The Seed of Earth

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

They ate, and it was a strange, silent, almost shamefaced meal. The veneer of civilization that still clung to all of them, even Noonan, dampened their spirits as they ate the bloody meat.

Dawes was voraciously hungry, and it wasn't as hard for him to overcome his conditioning against eating raw meat as he thought it would be. Still, something about the sticky blood that ran between his fingers, pasting them together, made him queasy. And he could see that Carol had to make a visible effort to choke the meat down. Noonan ate without inhibitions. Cherry put away her share with a certain reserve, but with no outward show of revulsion. The meat had an odd, pungent taste about it, even raw, that made it more appealing than it might otherwise have been.

There were ten of the blue gourds. After the meat course, Noonan doled out one gourd to each of them and put the remaining six aside. 'In case we don't get fed again too soon,' he explained. 'These things will keep. The meat won't.'

The gourds tasted sour, strongly acidified; they had a stringy, unpleasant texture, and needed plenty of chewing. But they were nourishing, and filled up the stomach well. Dawes finished his gourd quickly and turned his attention to the white grapes. These were doughy in consistency, dry, and not very good.

When everyone was through eating, Noonan gathered together the remnants of the meal, the bones of the small animal and the shells of the gourds, and hurled them from the cave mouth. After a distinct pause came the thudding sounds of landing.

'Why'd you do that?' Dawes asked.

'To show them that we appreciated the stuff. There's no better way than to toss back a carcass that's been cleaned of flesh. Anyway, we can't have that junk sitting around in here. Bad for sanitation.'

Cherry Thomas grinned uneasily. 'Sanitation. Glad you brought that matter up. This hotel don't have such good furnishings.'

'We'll set up a couple of latrines up here near the cavemouth,' Noonan said. "Better ventilation that way. All the comforts of home.'

'What's a latrine?' Carol asked.

'It's a hole in the ground, dearie.' Noonan's voice dripped concentrated H₂SO_4. 'Just a hole in the ground, that's all. You use it. We can have one for the menfolk, one for womenfolk, if you like.'

'Oh. I see,' Carol said in a small, unhappy voice.

Cherry Thomas giggled in her cold, tinkling way.

Noonan rumbled with laughter. Dawes felt profoundly embarrassed for Carol, but said nothing.

Noonan pointed upcavern, where the little stream split the cavern floor into two roughly equal sectors.

'Look here, Dawes. Suppose you and Carol take the far corner up there, on the right.'

'And you?'

'Cherry and I'll stay on the left, a little ways lower down toward the cave mouth. That's for sleeping. It's the best arrangement we can make.'

'It'll be something like living in a goldfish bowl,'

Cherry said.

Dawes shrugged. 'We'll have to manage.'

He rose, walked to the front of the cave, and peered out. Seven or eight aliens squatted on the ground a hundred and fifty feet below, looking up.

'More like a goldfish bowl than you think,' he said, turning around. 'They're watching us from down there.

Just watching. As if - as if we were really fish in a bowl, or pets in a cage.'

'Maybe we are,' Noonan said. He scooped up a handful of moist sand, compressed it in his clenched fist until it was a hard ball, and angrily hurled it down at the staring aliens. It broke apart in midflight and showered harmlessly down as a spray of sand. Noonan turned away, cursing softly.

The day dragged along horribly. Four people in an escape-proof cell a hundred yards long and perhaps seventy feet wide, without fire, without anything but themselves. And they hadn't yet learned to like each other much.

Dawes felt his nerves tightening like the tuned strings of a fiddle. There was nothing to do in the cave but stare at each other, talk, tell jokes. And there was so little to talk about. Noonan was monolithic; he spoke only when he chose, never speaking just for the mere sake of making noise. Carol's conversation seemed to be limited to expressions of faint hopes and fears; Cherry's, to jokes and reminiscences of show business.

Dawes found little to say himself, and spent the hours staring broodingly at his muddy feet. There was no telling how long they would have to stay here, but he saw already that however long it would be, it was going to be hellish.

Cherry had launched into an interminable monologue about her life and good times. It went on for nearly half an hour, as she told the unlistening trio of her happy days under the management of Dan Cirillo, a saint of a man if Cherry's account had any truth to it. She was working up slowly to the great tragedy in her life, when Dan had been selected, leaving her rudderless. But it was taking her a long time to that point.

'So I opened at the Lido on the 24th,' she said. 'Dan got me a great contract - three thousand a week, all the extras I could think of. Ninety-piece orchestra plus synthesizer accompaniment. And me in an evening gown that cost ten grand. I wish I had that evening gown now.

I wish I was back there in Nevada. I wish I was anywhere, anywhere but in this lousy cave.'

The monologue came to a temporary halt. In the silence Carol said, in a dead, flat voice, 'We aren't going to get out. I know we aren't. Not ever. We're just going to stay here and rot. There are times I feel like just jumping out and—'

'Carol I' Dawes burst out.

The girl looked up at him without understanding. Her eyes were glazed with fatigue and fear.

After a shocked little pause Cherry said, 'Well, the kid's got a point there. We're stuck in here for good. If I'd known what was good for me, I would have gone with Dan back in '14, and we'd be together somewhere having kids, instead of me being stuck here in this lousy cave where we can't even—'

'That's enough, Cherry,' Noonan interrupted. 'Stop moaning about what you didn't do in '14. What's past is past.'

'So we'll rot away here and—'

'That's enough, Cherry!' Noonan snapped to his feet out of a crosslegged position without using his hands.

'I've got an idea,' he said. 'Maybe it isn't worth much, but at least I can try it.'

He began to strip off his shirt, kicking off his shoes at the same time.

'What are you going to do?' Dawes asked.

Noonan unsnapped his trousers. Take a look at that underground stream up back. I'm going to get in there and wander around a little. Maybe the stream comes out somewhere. Maybe we can all get out the other side.'

He picked up his clothes, stuffed them under his arm, and, wearing only briefs, walked upcavern to the place where the stream broke the surface of the cavern floor.

Looking back he called, 'Come on up here with me, Dawes. If you hear me yell, come on in after me.'

Dawes joined him. Noonan tossed down the bundle of his clothes, and entered the water. It swirled knee-deep as he waded farther upcavern, then abruptly grew deeper.

As it approached the height of his chest, Dawes said uneasily, 'It's dangerous to try this, Noonan. You may get trapped underneath, somewhere. I won't be able to hear you if you yell.'

Noonan turned to glance back. His lips were blue, and despite himself he was shivering, but he smiled. 'So?

What of it? At least I tried.'

He turned again and advanced toward the point at which the stream dipped below ground level again and swept back into the mountain. Dawes heard Noonan suck breath in gaspingly, and then Noonan went under.

Tensely Dawes began to count off the seconds.

A thousand one, a thousand two, a thousand three, a thousand four ...

A thousand six, a thousand seven...

... a thousand ten ...

'Where did he go?' Dawes heard Cherry ask.

He turned and saw both women standing behind him.

'He went under,' Dawes said simply.

Thousand fifteen ... thousand sixteen ... thousand seventeen ...

... thousand twenty ...

... thousand twenty-five...

'He's been gone half a minute,' Dawes said a few seconds later. 'He ought to be up soon.'

'Suppose he doesn't come up?' Carol asked.

Dawes did not answer. But he kicked off his shoes, knowing he'd be expected to go in after Noonan and try to find him. He started to shiver a little, and his hands went tentatively to his belt.

... thousand thirty-six. How long could a man stay under water? Even a man like Noonan?

'You oughta go in and look for him,' Cherry said. 'He may be drowning.'

'Yeah. I know.'

... thousand forty ...

The counting mechanism in his mind was functioning automatically now, ticking away the seconds. Thousand forty-two. With a cold hand Dawes started to strip off his trousers, not worrying about modesty in the face of the cold stream that awaited him.

Suddenly Noonan broke surface, head first - leaping up high above the water, gasping loudly for breath, plunging back down like a sounding whale.

Choking, retching, he came up again, battled the swift current for an instant or two, and managed to pull himself to the edge of the water. Dawes waded in a couple of feet, grabbed his arm, and tugged him up on the sand.

Noonan was blue all over; goosebumps of enormous size covered him. He lay there, sprawled out with his face down in the sand, drawing in breath with great hoarse sobbing sighs. Finally he looked up.

'Cold,' he said. 'Cold!'

'You find anything?' Dawes asked.

Weakly Noonan shook his head. 'No. Not a damned thing. I followed the stream as far as I could. Nothing.

Came back and couldn't find the outlet. Thought I'd thought I'd drown. Then I broke through.'

He shivered convulsively. Dawes had never seen a man look so cold and completely exhausted before. Noonan continued to sob for breath.

'He'll freeze to death,' Carol said anxiously. 'He's all wet and the sand's sticking to him. We ought to warm him up somehow.'

Dawes felt irritated by her show of sympathy.

Noonan's wild swim, he thought, had been nothing but a grandstand play; showboating for the benefit of the women, and nothing more.

'He'll warm up by himself,' Dawes grunted.

Cherry glared at him. 'The hell he will. You leave him like that, he'll catch pneumonia or something. But I'll take care of him.'

Dawes looked at her, startled.

Cherry lay down in the sand next to the still gasping Noonan. She put her arms around him.

'You two go away,' she said without looking up. 'I'll keep my husband warm.'

Dawes and Carol walked toward the cave mouth without looking back. He was angry and depressed. Noonan's show of heroism had made its effect. And what had Noonan hoped to gain? To find an underwater passageway through the mountain and out the other side? That was clearly impossible. Noonan had just wanted to flex his muscles, to get some exercise, and, almost incidentally, to prove unnecessarily that he was a real man, not a skinny imitation of one.

And Carol had been impressed. Dawes had seen it in her eyes, as she took in the sight of the exhausted Noonan sprawled heroically in the sand. Dawes was more than ever conscious of his callowness now.

Later, as the big sun dipped toward night, Noonan recovered from his exertions, dressed, and he and Cherry joined Dawes and Carol at the cave mouth. The four of them sat at the cavemouth, together and not together.

Dawes sensed conflict growing among them. Noonan still looked a little the worse for his swim. Dawes sat with his arms around Carol, and she made no objection, possibly because of the warmth his nearness provided.

No more food had come that day. The aliens obviously planned to give them just one meal a day - if that.

'We need a hostage,' Noonan said, talking more to himself than to any of the others. 'It's the only way to get anywhere. Tomorrow we hang around the cave mouth until they bring the food - if they bring the food. When the alien shows up, we grab him.'

'What good is that going to do?' Dawes wanted to know.

'I don't know,' Noonan said. 'But at least it's something, dammit! A sign that we're doing something to get out. You want to sit on your can in here forever, kid?'

'We probably will,' said Cherry. 'Like goddam pets. Birds in a gilded cage. Why couldn't those apes have picked someone else? Why us?'

Night was falling. Outside, in the valley, a red alien bonfire flickered.

'They're watching us,' Dawes said. 'Watching all the time. They want to see what we'll do. They want to see how long it takes before we start fighting, before we hate each other's guts, before we start jumping off this damned cliff to get free.'

'Shut up,' Noonan snapped.

Dawes ignored him. 'I mean it! It's like a lab experiment. I had experiments like this is psych class, in college. You take four rats, see, and you stick them in a cage. Or you put them on a treadmill, and toss them some food when they look bushed. That's what we are, rats on a treadmill. The experimenter waits and watches, taking notes, looking to see how long it is until the rats start snapping at each other, until they drop from exhaustion.'

'I told you to shut up,' Noonan rumbled threateningly.

'Who the hell are you to tell me anything?'

Noonan got up and clamped one heavy hand down on Dawes' shoulder. 'Look, kid, we all know life's tough in here. Don't make it any tougher. Quite whining or I'll toss you out the cave mouth myself.'

'Yeah,' Dawes shot back at him. 'You like to get rid of me. What a nice setup that would be, just you and the two girls in here—'

Noonan slapped him, hard.

Dawes took the stinging blow the wrong way, neck held rigid, and it nearly broke him in two. After a moment, when he regained his wits, he said softly, 'Sorry, Noonan. I didn't mean to rile you.'

'Okay, kid. Just sit there and shut up.'

'But you see it, don't you? We're doing just what the aliens want! They want to see which one of us cracks first, and how he does it! They want to see us fight. They want to see us tear each other apart.'

'They're just primitive savages sitting round a bonfire,'

Noonan said derisively. 'You're making things up. Giving us all that college stuff. You're making up things that don't exist.'

'Maybe. Maybe I am,' Dawes said. There was sudden tension in the cavern. The two women were silent. Dawes looked at Noonan, and licked away the salty dribble of blood on his lip. 'I tell you they're just waiting to see us crack up.'

'Well, we won't give 'em the satisfaction. We can hold out. Remember the speech they made at Bangor. We're Earthmen. The galaxy's finest.' Noonan looked toward the cave mouth. 'Damned moonless planet,' he muttered.

'No light out there at all. But we'll beat them, though. I tell you that.'

'Don't kid yourself, Noonan,' said Cherry, half to herself. 'The crack-up's coming. It won't take long.'