Sos the Rope

CHAPTER THREE

"Look!" Sola cried, pointing to the hillside across the valley.

It was noon, and Sol was no better. They had tried to feed him, but his throat would not swallow and they were afraid water would choke him. Sos kept him in the tent and fenced out the sun and the boldly prying flies, furious in his uncertainty and inability to do anything more positive. He ignored the girl's silly distraction.

But their problems had only begun. "Sos, look!" she repeated, coming to grab at his arm.

"Get away from me," he growled, but he did look.

A gray carpet was spreading over the hill and sliding grandly toward the plain, as though some cosmic jug were spilling thick oil upon the landscape.

"What is it?" she asked him with the emphasis that was becoming annoying. He reminded himself that at least she no longer disdained his opinions. "The Roents?"

He cupped his eyes in a vain attempt to make out some detail. The stuff was not oil, obviously. "I'm afraid it's what abolished the game in this region." His nameless fears were being amply realized.

He went to Sol's barrow and drew out the two slim singlesticks: light polished rods two feet long and an inch and a half in diameter, rounded at the ends. They were made of simulated wood and were quite hard. "Take these, Sola. We're going to have to fight it off somehow, and these should come naturally to you."

She accepted the sticks, her eyes fixed on the approaching tide, though she showed no confidence in them as a weapon.

Sos brought out the club: the weapon no longer than the singlestick and fashioned of similar material, but far more hefty. From a comfortable, ribbed handle it bulged into a smooth teardrop eight inches in diameter at the thickest point, with the weight concentrated near the end, and it weighed six pounds. It took a powerful man to handle such an instrument with facility, and when it struck with full effect the impact was as damaging as that of a sledgehammer. The club was clumsy, compared to other weapons-but one solid blow usually sufficed to end the contest, and many men feared it.

He felt uneasy, taking up this thing, both because it was not his weapon and because he was bound by his battle path never to use it in the circle. But he repressed these sentiments as foolish; he' was not taking the club as a weapon and had no intention of entering the circle with it. He required an effective mode of defence against a strange menace, and in that sense the club was no more a weapon of honor than the bow. It was the best thing at hand to beat back whatever approached.

"When it gets here, strike at the edge," he told her.

"Sos! It-it's alive!"

"That's what I was afraid of. Small animals, millions of' them, ravaging the ground and consuming every flesh bearing creature upon it. Like army ants."

"Ants!" she said, looking at the sticks in her hands.

"Like them-only worse."

The living tide had reached the plateau and was coming across in a monstrous ripple. Already some front-runners were near enough to make out separately. This close, the liquid effect was gone.

"Mice!" she exclaimed, relieved. "Tiny mice!"

"Maybe-because they're among the smallest mammals, and they reproduce fastest. Mammals are the most savage and versatile vertebrates on Earth. My guess is that these are carnivorous, whatever they are."

"Mice? But how-"

"Radiation. It affects, the babies in some way, makes them mutants. Almost always harmful-but the few good ones survive and take over, stronger than before. The books claim that's how man himself evolved."

"But mice!"

The outriders were at their feet. Sos felt inane, holding the club aloft against such enemies. "Shrews, I'm afraid. Insectivores, originally. If the radiation killed off everything but the insects, these would be the first to move in again." He squatted and swept one up in his glove and held it for her to see. She didn't look, but Stupid did, and he wasn't happy. "The smallest but most vicious mammal of all. Two inches long, sharp teeth, deadly nerve poison though there isn't enough of it in a shrew to kill a human being. This creature will attack anything that lives, and it eats twice its own weight in meat in a day."

Sola was dancing about, trying to avoid the charging midgets. She did not seem to be foolishly afraid of them, as some women were, but certainly did not want them on her body or under her feet. "Look!" she screamed. "They're-."

He had already seen it. A dozen of the tiny animals were scrambling into the tent, climbing over Sol, sniffing out the best places to bite.

Sos lunged at them, smacking the ground with the club while Sola struck with the sticks, but the horde had arrived in a mass. For every one they killed with clumsy blows a score were charging past, miniature teeth searching. The little bodies of the casualties were quickly torn apart by others and consumed.

The troops were small, but this was full-scale war.

"We can't fight them all!" Sos gasped. "Into the water!" They opened the tent and hauled Sol out by his arms and splashed into the river. Sos waded to chest height, shaking off the determined tiny monsters. He discovered that his arms were bleeding from multiple scratches inflicted by the shrews. He hoped he was wrong about their poison; he, and Sola must already have sustained more than enough bites to knock them out, if the effect were cumulative.

The little bundles of viciousness balked at the waterline, and for a moment he thought the maneuver had been successful. Then the hardier individuals plunged in and began swimming across, beady eyes fixed upon the target. More splashed in after them, until the surface of the river was covered with furry bodies.

"We've got to get away from them!" Sos shouted. "Swim for it!" Stupid had already flown to the opposite shore, and was perched anxiously upon a bush. No mystery any more why the surface of the land was clean!

"But the tents, the supplies-"

She was right. They had to have a tent, or nightfall would leave them exposed to the moths. Sheer numbers would protect the army of shrews, but all larger animals were vulnerable. "I'll go back for them!" he said, hooking his forearm under Sol's chin' and striking out sidestroke for the bank. He had thrown aside the club somewhere; it was useless, anyway.

They outdistanced the animals and stumbled onto land. Sola bent down to give the patient what attention she could while Sos plunged back into the water for one of the most unpleasant tasks of his life. He swam across, stroking more strongly now that he had no burden-but at the far side he had to cut through the living layer of carnivores. His face was at their level.

He gulped a breath and ducked under, swimming as far as he could before coming up for air. Then he braced his feet against the bottom and launched himself upward at an angle. He broke water, spraying shrews in every direction, drew his breath through clenched teeth and dived again.

At the shore he lurched out, stepping on squealing struggling fur, swept up the nearest pack and ripped his standing tent loose from its moorings. If only they had folded them and put the things away. . . but Sol's illness had pre-empted everything.

The creatures were everywhere, wriggling over and inside the pack and through the folds of the bunched tent. Their pointed hairy snouts nuzzled at his face, the needle teeth seeking purchase, as he clasped the baggage to his chest. He shook the armful, not daring to stop running, but they clung tight, mocking him, and leaped for his eyes the moment he stopped.

He dived clumsily into the water, feeling the living layer he landed upon, and kicked violently with his feet. He could not submerge, this time; the pack had been constructed to float, the tent had trapped a volume of air and both arms were encumbered. Still the tiny devils danced, upon the burden and clawed over his lips and nose, finding ready anchorage there. He screwed his eyes shut and continued kicking, hoping he was going in the right direction, while things scrambled through his hair and bit at his ears and tried to crawl inside earholes and nostrils. He heard Stupid's harsh cry, and knew that the bird had flown to meet him and been routed; at least he could stay clear by flying. Sos kept his teeth clenched, sucking air through them to prevent the attackers from entering there, too.

"Sos! Here!"

Sola was calling him. Blindly grateful, he drove for the sound-end then he was out of the lumpy soup and swimming through clear water. He had outdistanced them again!

The water had infiltrated the pack and tent, nullifying their buoyancy, and he was able to duck his head and open his eyes underwater, while the shrews got picked off by the current.

Her legs were before him, leading the way. He had never seen anything quite so lovely.

Soon he was sprawled upon the bank, and she was brushing things from him and stamping them into the muck.

"Come on!" she cried into his ear. "They're halfway across!"

No rest, no rest, though he was abominably tired. He strove to his feet and shook himself like a great hairy dog. The scratches on his face stung and the muscles of his arms refused to loosen. Somehow he found Sol's body and picked it up and slung it over his shoulders in the fireman's carry and lumbered up the steep hillside. He was panting, although he was hardly moving.

"Come on!" her voice was screaming thinly, over and over. "Come on! Comeoncomeon!" He saw her ahead of him wearing the pack,' the material of the tent jammed crudely inside and dripping onto her wet bottom. Fabulous bottom, he thought, and tried to fix his attention on that instead of the merciless weight upon his shoulders. It didn't work.

The retreat went on forever, a nightmare of exertion and fatigue. His legs pumped meaninglessly, numb stalks, stabbing into the ground but never conquering it. He fell, only to be roused by her pitiless screaming, and stumbled another futile thousand miles and fell again. And again. Furry snouts with glistening, blood-tinted teeth sped toward his eyes, his nostrils, his tongue; warm bodies crunched and squealed in agony under his colossal feet, so many bags of blood and cartilage; and stupendous, bone-white wings swirled like snowflakes wherever he looked.

And it was dark, and he was shivering on the soaking ground, a corpse beside him. He rolled over, wondering why death had not yet come-and there was a flutter of wings, brown wings flecked with yellow, and Stupid was sitting on his head.

"Bless you!" he whispered, knowing the moths would not get close tonight, and sank out of sight.