"Crushed." Santis looked up from where he knelt beside the body. "He was dying when you lifted him, Earl. Dead before we reached the fissure." He forced the bag from the dead fingers. "At least you were lucky-we found nothing. A wasted journey."
One not yet over. From where he leaned against the wall Kemmer said, "God, won't they ever stop? The damned things are still after us."
On the scent and getting close. He could still see the thrusting snouts probing the fissure into which they had run. Remember too the fury of activity as they had fought to get beyond reach of the creatures. His bulk jamming in the narrow opening, Dumarest hauling him clear, Santis standing and firing as they gained distance, Dumarest covering their escape in turn.
But, even now, they had no time in which to rest. Through the conducting material of his helmet he could hear the loudening grinding which told of advancing destruction.
"Earl-"
"Wait!" Dumarest was stooped over the dead man. He handed the trader Hine's belt and lantern. The tent together with the radio and other remains of their supplies had been cached in a small junction. "Carl, take a sounding from that crack." He pointed to a spot facing the trader. "Hear anything?"
"Yes-and close."
An attack from two sides, then, and there could be more. Dumarest lay prone, head twisted so as to rest against the floor. The sound almost deafened him.
"Up!" He rose to his feet. "Take the lead, Carl. Head up that crack and take any tunnel you find heading to the right. We've got to recover the tent. Get after him, Maurice. Move!"
Kemmer hesitated, looking at Dumarest where he stood beside the dead man.
"You're not thinking of carrying him with us?"
"No. Now hurry!"
Hine was dead but could still help the living. Odors rose as Dumarest ripped open his helmet and suit; the scent of meat and moisture, of minerals and bone, an attraction to the sannaks pressing close and one which could fetch others lying ahead to join the feast.
One came writhing from a narrow tunnel a few yards beyond where Santis hugged the rock. A small creature which flopped and twisted like a snake to lunge at the body as the floor rose in splintered shards and pluming dust as another grabbed at the prey.
"Hurry!" Dumarest urged the others on as a mass of scaled and furious shapes began to fight over the dead guide. "Quick-before they scent us!"
They would follow but first they would feed and precious time would be won. Time in which they crept down narrow tunnels, wider cracks, plunged into a broad passage, listening, pressing on, following discovered signs with mounting relief.
"Thank God!" Kemmer, sweating in his suit, voiced his worry. "I thought we'd got lost. That we'd never find the tent and radio. That-" He broke off as he followed Santis around a turn. "Hell!"
They had found the cache but a sannak had found it first. The tent was ripped, the supplies it had contained gone, the apparatus a mass of splintered shards. Some had been devoured, none was usable.
In the glow of a lantern a trannek glowed in silent mockery.
"Consolation," said Kemmer bitterly as Dumarest picked it up. "What the hell do we do now?"
"Climb." Dumarest was curt. "We've got to make our way to the summit."
"And then what? How do we summon a raft to pick us up without a radio?"
"Signal." Tired, the mercenary was curt. "Make smoke, a light, anything."
"Use this, perhaps?" The trader looked at his lantern. "Would it carry? The only use I've found for it so far is to dazzle the sannaks with the ultraviolet. It makes their eye plates glow like a trannek. Why didn't Hine tell us that? Maybe he didn't know. That means we could sell the information-" He was babbling and knew it. With an effort he broke off the monotone and said, "We'll think of something. First we have to reach the open air. Which way, Earl?"
A tunnel sloping upward which they left to swarm up a snaking vent, leaving it to crawl along a narrowing ledge which fell away to an echoing chasm. Crouched on the lip Dumarest looked upward, seeing in the beam of his helmet light a jagged fissure. A jump and his gloved hands caught the edge, a heave and he was firm and leaning down to grip Kemmer's wrist, hauling as Santis pushed. A struggle, a moment of heart-stopping, tottering imbalance and he was up, safely past as the mercenary rose to take Dumarest's place.
"Wait!" He sagged, the sound of his breathing loud in the stillness. One hand fumbled at his waist, at the emergency pack each carried. "Your light, Earl. I can't see."
His hands steadied as Dumarest bathed them and the pack with light. The pouch opened to reveal the few items it contained; concentrated food, some stimulating drugs, some painkillers, salve to ease sores and chafes, capsules of antibiotics. Water was carried in a separate canteen. Santis hesitated as his hand touched his faceplate.
"Open it," said Dumarest. "But be quick." He watched as the mercenary fed himself three green tablets. "Take a sip of water then reseal." He craned his head to where the trader stood wedged in the fissure. "How about you, Maurice? If you need anything take it now."
"I can manage."
"It's your decision." Dumarest glanced down again to where the mercenary rested below. "All right now, Carl?"
"Yes."
"Can you manage to get above me?" If Kemmer should slip, a hand could manage to block his fall and, drugged, Santis had gained a transient strength. "Up now! Good!" Dumarest stared up at the fissure. It narrowed and rock bulged outward from a point high above. Above the overhang the vent could lead up into the open but passing it could pose a problem. Then, in the light, Dumarest saw a thin streak of darkness wending to one side and back to a higher point. A thin crack which could provide handholds and there could be more. "All right, Maurice. Start moving."
He waited as Kemmer inched his way upward, helmet pressed hard to the stone, listening to sounds other than those made by the climbers. Above the rasp of boots and gloves he heard the now-familiar grinding; the churn of crumbling rock, the slither of scaled bodies over stone. Twisting he looked back the way they had come. Nothing. Then, as he triggered the lantern, green patches flared in fluorescent brilliance from a point on the ledge.
A sannak, small, but coming close.
"Earl!" Kemmer yelled in his terror. "Up above! Quick!"
From a point above the overhang more green fluorescence and the shift of a pointed snout. Dust rained from beneath the bulk of the waiting creature.
"Trapped!" Dumarest looked up then down. "One waiting on the ledge and one on the overhang above. We'll have to get the one above."
"Leave this to me." Santis moved then froze. "No good. I can't aim and hold on at the same time. Prop me, Earl."
A chance but the only one they had. Against the sannaks they had only one rifle now and less than a full magazine. Four shots and the creature was masked by stone.
As Dumarest, lifting his free hand to prop the outcurved figure of the mercenary took the strain, he said, "Aim for the overhang itself. Split the rock and send it and the thing down together. Say when you're ready."
A moment while the mercenary settled himself then, "Ready!"
He fired as if he were at a shooting gallery, spacing his shots, aiming each one, sending each into the same line of rock after the other had detonated. Not one above the other but in close juxtaposition so the blasts would augment each other and fracture the stone. As the last missile flared from the muzzle the rain of dust became a shower of splinters, a hail of pebbles then, with a rush, the entire mass together with the beast it had supported.
"Earl!" Caught by the disturbed air Santis tilted, the rifle falling after the writhing sannak, his balance lost and causing him to lose the support beneath him. As he slipped, his boots jerked free from their holds and, suddenly, he was falling.
"Carl!"
Kemmer called from above as Dumarest snatched at the mercenary's belt. A moment then he slammed hard against the rock beneath, swinging like a weight at the end of a line, one which almost dragged Dumarest's arm from its socket, his grip from the fissure.
"Take your weight," he gritted. "Quickly!" Then, as Santis obeyed, "Maurice! Get your canteen. Open and drop it. Fast!"
One sannak was gone but the other remained and could be climbing after them this very moment A threat removed as the canteen fell to shower water over the ledge and provide a distracting and delaying bait. Even as it landed Dumarest took stimulants from his pack and swallowed them dry. His arms ached, his legs, and his vision was spotted with dancing flecks. The supreme effort he'd made had sapped too deeply at his strength. Coupled with previous exertions it had cost him too much.
"Earl?" Kemmer was anxious. "Can you make it?"
"I'll manage. Get moving now. The next time they attack we'll have nothing with which to stop them." Dumarest forced himself upward. "Keep going until we reach the open."