Part 4

Behind him came the others, two by two--wild Kagans fresh from the jungle, a man with four arms, several with prehensile tails, some with fur and some hairless. They walked with the same dreamy preoccupied air of the humans that Jupiter had seen in the courtyard, and prostrated themselves before the glowing idol. They were possessed, dominated by the lone Anolyn who brought up the rear.

Lete was the fourth from the end.

The cymbals suddenly clashed and fell silent. The ritual was about to begin.

Jupiter brought the rifle to his shoulder, took careful aim at the purple-shelled octopod directing the ceremony, pulled the trigger.

VII

The shot reverberated in the chamber of horrors like a clap of thunder. The lone Anolyn slumped forward, half its head shot away.

With drawn sword, Reiloc leaped past Jupiter. He ran for the glowing idol, began to hack at one of ten tentacles with his sword. Tabak and Jupiter were right behind him. They grabbed Lete by either arm, hauled the bemused cave girl to her feet.

Some of the shock of the Anolyn's sudden death had been transmitted to the humans under its control. They stared at the profaners of the temple with pained uncomprehending eyes.

Reiloc snatched up the severed radioactive tentacle, dashed after Jupiter and Tabak who were half carrying Lete between them.

"This way!" Tabak cried. "This way!"

They burst out of the sanctum into a broad corridor, almost ran over another Anolyn. Jupiter shot it in its tracks.

No signs of pursuit had developed by the time they reached the ramp. Lete was recovering from her shock. She struggled wildly, cried:

"What's happening? What are you doing with me?"

"We're escaping," Jupiter grunted.

"But you can't. The first Anolyn we meet will stop us. I don't understand--"

"Be silent, foolish one," growled Reiloc, "he's the Wanderer!"

"But you're Edir!"

"We're Edir no longer. He's broken our bonds."

Lete seized Jupiter's hand. "Then you _are_ the Wanderer. You weren't laughing at me back there in the cages. But why--"

"No time now," Jupiter said and plunged onto the ramp.

They ran down it wildly, crazily, reached the canal at the bottom.

"We'll have to--" Jupiter began, when Lete screamed.

"I can feel them!" the cave girl cried. "They're trying to pull me back! Jupiter--"

She bit her lips, her cheeks suddenly bloodless. "They're gone," she said in a shaken voice. "They mustn't have guessed who I was."

Jupiter stared at her. Lete's yellow eyes were wide, frightened. She swallowed miserably.

"We'll have to get that Anolyn off your neck at the first opportunity," he said, turned to Tabak. "This canal leads to the _Dra Dur_. Is that right?"

"Yes," said Tabak in a queer voice; "but Jupiter--"

"What are our chances of getting through now?" he interrupted.

She shrugged slim white shoulders. "Every second we waste here lessens them."

Without another word, he started along the ledge paralleling the canal.

At regular intervals of about a block ramps led down to the aquaduct from the surface above. They crossed the mouths of other canals on narrow bridges. A perfect labyrinth of underground waterways stretched beneath the city.

At the fifth ramp, Jupiter heard a twang. Something whistled past his head. He almost lost his footing as he glanced up and saw a dozen Nehogans on the ramp leading up to the street.

Lete spun around and tried to run, knocking Reiloc into the water with a splash. Tabak caught her, held the cave girl in spite of her terrified efforts to escape.

Jupiter dropped to one knee, changing the carbine to automatic, sent a burst of shots into the warriors above.

They didn't retreat, but with fierce yells charged straight into his gun. They were possessed, like Moros running amok. The last one was less than a yard away before he brought him down with a shot through the chest.

That had been close. He felt weak as he pulled Reiloc from the water.

"They know where we are," the giant Nehogan growled ominously, "our chances to--"

"Look out!" Tabak screamed.

Jupiter whirled around. He was just in time to see Lete run at him with Reiloc's sword. The cave girl had snatched it from the Nehogan's scabbard. Holding it like a lance, she flung herself on Jupiter, her face contorted with hate!

* * * * *

Jupiter jumped convulsively into the canal. His instinctive reaction was the only thing that saved him.

He broke water, saw that Reiloc had wrenched his sword away from the cave girl. He was holding her as she fought furiously to tear herself away, kicking, clawing at the Nehogan's face with her nails. She had gone utterly berserk. Jupiter was stunned.

Then he heard Tabak screaming: "Jupiter! Quick! It's the Anolyn! They've possession of her mind. Hurry!"

He scrambled desperately back on to the ledge.

"You've got to take that Anolyn from her neck! They know everything we do through her," Tabak cried wildly. "They've been in possession of her mind ever since we reached the canal. That's how they knew where to ambush us. Anywhere we go they'll be able to send men to intercept us."

Jupiter nodded grimly. As he prepared the hypodermic of exsrocain, the Caligan girl pitched in and helped Reiloc pin Lete face-down on the ledge.

Jupiter's fingers were shaking as he located a spot on Lete's naked back, plunged the needle between two of her vertebrae.

"One--two--three--four," he counted. Without bothering to test for consciousness he wrenched the little plum-colored shell from the cave girl's neck, smashed it against the wall of the aquaduct.

"Carry her!" he ordered Reiloc, and threw his instruments back into the pack, slipped a fresh drum of cartridges into the carbine. He could hear the thud of running feet on the ramp leading to the surface.

"Back!" he said tersely. "We'll have to try another way!"

For an hour they followed Tabak through the network of aquaducts, twisting, cutting down bisecting canals until Jupiter was exhausted. He and the big Nehogan had been carrying the unconscious wild girl by turns. Twice they saw Anolyn floating down to the sea like big purple squids, Jupiter shot them before they could telepath an alarm.

Tabak was in the lead when she stopped abruptly, put her hand to her mouth.

"What is it?" Jupiter hissed.

"The canal! Look!"

He raised his eyes. The tunnel came to a blind end just ahead. Then he saw that actually the roof dipped down beneath the surface.

"We've reached the seawall," Tabak said in a stricken voice. "I've never tried to leave the city by the canals, but I've heard that it was impossible. I'd forgotten--"

Jupiter seized her shoulders. "What do you mean?"

"They--they run entirely underwater for ever so far and come out beneath the _Dra Dur_. The Anolyn built them that way in order to keep the humans from escaping through them."

Jupiter swore in Lingua Galactica. "Suppose we go back to the streets. Can we reach the top of the wall? Does the sea come right up to its base?"

"Yes," Tabak said with a shiver.

Reiloc had stretched Lete out on the shelf. She was returning to consciousness, Jupiter saw; and he stooped, splashing water from the canal into the cave girl's face. Her eyes opened groggily. She pushed herself to her elbows, stared about her with the quick, terrified look of a wild thing.

"You all right?" Jupiter asked.

She let her head drop. "Yes. I couldn't help it, Jupiter. I--"

"You'll do now," he said, not unkindly, and helped her to her feet. "Come on. We haven't any time to waste."

When they reached the surface, Jupiter saw that night had fallen, and with it a thick fog had rolled in from the _Dra Dur_, choking the streets solid. It was like wet lamb's wool pressing against his eyeballs.

They held hands to keep from becoming separated. Voices reached them out of the fog. Footsteps passed and faded away. At length they found a stair leading to the top of the sea wall, felt their way upward.

* * * * *

It seemed like hours to Jupiter before they reached the top. He lay flat on his belly, felt for the edge. He could see nothing below, but a faint lap-lap of wavelets against the base of the wall came up to him.

"How deep is the water here?"

"D-deep enough," Tabak whispered in a frightened voice.

"All right, we'll jump."

Lete gasped. There was a startled, protesting growl from Reiloc.

"Jump blind, from here--from the top of the wall into the sea?" the Nehogan said. "Are you mad, Jupiter?"

"Can you think of any other way to escape?"

Tabak said in a queer, strained voice: "I'll jump. I'm not afraid--not too afraid."

Jupiter heard her move toward the edge of the wall. "No! Wait! I'll go first--"

But the Caligan girl had already leaped outward into the thick wet darkness.

Jupiter felt suddenly cold all over. He knew that he would never smell salt water again without recalling the horrible expectancy of that moment. Time stood still. Then far below they heard a splash!

"Tabak!" he called softly. He gave her time to rise to the surface. "Tabak!" He didn't dare lift his voice.

There was no answer. Just the monotonous lap of the water against the sea wall.

"God!" he thought. "She's hurt herself!" And he sprang outward into the encompassing blackness.

He seemed to fall for an eternity before he struck. It was like hitting a plank. The jar ran up his legs. He went down, down, half-dazed. Then he was clawing frantically to the surface.

He broke water. He could see nothing. It was like the bottom of a well.

"Tabak! Tabak! Where are you?"

His fingers touched something. It was the girl's shoulder. She was moving feebly, half-conscious. Treading water, he seized her, slid his arm across her chest, began to tow her away from the wall.

"Jump!" he called to Reiloc. "I've Tabak."

"By the Radiant God!" came the Nehogan's hoarse voice; "here I come!"

There was a splash, followed almost immediately by another, as the cave girl leaped also. The pair of them came up, blowing, unhurt.

"Which way?" Reiloc gasped.

"Follow the wall." Jupiter was trying to recall Tabak's memory patterns. "We're near the edge of the city, I think. There should be a beach just ahead."

They swam on, guiding themselves by the lap of water against the base of the wall. Jupiter, with his arm across Tabak's shoulder and breast, felt the girl shudder.

"Jupiter," she said weakly. "Jupiter, is that you?"

"Yes. Are you all right?"

"I--I think so. I can swim now."

All at once, he realized that the lapping of the water had changed to a faint, shushing sound.

"The beach!" he said.

Reiloc grunted. Lete didn't say anything. The wild girl swam like an otter, silent and alert. Jupiter touched bottom, helped Tabak up the beach, where they all flung themselves down in the warm sand.

A breeze had started up and was ripping the fog into wisps. A few stars glittered from the torn sky. The wall of the city loomed above them dark and threatening.

Tabak's fingers closed convulsively over Jupiter's hand.

"I'm afraid," she whispered. "It's so big and so empty out here. And there's no place where we can hide from them. They'll be after us in the morning with Nehogans and web-birds. They'll never let you go, Jupiter, never! They're afraid that you'll be able to unite the wild Kagans--"

"If we can only reach the ship," he muttered, and felt around in his pack for the metal tentacle that Reiloc had hacked from the Radiant God.

It was safe, thank the Lord, though it was only a fraction of the fuel he would need. The whole idol, that was what he must have. His eyes narrowed in the darkness.

The cave girl said in a nervous voice, "We must reach the jungle before daybreak."

He pulled himself to his feet. Lete took the lead, striking out for the invisible hills. She seemed to possess an instinct as unerring as a homing pigeon's. Every step, Jupiter realized, was taking him further and further from the source of his fuel.

* * * * *

During the next twelve days they dodged about the hills. Time after time they escaped discovery by the narrowest margin. Parties of Nehogans combed the jungle, while the web-birds wheeled back and forth in the sky like observation planes. Nothing but Lete's junglecraft saved them.

On the thirteenth day they ran into a party of hunters from Lete's colony. The cave men were strongly thewed brutes, armed with spears and clubs, dressed in the skins of animals.

They were suspicious at first. But when Lete explained that Jupiter was the Wanderer-from-Beyond, they grew excited as children.

Jupiter had to demonstrate his lightning stick. That night they had a feast, and the cave men left at dawn to spread the word that the Wanderer-from-Beyond had actually appeared.

Two days later they reached the ship.

As Jupiter parted the last screen of leaves and saw the familiar hull of the Mizar, he had to bottle up his emotions to keep from yelling and dancing a jig. He ran his hand fondly along the cool metal, caught Tabak watching him with a twinkle in her blue eyes. He took his hand away guiltily, started for the port.

It was then that Lete balked. The cave girl refused absolutely to enter the belly of the monster, as she put it. Nor did Reiloc look overjoyed at the prospect.

Jupiter was determined to drop like a fiery comet out of the night sky before the startled cave men. At length he consented to let Reiloc and Lete go ahead on foot to prepare the wild Kagans for his coming.

He and Tabak watched the pair disappear into the jungle, then he touched the button activating the lock.

Even as he did so there was a sudden swish overhead, and a shadow raced across the clearing. The Caligan girl screamed. From the corner of his eye, Jupiter saw a web-bird dropping out of the sky like a hawk!

He picked up Tabak, tossed her bodily through the port, tumbled in after her. He kicked the massive door shut not a second too soon. Racing up the ladder, he searched the sky through the transparent thermoplas blister.

It was an empty, hot blue bowl cupping the ship, the jungles and mountains. Then he saw the web-bird rise in sweeping spirals like an enormous buzzard.

A black speck appeared above the crest of a ridge. It was another of the ungainly creatures. It joined the first and the pair began to circle high in the sky above the ship. Three more flapped into his range of vision. They kept coming until at least fifty of the giant web-birds hung wheeling and dipping monotonously above the Mizar, but so far away they were little more than black specks.

VIII

He was still staring up at them when the Caligan girl climbed up into the control blister beside him.

"Can't you shoot them down?" she protested.

He shook his head.

"They stay out of range. I don't understand it. The way they act, you'd think they knew just how close they could come."

"Of course they know!" Tabak bit her lip. "Jupiter, they're directed telepathically by the Anolyn, and the Anolyn picked your brain clean!"

He said: "Damn!"

"They--they can't get at us in here," Tabak asked, "can they?"

He shook his head. "We're safe enough as long as we stay inside. We could fly away, I suppose, but as soon as we came back they'd pick us up again. And I haven't enough fuel to waste any of it."

The Caligan girl brightened.

"At least we're giving Reiloc and Lete a better chance to get through. We've drawn off all the birds for miles around."

Jupiter nodded, broke open his pack. Tabak's blue eyes were alive with curiosity as she watched him feed the radioactive tentacle into the fuel hoppers, reset the alarms and check the instruments.

Tabak poked into every corner of the ship, "Oh-ed" and "ah-ed" with delight. She wanted to know about everything. But before Jupiter could tell her she would say, "This is Briggs' cabin, isn't it?" Or, "This is the galley," and laugh at his expression.

"Jupiter," she said soberly, with one of her quick shifts of mood. "Are--are you very fond of Lete?"

He raised his sandy eyebrows. "What made you ask that?"

"I don't want to see you hurt, Jupiter." Tabak grew more and more confused under his level stare. "You don't know the Kagans. They--they're promiscuous like animals. Lete would never understand your morals. She couldn't--"

Jupiter slapped his leg, burst into laughter.

"Good heavens, I'm not in love with her. Why, I'll be leaving Yogol as soon as I can get enough fuel. I couldn't take her with me anyway."

"Oh," said Tabak.

Jupiter's eyes suddenly widened.

"You were speaking Lingua Galactica!"

"Why not? I know it as well as you." They were back in the control blister. She sank into an acceleration chair, smoothed the short black sarong over her legs, raised her eyes to his. A small frown drew her brows together.

"Jupiter, what is love?"

"What did you say?" he asked, not sure that he'd heard her aright.

"Love. There's no such emotion among Yogolians. Sexual attraction, but not love. What is it, Jupiter?"

He gave her a startled, baffled look.

"It--it's a romantic invention," he said, "to dress up the biological urge. It's something you feel for another person like hunger only not so tangible."

She nodded to herself. "That's what I thought, but I wasn't sure. Is it very strong, Jupiter?"

"It can be."

"What are the symptoms?"

He scratched his chin. "It hits different people different ways. You--you--Oh, hell," he said, "I don't know. What ever made you ask?"

"I've got it," she said in a stricken voice.

Jupiter sat bolt upright. "You mean you're in love?"

She nodded unhappily, stood up. "I think I want to be by myself." Averting her head, she walked quickly to the door and slipped out of sight down the ladder before Jupiter could recover from the shock.

"Hey!" he cried, springing to his feet; "where are you going?"

There was no answer. Then he heard the door of Briggs' cabin open and close. Suddenly his eyes widened. He dropped down the ladder, tried the door, but it was locked. "Tabak! Tabak!" he called, rapped on the panel. "Open up!"

"Go away," he heard her call in an unsteady voice; "please go away and leave me alone."

"Tabak, listen," he said. "You didn't mean me? You weren't talking about me when you said--" His voice trailed off. Confound it, that didn't sound at all the way he wanted it to.

There was something suspiciously like a sob from beyond the door.

"No!" Tabak said in a muffled voice. "Of course not!"

Jupiter felt suddenly very foolish. Without another word, he turned on his heel, strode from the passage.

* * * * *

Two days later the web-birds came--tiny black specks wheeling around and around in the sky like vultures drawn by carrion. Jupiter stood in the control blister and scowled up at them.

He was worried about Reiloc and the cave girl who should have returned yesterday. Maybe he'd better not wait any longer. He was turning away to call Tabak, when a wild clamor broke loose from stem to stern of the Mizar as the alarm bell began to ring. Jupiter's head jerked up! The black specks were plummeting Yogol-wards, diving like kingfishers.

Then he saw Lete break from the encircling jungle, sprint for the ship. The cave girl was alone. There was no sign of Reiloc anywhere.

Jupiter yelled down the tube to Tabak: "Open the port! Quick!"

He heard her gasp as he sprang for the keys that brought the needle gun into play.

It was a precision weapon, a fine, invisible ray of disruptive force. As the first of the web-birds dropped arrow-like into range, the ray touched it. The creature exploded like a fountain of spray. He got two more before the startled birds sheered off.

Snapping on the outside amplifiers, he yelled: "Lete!" His voice boomed through the loudspeaker--a giant's voice that stopped the cave girl dead in her tracks. "Lete! What's wrong?"

She stared upward in fright at the gleaming bullet-shaped monster.

"Quick, girl, speak up!"

"The Anolyn," she said in a small voice.

"What about them?"

"The Anolyn have sent a great army of Nehogans. Our men have seen them, less than a day's march from here."

"Get in the ship!" Jupiter commanded.

Lete began to tremble, but she was too frightened to disobey. She climbed meekly through the port. With a hollow "clang!" it shut behind her.

* * * * *

Jupiter blasted the starship off the ground with the jets. He couldn't use the inertialess stellar drive inside Yogol's gravitational field and the Mizar rocked sickeningly as it hurtled above the surface under rocket propulsion.

Lete cowered in the shock absorber where Jupiter had buckled her down against her will. Her yellow eyes were glazed. She was like a wild animal in a trap.

Tabak was pale, but she stared eagerly through the transparent rind of the blister. Jupiter shot her an approving glance. He'd never realized how blue the Caligan girl's eyes were--cerulean blue, alive, dancing like a little girl's with a new doll.

"Take the scanner," he said gruffly. "You should know how it operates."

"May I? I'll be ever so careful."

She found it unhesitatingly, turned it on. The surface of Yogol sprang on the screen in three dimensional reality. Tabak gasped.

"I'm almost afraid I might fall into it!" Then she stiffened. "There they are! There! Look, Jupiter!"

He glanced into the screen. The valley widened out below, and he could see a great army of men camped on the level ground. Thousands of the copper-skinned Nehogan warriors! They stood in excited clusters, staring upward, pointing at the Mizar with its comet tail of flame.

Jupiter could make out the striped tents of the Anolyn in the center of the encampment. He could see pink-skinned Caligans and stolid porters. He turned to the terrified cave girl.

"What happened to Reiloc?"

Lete only moaned.

"Answer me!" he snapped. "Where's Reiloc?"

"He--he stayed at the cliffs to organize my people into an army. The tribes have been coming in for days. Ever since the word spread that the Wanderer has appeared. Reiloc said to tell you that he was going to split his forces, attack from both ends of the valley."

Jupiter swore under his breath. "We're going down," he told Tabak. "Going down fast. Hang onto your hair."

He put the Mizar into a tight spiral, drove her down like a blazing meteor. The star ship must have presented an awe-inspiring sight, jets shooting streamers of flame, her nose pointed directly at the cluster of striped tents in the center of the army.

Below him, the Nehogans scattered panic-stricken. The surface was rushing up at him like a gigantic expanding cannon ball. He cut in "George", buckled himself down frantically.

The Mizar seemed to explode as every available jet burst into life. A thunderous booming roar deafened him. Then the ship struck with a jar that almost shook loose his teeth.

He threw off the straps, dived for the control panel.

* * * * *

Ash covered the ground where the tents had been. At least half of the purple-shelled octopods had been consumed instantly by the jets. The Anolyn who remained alive were scuttling for the protection of the jungle. Jupiter swung the needle gun into action.

The Nehogans had outstripped their slow-moving masters, who crawled like a cluster of frightened tortoises across the bare, flat land. The sides of the valley were alive with humans; they had fled that far and had turned to watch in frightened silence.

Jupiter concentrated on the Anolyn, picking them off one by one. Only a few seconds actually had elapsed since the Mizar had appeared over the horizon, and already less than a dozen of the terrified creatures were left, crawling desperately for the hills.

A sudden whisper of wings sounded overhead. Something like the shadow of a cloud raced across the flat land toward the cluster of fleeing octopods.

"The web-birds!" Tabak cried.