Symbol of Terra

Chapter Thirteen

Dumarest turned, gun lifting, lowering as he recognized the woman coming toward him. He sat with his back against solid rock, beneath a roof barely eight feet from the ground. A branch cavern and a safe place for the camp.

"Mind if I join you, Earl?" Mirza Karroum sat as he gestured to the spot at his side. "I couldn't sleep," she explained. "Too many thoughts, I guess."

Accompanied by too many worries. It had been three days since Hilary had died and she looked what she was; an old, tired, disheartened woman. She needed the consolation he could give.

He said, "You should ask Pia to give you something."

"To make me sleep? No. Would you?"

"I'm working."

"You're always working." She looked at him as he sat limned against the glowing rock. A man naked but for shorts and boots; the protective mesh of his own clothing had forced him to discard it because of generated heat. "On guard. Keeping watch. Pushing us all and keeping us a unit. Chenault couldn't have found a better man."

"He needs to rest."

"He's dying." She was blunt. "Pia tries to hide it but I know the truth. He's drawing too deeply on his reserves. Maybe he won't make it. Maybe none of us will."

"We knew that from the beginning."

"True, but still we came. The lure of a dream." She stretched out her hands, turning them to show the brown blotches on the skin. Her left wrist bore a scarlet tattoo. "The brand of the Karroum." She had noticed his interest. "It's applied as soon as possible after birth. To avoid any substitution. Angado had one-you must have seen it."

"His wrist was scarred."

"Then he must have had it removed. He never did like his heritage." With a gesture she dismissed the subject. "Why did you join this expedition, Earl?"

"Chenault has something I want. Why did you?"

"I told you-the lure of a dream." Again she extended her hands. "Look at them, Earl. Old like me. Ugly as I am ugly. As I've always been ugly. They used to laugh at me when I was young, not to my face for I was of the Karroum, but behind my back. Somehow it seemed more cruel that way. Then, when I grew older, I could see pity in their eyes. Pity!"

She turned her head and Dumarest waited, saying nothing. When she faced him again she had regained her composure.

"I looked too much like a man so I acted the man and became harder than one, more feared, more hated. But I was born a woman, Earl, and I want to be one. A young and beautiful woman. One whom some man would love." For a moment she looked at her hands, strong, square, the fingers blunt, spatulate. "I'd follow Chenault to hell if he could promise me that."

"You have."

"Yes." She leaned back, pleased with his answer, glad that he hadn't tried to lie to her, to soften the truth she knew too well. "And so far I've been lucky. Hilary wasn't. Neither were Vosper, Shior- "

Dumarest said, sharply, "Don't count the dead."

"Why not? Superstition?"

"Just don't count them. They are gone. The living remain."

"To be cherished, cared for, guarded, loved." She was bitter. "I've heard that before, somewhere. From a mercenary. A man blinded by a laser-for a while he was my lover." She paused as if expecting comment then, when none came, she said, "That was a lie, Earl. If it was true what would you think?"

"That you were kind."

"To give a cripple the use of my body?"

"To have given a man in need the pleasure of being wanted."

"And that is important?" She answered her own question. "What could be more important? To be wanted, needed, loved. Did you guess that Hilary and Lopakhin were lovers? That he felt so deeply about her. Tell me, Earl, if it had been Govinda who had died would you have shot the spiders or Chenault?"

"He didn't say it would be easy."

"No, he didn't, but if we find what we're looking for and get back alive will you bring her down here to gain what she most needs? Do you love her enough for that?"

"You doubt I love her?"

"Govinda? No. That is obvious to all with eyes. But is your love big enough to include a child of her body? Could you share her with a baby?"

Dumarest met her eyes then, smiling, said, "There's an old recipe on how to cook a meat pie. It begins-"

"First catch your animal. I know. I'm sorry, Earl, at times I ask too many questions." Her hand reached out to rest on his own. "But I warn you, if I get what I'm after, your lady could have a fight on her hands."

"You flatter me."

"Is the truth ever that?" For a moment her hand lingered with unmistakable warmth then, as if annoyed at having betrayed herself, she lifted it to gesture at the cavern around them. "The Karroum own mines. I inspected them once and learned something of geology. I've been studying these fissures and galleries and, to me, they seem wrong. Almost artificial as if formed by some unnatural process."

"As if something had weakened the crust of this world to release the magma," said Dumarest. "To let it fume upward in a fountain of bubbles and froth."

"Which cooled too quickly. You've noticed that? The surface formation is unique in my experience and is geologically impossible. No natural eruption or weathering could ever produce such a configuration."

"And the glow?"

"Natural minerals within the rock which fluoresce to the impact of radiation." She added, "It could be the same force which produces the hysteresis. Lopakhin told me about it. He also noticed that the glow isn't steady; it fades then brightens again. The deeper into the caverns we go the more pronounced the change becomes."

"Which means we're getting closer to the source of energy." Dumarest had observed the change. "One which pulses but I've not been able to establish its rhythm. There could be peaks and valleys. Times when this entire region could be almost dark and others when it might be filled with destructive energy."

"A mystery," she said. "One to add to the rest. Why no attacks since Hilary died? We could have passed through the habitable environment of Ryzam but, somehow, I doubt it. My skin crawls too much and too often. As if something is watching me. Waiting for me to get closer. You've hunted?"

Dumarest nodded.

"Then you know what I mean. A predator has its territory and it waits until its prey is within reach. When it is it strikes." Her hand slapped against her thigh with a flat, meaty sound. "We've had it too easy since Hilary went and it worries me."

"You'd rather be fighting for your life?"

"We do that every second of every day in one way or another. No. I want to see my enemy. The thing which gave Ryzam its reputation. We could turn round and go back and, with luck, make it to the rafts and on to the ship. If we've met all the dangers we could return with men and flamethrowers. Armored domes, machines, drills to blast an opening from the surface. It would take money, yes, but if the reward is high enough the money could be found. So what lies ahead, Earl? What is it that, once found, can never be left?"

In the lead Chenault lifted his arm. "There," he said. "There… there… there…"

The words slowed, slurred as the surrogate took a step, the manlike figure staggering, remaining upright to lean against the wall. Touching it Dumarest found the synthetic skin warmer than it should be. At his side Lopakhin swore as he eased open a panel to release a puff of acrid vapor.

"Heat! I told him not to move this thing too fast! Now he's burned out a junction!"

"Can you fix it?"

"I can try but Vosper was the engineer." Lopakhin looked around. They were in a rounded gallery ending in a triple junction of narrower passages. Chenault had pointed to the one on the right. "I'll need room so had better get down to it here. Space could be limited farther on. The light's good, too."

Blazing patches which shone with scintillant brightness to dispel all shadows. At the casket Toyanna was busy checking dials and registers, straightening to look at Dumarest with a worried frown.

"It's all right," he said reassuringly. "Just a shorted connection. It won't take long to repair." He glanced at the casket, the corpselike figure it contained. "How's Tama?"

"Alive-just." She echoed her fear. "But there's something else. The power's going. If the antigrav units fail we'll be stuck unless we can carry the entire weight."

"We can't."

"But-"

"There are five of us not counting the surrogate. One man must stay on board." Which left four to handle the burden, two of them women. Dumarest said, "You'll have to lighten it. Dump all emergency supplies and equipment. You'd better start doing it now. The radio-units can go first; when we move off we'll use a cable to link up the surrogate."

"Tama won't like that. He wants to maintain full mobility in order to guide us."

"He can do that verbally. In any case the surrogate can be put to better use. Get busy now. Stand guard, Mirza. Watch the rear. I'm going ahead to see what's in front of us."

Massak had preceded him. As Dumarest passed into the narrower passage he saw the mercenary standing lower down. He too had stripped to shorts and boots, the scars on his body making a livid tapestry against the rich darkness of his skin.

"Listen!" He held up a hand as Dumarest halted at his side. "Hear it?"

"No."

"Try again. Hard." Massak grunted as Dumarest shook his head. "It's gone now anyway."

"What was it?"

"A sound, high, thin, something like that made by a generator. But it had something extra to it. Something like-" Massak shook his head. "I can't describe it. Maybe it was just imagination." He looked at the passage with its rounded roof and concave floor. "This place can give you all sorts of ideas. Look at it-it's just like a burrow."

One which could have been made by a gigantic worm slithering through plastic magma or grinding its way through rock with adamantine teeth. Fancies enhanced by the silence, the smooth walls, the mounting tension as the party moved along what could easily become a trap.

"If anything comes at us, anything really big, that is, we wouldn't stand a chance." Massak gestured with his gun. "No niches," he explained. "No cracks to duck into. No side passages. We could be caught front and back and turned into pulp."

"If anything came," agreed Dumarest. "If we couldn't stop it."

"You don't think there's any danger?"

"Not from things as large as you're talking about."

"Maybe not," admitted the mercenary. "Things that big would have to eat and there's damn all around here that I can see. But that brings up another matter-where are all those who came this way before?"

"If any did."

"They must have done if they were following the lure of what's supposed to lie ahead. I've been trying to figure out these caverns and galleries and they seem to me to all be leading to a common point. Maybe Chenault's found a shortcut but, even so, others must have used it. So where are their bodies? Discarded equipment? Supplies? Clothing? We've left enough behind us and others must have done the same."

One, at least, had done more.

Dumarest saw it as they emerged into a vaulted chamber set with patches of brilliance, the mouth of a tunnel gaping opposite the one they had left. Close beside it, set upright against the wall, rested the unmistakable tracery of a skeleton.

"Bones!" Massak stared at the place, gun lifting with automatic reflex in his hand. "Someone died there."

"A woman." Toyanna stepped back after making her examination. "Look at the shape of the pelvis; the set of the thighs. The skull, too, bears feminine characteristics. And yet there's a strangeness about it. As if it wasn't wholly human."

Dumarest said, "Can you tell the age?"

"Of the woman? About middle-age, I'd say."

"No. How long it's been here."

"Impossible." Toyanna's shrug was expressive. "What we're looking at seems to be an imprint of the skeletal structure rather than the bones themselves. Something like a negative print-see how white they are against the dark background?"

Lopakhin said, "I've done work like this. You take an object, a leaf, flower, animal, insect- anything will do. You place it on a prepared and sensitized surface then expose it to a blast of high-intensity radiation. The result is an image of the object but one containing more detail than can normally be seen. A kind of aura." His hand lifted to rest on the stone. "See? This faint blurring following the bones. And here. And here." His fingers moved to halt over the pelvic area. "Could she have been pregnant?"

Toyanna shrugged. "It's possible, I suppose. Why do you ask?"

"This." Lopakhin moved his finger. "See? This part. And this. There's a different kind of shading." His hand dropped to his side as he moved away. "But what killed her?"

Dumarest stirred, waking instantly, one hand reaching for the knife in his boot. Kneeling beside him Massak shook his head.

"No need for that, Earl. Listen."

The air was filled with a thin, high singing sound that wavered, carrying overtones of bells.

"Is this what you heard before?"

"Yes, but it's louder now. Closer." In the dimness the mercenary's face was tense. "Much closer-and it's coming nearer."

Wailing and singing from the air, the stone, the gaping mouth of the tunnel beside which the tracery of the skeleton kept warning guard.

One almost invisible now; the gleaming patches had dulled to somber glows, the chamber gaining a new menace with the loss of illumination. A good place to stay, he'd decided. One in which to check their gear and rest. To sleep as he had slept while Massak had stood watch. As the others were still sleeping.

"Earl?" The wailing, undulating sound had touched the mercenary on the raw. "What the hell is it?"

A question echoed by Mirza Karroum as she woke, eyes bleared, rubbing strength into her sagging cheeks.

"I don't know." Dumarest touched Lopakhin on the shoulder, found Toyanna already alert. "Spread out. Make no sound and don't move. Whatever it is we don't want to attract its attention."

Good advice but not easy to follow. Not when the sound grew louder; shrilling, tinkling, sweet with the music of bells, strong with the whine of generators. Resting his fingers against the casket, Dumarest felt the transparency quiver beneath his touch. Beneath the somnolent figure it contained, a warning lamp began to flash in pulses of red.

"Give me room!" Toyanna had spotted the signal. A panel lifted as Dumarest moved to one side, her fingers deft as she manipulated keys. "His heart," she explained. "If it gets any worse I'll have to introduce a bypass."

"I thought you dumped all nonessential equipment."

"This is essential." She sighed her relief as the red lamp ceased its flashing. "His heart is a muscle too, remember, and as weak as the rest of him. I had to provide for an emergency."

One drowned in the present problem. The singing, chiming, wailing sound which now filled the chamber with demanding noise.

"Look!" Lopakhin pointed. "The skeleton!" The tracery was glowing as if each bone had been delineated in fire. "The light!"

It filled the mouth of the tunnel, eye-bright, scintillating, glowing as if it was made of ice and diamond and cold, cold flame. A writhing something which flowed from the opening to hang in a shimmering mist of glowing radiance. One which shifted, changed, adopted new and enticing configurations. A thing of beauty, bright, clean, wonderful. One which sang.

Sound which dominated the ear as the glowing mist dominated the eye. As the subtle pulsing of it dominated the mind with its hypnotic spell.

"Don't look at it!" Dumarest forced himself to turn away, lifting a hand to cover Massak's eyes.

One the mercenary jerked away as he turned, snarling. "Don't look," snapped Dumarest. "Don't let it get to you."

"It's harmless. Just a cloud of brilliance. It shows me things."

"It's sucking your mind."

"No. That's stupid. It-"

"Damn you! Do as I say!" Dumarest lifted his hand, the fingers clenched, a fist which he poised to strike, then dropped as Lopakhin rose to his feet. "Tyner! Sit down! No, man! No!"

"Hilary!" The artist stepped toward the glowing radiance, hands extended, his face illuminated by something more than reflected light. "Hilary! My darling! You came back to me!"

"No!" Dumarest tried to rise and was thrown back against the wall by a sweep of the mercenary's arm. "Let me-"

"Stay put. There's nothing you can do. It's too late."

Lopakhin had closed the distance between himself and the shimmering cloud. He walked up to it, into it, froze as it closed around him.

"God!" Massak lifted his gun. "It's eating him!"

"Don't shoot!" Dumarest slammed down the weapon. "It's too late."

"I can give him an easy out."

"He doesn't need it. Look at his face."

It was calm, peaceful, the artist smiling a little as if he saw something which pleasured him. Smiling as his clothing dissolved into the mist, as his skin followed, the fat, the muscle and sinew, the bones and internal organs. Smiling still with bared teeth as his skull sat on the livid horror which had once been his body.

Then that too had vanished and there was only the mist which sang and pulsed and glided away down the facing tunnel to send murmurs and whispers of itself back in diminishing cadences.

"God!" Massak shook his head. "What the hell is it? A leech? A parasite of some kind? Why didn't it it take us all?"

"It had fed." Dumarest looked at the tunnel down which it had gone. "Lopakhin ran to it, remember. It didn't have to search."

But it would find them in its restless drifting, scenting them with alien organs, responding to the heat of their bodies, the electromagnetic activity of their brains. Or perhaps simply their bulk and composition, one different from rock. As were the things they had discarded. The debris which must have been left by others. All gone, cleared away, converted to basic energy to keep the thing alive.

"So we found it," said Mirza. "Or it found us. The thing I felt must be waiting. The guardian," she explained looking at them. "There's one in every legend. The monster which guards the treasure-but where the hell is it?"

"We'll find it," said Dumarest.

"When?"

"Soon." He looked at the casket, the flash of warning lights. It would have to be soon. "In a few hours, maybe."

Massak saw it first.