The Seed of Earth

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

At Dawes' suggestion they relaxed for an hour or so, talking the situation out quietly, before starting to build the rope ladder. Sweating despite the chill, Dawes took charge of the discussion, showing the others as tactfully as he could that there was no real reason for discord in the cave.

Gradually he even began to convince himself. The aliens had made Noonan stare at Carol, had brought on all the humiliation and loss of privacy. And Noonan hadn't really meant to take away Carol last night. He had just been acting out of pique, out of the senseless non-motivation that their confinement provided.

Dawes began to regard the other three as just people.

He didn't hate Noonan any more, or scatterheaded Carol, or cynical Cherry. They were only people. Earth people, frail and imperfect, and they each carried around their own private unhappinesses. In the cave, four sets of desires and weaknesses and selfishnesses had impinged, causing conflict. But now, if each only gave ground a little, harmony could prevail.

And the others began to understand, as Dawes made it plain for them. Slowly, because they were not quickthinking people, they were starting to grasp the essential truth of their situation. And the tension and distrust and hatred was washing out and draining away.

When they were all smiling, Dawes gently steered the discussion toward the matter of escaping.

He said, 'Noonan, you say we can get out of here if we build a rope ladder of some kind. Will you show us how to build this ladder of yours?'

'We'll build it out of clothes,' Noonan said. 'Obviously.

That's the only kind of fabric we have. Let's all start undressing.'

He peeled off his shirt and trousers and tied them together, leg to sleeve, with an elaborate knot. He reinforced it with a sock.

Carol was wearing a skirt. She unfastened it, stepped out of it, and handed it over.

Dawes donated his pants. The line was growing quickly. At Noonan's command Dawes and Cherry roamed the cave collecting the animal hides that the aliens had used to wrap the daily food bundles in. There were four of them. Noonan slashed them into long strips with the obsidian-like knife and added them to the line.

'Okay,' Noonan said at last. 'Maybe this'll do. Let's test it. Dawes, get yourself on the other end of this thing and pull hard.'

Dawes took a double grip on the rope and pulled, as hard as he could, digging his feet into the sand to keep from being dragged toward Noonan. The line held.

'Good,' Noonan grunted. 'She's tight.'

He anchored the end of the line to a jutting rock near the mouth of the cave, hurled the free end out, and let it dangle. Noonan said, 'I'm going to climb down to the ledge. Carol and Cherry will follow me. And then you, Dawes. All clear?'

Noonan grasped the line, tugged it to make sure it was fast, and lowered himself over the edge. Just before he disappeared below the floor level of the cave he grinned, and Dawes grinned back.

'Good luck, Noonan.'

'Thanks. I'll probably need it.'

Dawes watched tensely as Noonan descended, hand under hand, swaying in the wind. He dangled at the very end of the line, his hands grasping the rope only an inch or two from its end, and still his feet scrabbled for purchase, his arms flailed wildly to balance him, and then he stood solid, looking up at them and smiling.

'Okay,' Noonan called. 'Carol. You come down next.

Keep your feet clamped to the rope and hold on tight.'

Pale, frightened beyond the point of feeling fear, Carol took hold of the rope. She paused for an instant.

'Go on.' Dawes said softly. 'It's safe. Just hold on and let yourself down hand by hand.'

The girl grasped the rope with her small hands, wrapped her legs round it, and started to descend. Dawes held his breath. The rope seemed tremendously long. Was she going to make it all the way? Or would she fatigue and topple off, still eighty feet above the ground?

She made it. She dangled in mid-air a few feet above Noonan; he stretched out his arms for her, urged her to let go, and finally she did. He caught her and put her safely down on the ledge.

Cherry was next. She showed no outward sign of fear, and she negotiated the descent quickly and skillfully.

Dawes waited until she stood by Carol's side on the ledge.

Then, taking a last look at the cave, he grabbed hold of the rope himself.

He had done plenty of rope-climbing in high school, in an ultimately fruitless attempt to put some muscle on his skinny body. But those had been fifteen or twenty-foot ropes. This one dangled for a hundred feet, and no protective mat waited beneath it.

Positioning one hand beneath the other, he let himself down, feeling the savage bite of the wind against his skin. He knew the others were waiting for him, watching him, maybe praying. Once, he glanced down, and saw he still had nearly half the distance to go. His muscles were quivering and his arms felt as if they were about to part company with their sockets. But he made it.

He hovered above the shelf and Noonan caught him around the waist and pulled him down to safety. The line swung out over the valley and flapped back against the side of the cliff.

Dawes caught his breath and looked downward from the ledge. 'We're still at least forty feet from the ground.

What now?'

'I'm going to try to yank the line loose,' Noonan said.

'All of you hold on to me. If I can pull it down, we tie it on here and climb down to the ground.'

'And if we can't pull it down?' Dawes asked.

Noonan glared for a moment. 'You still haven't lost your old habits. You ask too many damfool questions.

Come on - anchor me.'

They held him, while he tugged at the line, grunting bitterly. Muscles corded and bunched along Noonan's back and shoulders, and tendons stood out sharply in the hollow of his elbow. The line was tied too securely at the top, though. It would not come. Noonan pulled harder—

The rope snapped loose with an impact that nearly threw the four of them off the ledge. Noonan looked at the dangling end he held in his hands, then up at the dangling line still fastened at the cavemouth. The rope had snapped in half.

Noonan cursed eloquently. 'I hadn't figured on that.

But it could have been worse, I guess.'

'How much rope do we have?' Dawes asked.

'Look for yourself.'

Noonan let the line out over the side of the ledge. It stopped short nearly fifteen feet from the ground. And, Dawes thought, a fifteen-foot jump was an invitation for broken ankles or worse - and they still had a trek of perhaps ten miles back to the colony.

He looked quizzically at Noonan. The big man said, 'We can still manage it. But it's going to take teamwork.

Real teamwork. I'll go down the rope. Dawes, you follow, go right on down me and hang to my ankles. The girls will do the same, and jump when they reach your ankles.

It can't be more than a six or seven-foot drop from there.'

Somehow, it worked. Noonan scrambled down the truncated rope as far as he could go, and hung there, waiting. Dawes went next, descending the rope until his feet touched Noonan's shoulders, then carefully clambering down Noonan's body until he grasped the big man's feet.

'Okay, come on!' Noonan shouted. "We can't hang this way forever!'

Dawes strained to hold on. His toes were about eight feet above the ground. Carol came down the rope; he could feel every impact as she descended. Looking up, he saw her coming down past Noonan's shoulders, then reaching his own shoulders. Her face was white with tension. She clung for an instant to Dawes' hips, slid down his legs, and let go. He glanced down; she had landed in a crumpled heap, but she was getting up.

Cherry came next. Dawes' arms ached mercilessly. He tightened his grip on Noonan's ankles. But it was no use; he could not hold on. As Cherry's foot grazed his shoulder, he let go and dropped to the ground. He folded up as he hit, but was able to rise without difficulty. Cherry still dangled from Noonan.

'Go ahead,' Dawes called to her. 'Let go and I'll catch you.'

She released her hold. Dawes braced himself and broke her fall, but the weight of her dropping on him knocked him over again. A moment later, Noonan landed on top of them.

After some instants of confusion, they struggled to their feet and began to laugh. Cherry was the first to start, and then Noonan and Dawes and Carol took it up, and they laughed for nearly a minute at the ridiculous spectacle they must have made, solemnly clambering down each other and landing in a heap.

'Damnedest silly way to get down a mountainside I ever saw,' Noonan said, still laughing.

'Maybe so,' Dawes said. 'But it worked, didn't it? It worked I'

They huddled together at the base of the cliff. Above them, two lengths of rope dangled in the wind.

Cherry said, 'And there isn't an alien in sight. Not anywhere.'

Dawes looked rapidly around, as if expecting to see the thick-bodied ape-like beings clustered behind trees observing them. Perhaps they were. But certainly they were keeping well out of sight.

'You see?' Dawes said triumphantly. 'They aren't interested in us anymore. We don't have anything to offer them, now that we've stopped fighting with each other.

They don't care what we do now.'

'I'm cold,' Carol said suddenly.

'We all are,' said Cherry. 'We better get a move on.

Back to the colony, before the aliens decide they don't want to let us go after all.'

Dawes nodded. He pointed toward the forest. 'Standing with our backs to the cliff, the colony ought to be straight out that way. What do you think, Noonan?'

The big man frowned and said, 'That's about right.

We ought to find our way back there through the forest without much trouble. If we start out now.'

"Right. We want to get there before nightfall,' Dawes said. 'We've still got a few hours left. We'd better start out now.'

They set out, in single file - Noonan leading, followed by Carol, then Cherry and Dawes. Even though the sun was bright in the sky, the day was cold; the temperature was barely above fifty, Dawes estimated.

He was thankful that they had kept their shoes, even if their stockings all had gone to reinforce the rope. The forest floor was covered with the dried prickly cast-off needles of the conifer trees that abounded there. The wind whipped through the forest, but the trees served as shielding for them against the coldest blasts.

It had taken about two hours to go through the forest the first time, in the hands of the aliens. By Dawes' reckoning, nightfall was not due for at least three hours more. With luck, if they followed a true path, they would make it back to the colony before dark. Once night fell, of course, they would simply have to squat down and wait for morning before proceeding.

But Noonan led the way with such a confident air that Dawes did not worry. The big man strode along with springing step, looking back every few moments to make sure no one had fallen behind.

Dawes realized that a few months ago this whole sequence of events would have been inconceivable.

After an hour of walking, they stopped; Carol was exhausted. Noonan eyed the angle of the sun, wrinkled up his face, and announced that they had at least two and a half hours before sunset. 'Plenty of time to make it,' the big man added. 'If we don't waste any time en route.'

'I'm cold,' Carol said. 'Hungry. Tired. I can't keep walking like this.'

Dawes looked at her pityingly. She looked drawn and exhausted. Carol had taken the days in the cave worse than any of them. Noonan hardly showed a trace of his captivity; Cherry looked unkempt but healthy, with a sleek leanness that she had not had before. Dawes ached all over, but he felt splendid.

'Come on,' he said gently to Carol. 'We're almost there.

Another hour's walk, that's all.'

Noonan lifted her to her feet and pointed her in the right direction. They resumed their hike.

They were following a path, well-worn through the thick forest. Looking back, Dawes could see the black bulk of the cliffs - and, he thought, the two strands of rope, red and yellow and brown and green. As the sun dropped, the forest became colder. Birds hooted in the trees; small shiny-skinned animals that looked like lizards sprang up on rocks, chittered derisively at the group for an instant, and went hustling off into the safety of the woods.

They plodded on. Dawes was beginning to feel the effects of his hunger - only one meal a day for the last five, and that not very nourishing. He longed to stop and try to shy a rock at one of the curious little forest beasts, but he told himself that if they ever stopped they might not get started again. He forced himself to drag one foot in front of the other. His legs ached. His feet, bare inside his shoes, were slowly being rubbed raw by the leather scraping his heel. But Noonan strutted jauntily along in the lead.

They were on their way back to the colony. Something strange and mysterious had happened to them, but it was over, and they were on their way back. Dawes comforted himself with that thought. In a little while, they would be seeing other people again. Haas and Dave Matthews and Ed Sanderson and Sid Nolan and all the others. They were really strangers to him, but at the moment Dawes thought of them as old friends, friends for whose companionship he had longed for months and years.

They stopped again a short time later. Again, it was Carol. She threw herself down on the ground, sobbing, muttering little senseless sounds.

Noonan scooped her up. Dawes hung back, even though technically she was his wife. She would have to be carried, and he had barely enough strength to carry himself along. Therefore, Noonan would have to carry her. It was as simple as that. Dawes made no protest as Noonan picked her up and cradled her roughly in his arms.

'We're almost there,' Noonan told them. 'I'll carry her the rest of the way. You two all right?'

'I'll make it,' Cherry said. 'If I don't freeze first, that is.'

'You, Dawes?'

'I'm okay.'

'Let's go, then.'

Step after step after step; and every step, Dawes told himself sternly, brought him that much closer to the colony, to food and warmth and clothing. Unless, of course, Noonan had been leading them in the wrong direction all this time. That might be. No, Dawes argued; the cliffs were still at their backs, and so they had to be going in the right direction. His tired mind thought up cold fantasies: suppose the aliens had been following them all this time, maliciously feeding on their suffering, and planned to massacre them as they stood within sight of the stockade? Or perhaps the stockade itself would be empty, all of the colonists dead or captured, leaving Dawes and Carol, Noonan and Cherry as the sole population of Osiris?

He shook away the thoughts and kept going. Abruptly they emerged into a clearing.

'Take a look,' Noonan said exultantly.

The stockade was a hundred yards ahead of them.