through it. He described his meeting with The One, but said nothing of the deal that he had made.
“Actually, we spent most of the time just trying to communicate with each other,” he said. “The Angel is right about Friday Indigo, he’s been taken over totally by the Mallies. But talking to them, even with him helping, is hard work. I still don’t know if there’s any way that we can work with them to get ourselves through the Link and home. I have to go back there first thing in the morning, and try again.”
Chan was uncomfortably aware of Gressel. The Angel was sitting in a well-lit corner, fronds unmoving. It was said that an Angel could simulate human thought patterns so well that lying to one of them was impossible. But Gressel remained silent.
“What about Chrissie and Tarbush?” Da
“So far as I know.” Chan was glad to switch to something he could talk about freely. “I tried to call them just before I came back here, but they didn’t reply. The land surface is a lot more complex and jagged than it looks on the satellite images. They could be hidden away in a thousand places.”
“Out of radio contact, perhaps?” Deb said.
She was looking at Chan very strangely. Maybe it was his own feeling of guilt at what he was concealing from her and the others. But if he told anyone his idea, anyone at all, they would find a reason why he shouldn’t go through with it.
“More likely Chris and Tarb were away from their suits for a while,” he said. “They must know we’re looking for them, and they’re far too smart to put themselves permanently in a place where signals can’t reach. One good thing, they have plenty of supplies. I passed our first camp on the way to the sea, and they’d raided it long before I got there.”
He stared around at the little circle of weary faces. Not one had slept the night before, and it was doubtful if they had managed to rest while he was gone. “You all look as tired as I am. I’m also starving. If nobody objects, I’d like a meal and a nap. After that I’ll be happy to answer as many new questions as you can dream up.”
Tully O’Toole nodded and said, “Go, Chan man, you need to feed.” He looked like a human wreck who had not eaten for months, a gray skeleton in tattered clothes leaning over the back of Elke Siry’s chair; but he seemed cheerful. “Don’t take too long.”