"Cease fire! Freeze! Seal your suits!" Dumarest snarled as Vosper continued to fire. "Obey, damn you! Obey or I'll gun you down!"
Movement had attracted their notice and the scent of water vapor expelled from lungs and sweat had brought the things in for the kill. Shior's death had provided irresistible bait. Sealed the suits would prevent the smell of water escaping and, while motionless, the small party could ape the rocks, the lifeless surround.
"Lice." Toetzer echoed his disgust. "Like a swarm of lice. Vermin lusting to feed. Fruit of evil and degeneracy and the instrument of vengeance against those-"
"Shut up, Jem!" Hilary was sharp. "This is no time for you to start preaching."
Massak, more practical, said, "What now, Earl?"
Dumarest studied the situation. The creatures had fed, those replete now clinging to the rock, blending into it, their carapaces, he guessed, absorbing the weak energy from the sun. Others, still questing for food and water, had slowed and would soon again become dormant. The sun, lowering, would be giving less energy and, with darkness, the things would probably enter some kind of brief hibernation.
But the night could bring other perils less easily seen and combated.
"Tama, move slowly and check on that sign you saw." The surrogate, a machine and not a man, needed no armor or suit, yielding no attractive scent. Only its movement could bring unwelcome attention. "Don't go too far and freeze if anything shows an interest. The rest of you rip open the bales. Load up with food and water. Set extra containers to one side. Toyanna, pick those you want to carry the casket." Dumarest waited, then, into the radio, said, "Tama?"
"There's an opening. A wide crack, narrow at the top, fretted at the bottom. Debris is lying around. I think some of your bullets must have shattered a wall of some kind." Chenault added, "Agutter's sign is to one side and above it."
The path they needed to take if the old instructions were valid.
Dumarest said, "All of you get ready to move. Head for that opening. You stay with me, Toetzer. Massak, you cover the rear. Ready? Move!"
He stood, waiting, Toetzer at his side, a pile of cans of water at their feet. Before them gaped the mouth of a ray leading from the clearing, one of the seven points forming the star. It lay opposite the one with the opening. As the column crossed the clearing and the creatures began to stir Dumarest picked up one of the cans.
"Now, Jem. Do as I do. Throw them as far as you can."
The container left his hands, thrown with all the power of back and shoulder muscles, hitting to bounce and slide deeper into the opening. Another, a third, Toetzer's falling short. He gave a strangled cry and, without warning, ran after it, snatching it from the rock, unsealing it before hurling it from him in a rain of glittering droplets.
"Feed, you spawn of hell! Drink the blood of man and give him the fruit of his earned torment! Drink, you vileness and filth of degeneracy!"
"Come back, you fool! Back!"
Dumarest snatched up his gun, its blast cutting short the sound of the thin, insane babble coming from the speakers. Bullets ripped into the other containers and smashed racing creatures into twitching pulp. As Toetzer came stumbling toward him Dumarest backed, following the others.
"Here, Earl!" Massak was beside him, gun blasting flame. "He'll never make it."
A judgment based on experience. Toetzer was too far, moving too slowly, falling as they watched to be covered with a mass of ravenous creatures. His screams echoed from the speakers, dying as the two men fired and continued to fire until the creatures and the man were dead, unfeeling flesh.
Firing again as they backed into the opening to bring rock showering down from the roof. A barrier Dumarest sealed with a final burst then, satisfied, turned to look at a cavern of nightmare.
* * *
There was a glow in it, a pale luminescence stemming from things which hung like elongated fruit from points high on the walls and roof. Others glowed lower down, some of different shapes from the others, some, as he watched, appearing to twitch.
"Bunch up," he ordered. "Keep a sharp watch- you women watch the roof."
He studied the floor as they moved forward to where the cavern narrowed to a gaping tunnel. It was littered with debris, scraps and fragments of darkish brown material, the sheen of broken metal, shreds of what could have been plastic. The residue of earlier inhabitants or those who had followed Agutter's path. As he neared one of the glowing bundles it moved, bobbing on its stem, jerking as if it contained something alive and struggling to escape.
As Massak lifted his gun Dumarest said, sharply, "No. Don't fire."
"It could be dangerous."
"It is, but not yet. We were lucky. My guess is that whatever is inside those sacs sealed the wall. Maybe in order to breed. Later we'd have been their food."
To be taken, cocooned, planted with eggs which would hatch to devour the helpless, paralyzed prey. Now, replete, the creatures were ready to break free, open the wall and stream like a tide after new prey. A cycle, repeated endlessly, life living on life. The normal way of nature but in Ryzam so concentrated as to defy understanding.
The tunnel held more of the sacs, their number diminishing, to be replaced with masses of softly glowing fungi in a variety of convoluted shapes. A fairyland of deceptive beauty through which Chenault led the way, brushing strands from his lenses, stirring dust with his shoes.
"It's hot!" Mirza voiced what they all felt. "God! I'm roasting!"
The heat increased as they progressed, wending their way along and down a winding slope, breaking out into a vaulted cavern to pause beside a cairn bearing an eroded can.
"Agutter's!" Chenault snatched at it, lifted the paper it contained. Reading he said, "To those who have followed me so far-congratulations! The path now lies to the left. At the next cairn it will be safe to rest."
As he turned to follow the directions Dumarest said, "Hilary? Is it safe?"
"I can't be sure." Her voice echoed her indecision. "I sense something but I'm not sure what. Toetzer could have told you-he had an ability to sense inimical forces. I-I wish he was here."
But the man was dead, paying for his insanity, his skills now lost to the expedition. As the party moved on Massak stepped beside Dumarest, resting his gloved hand on his helmet, the fingers tapping in a signal he recognized.
"What is it?" Dumarest put the question after he had switched off his microphone and had touched helmets to form a conductive link. "Something worrying you?"
"A lot of things, that cairn for one. Why should Agutter have left a message? If he was going in how would he know where it was safe to rest? If he was coming out how the hell did he get through those creatures?"
Questions Dumarest had already considered. "Things could have been different then. Anyway, what choice do we have?"
"None, I guess." The mercenary grunted his acceptance of the situation. "But, if it comes to it, we stand together, right?"
"We all stand together."
"Sure, unless-well, you know what I mean." Massak swore as sweat stung his eyes. "This damned heat! It isn't natural. If it gets worse we'll have to take off the suits."
That would mean walking comparatively naked in a realm of unknown dangers advertising their presence with every step.
"We'll wait," said Dumarest. "We can stand a lot more of this."
Vosper couldn't.
He walked at the front of Chenault's casket, guiding it together with Lopakhin at the rear, stumbling at times, his breathing harsh within his helmet, loud over the speakers. Watching the roof, the walls, checking their rear, Dumarest didn't see him lift his hands to raise the visor and expose his face to the air of the cavern. Only his voice, breathing his relief, told of his action.
"By God, that's better! I was burning in there, the air searing my lungs, but this is sweet. Try it. All of you, try it. Hilary. Mirza. How about you, Tyner? Keep this up and you'll run to melted lard."
"Better that than what you're risking."
"An artist voicing his fear." Vosper was mocking. "Admitting he's a coward. Open your helmet, man. Taste what fresh air is like. It'll open your mind. You'll be able to create a masterpiece when we get back. A vision of unsurpassed beauty to stun the eyes of men. And women, too, naturally." He broke off to giggle. "It's like wine. The air, I mean. I've never felt so good."
Toyanna said, warningly, "Earl, he sounds as if he's been drugged."