Three Survived

Chapter 10

This was starting to be a nuisance. Dombey wasn’t a silent man any more. Now he seemed to be trying to run the show.

“What did you say?” Rand asked.

Dombey jerked his thumb toward the edge of the jungle. “We gotta get off the path here. Into the woods.”

“Are you going to make trouble every step of the way?” Rand asked. “This is the third time in the last two hours that you’ve stopped us, Dombey. We’re never going to get there if—”

“No, boss!” A look of sheer agony passed like a cloud across Dombey’s face. He struggled hard to find words and get them out. “Boss, we gotta get off the path! Right now!”

“You said that when we stopped for lunch. Both times.”

“The first time he was right,” Leswick pointed out.

“That was the first time. A lucky hunch, nothing more. But if he’s going to get itchy about something mysterious every little while—“ Rand said.

It was a matter of principle, he realized. His leadership of the group was at stake. Either he made the decisions, using his intelligence, or Dombey did—using guesswork.

Rand glanced at Leswick to find out where the philosopher stood in the argument. But Leswick’s face completely hid his feelings.

“We aren’t getting off the path,” Rand said firmly. “And I’ll give the orders in this party, Dombey. Remember that. I’ll give the orders.”

A new expression entered Dombey’s eyes. It was one that Rand had never seen there before. The big man didn’t look easy-going and good-natured any more.

“You ain’t giving the orders no more,” Dombey said in a low growl of a voice. “We get off this path. Right now.”

He moved toward Rand. He was as agile as a big cat, in spite of the heavy load of gear strapped to his back.

“Get away, Dombey!” Rand ordered. “Keep back!”

But the huge man kept approaching. His fist was clenched, and he was swinging his arm around to throw a punch. Rand brought an arm up to block the blow. Dombey’s punch caught him just below the elbow. Rand’s arm went numb.

“Leswick!” Rand yelled. “Pull him back! Get him away from me!”

It was foolish to think that Leswick could be of any use against Dombey, Rand knew. Leswick didn’t offer help. He stepped back instead. And Dombey closed in.

A punch slammed into Rand’s stomach. He tried to fight back, but it was like fighting off a hurricane. Dombey grazed Rand’s jaw with a flat-handed slap that left him spinning dizzily. He followed with a head-rattling swipe to Rand’s right shoulder.

He’s gone crazy, Rand thought. He’s running wild!

But there was a strange look in Dombey’s eyes, and it wasn’t a look of insanity. In the middle of the struggle, Rand saw that look. It was the look of a man who knew what he was doing.

“Stop it!” Rand cried. “Dombey, cut it out!”

He tried to back away, but Dombey wasn’t letting him go anywhere. The jetmonkey grabbed him with one hand. Rand managed to land a weak punch on Dombey’s chest, and then Dombey slapped him again, just once, very hard, on his left cheekbone.

Rand’s head wobbled and his knees went out from under him.

He started to sag toward the ground. Dombey caught him. Rand felt as if he had begun to fly. Dombey was lifting him, swinging him through the air, dumping him over his broad shoulder.

Then Rand blanked out completely.

He woke up feeling as if a steamroller had hit him. He was lying on a thick carpet of sweet-smelling leaves, under a canopy of branches far overhead. The knapsack he had been carrying was sitting beside him.

Leswick and Dombey stood nearby. Dombey was completely calm, showing no hint of his earlier rage. Leswick looked away guiltily when Rand glared at him.

Slowly, painfully, Rand got to his feet. He was aching in a dozen places. His two companions watched him without saying a word.

“Where are we?” he asked.

Leswick said, “About fifty feet from where you and Dombey had the fight.”

“I feel like I’ve been out cold for days.”

“About five minutes, no more,” the Metaphysical Synthesist said. “Dombey tried to be careful when he hit you.”

“Nice of him,” Rand muttered.

Leswick said, “You might want to take a look through the underbrush. There’s a very interesting sight back there out on the path.”

Rand turned. He squinted through the tangled bushes in the direction Leswick was pointing. For a moment he saw nothing unusual. Then he did, and he shivered at the sight.

“They aren’t pretty, are they?” Leswick asked.

They were hideous. They were four-legged animals the size of wolves, lean and grim. Their heads and rumps were held high; their backs curved down in the middle. They were padding along silently, one after another in a long row.

There must have been hundreds of the vicious-looking beasts in the parade. Each one grasped in his mouth the tail of the one just in front, to keep the pack close together.

Their lips were drawn back in a terrifying grin. Teeth like daggers were on display. Each beast had four long fangs with needle-sharp points. At the side of their mouths jutted yellow-green tusks, broad and flattened like shovels, but sharp as razors along the edges.

The animals were dirty white in color, with bulging blue-rimmed eyes. Their heavy fur was filthy, matted, stinking. Even at this distance, Rand could sense their overpowering rotten odor.

They were killers—a pack of hunters, parading through the jungle. Rand shuddered at the thought of what might have happened to him and Leswick and Dombey, if they had been out there and on the path when the parade came by.

“What if they pick up our scent?” Rand whispered.

“No worry,” Dombey said. “They stick to the path. We’re okay in here, I bet. They been passing for a couple minutes now, and nobody’s even looked at us.”

Dombey spoke calmly. He didn’t seem to have any doubts that he was right. He didn’t look very impressed with himself, either, for having guessed that deadly beasts were nearby. But how had he known it would be dangerous to stay on the path?

Another wild hunch that wasn’t so wild?

Could be, Rand thought. Whatever the reason, Dombey’s hunches had saved them twice today from death in the jungle. The other time his hunch hadn’t been right. But it hadn’t been wrong by much, for the wolf-beasts had showed up right after lunch.

Dombey said, “I think you better let me walk first, boss. I think you better let me be the one to say when we stop, when we go on.”

“What you’re saying is, you want to take charge.”

“That’s right, boss.”

It hurt Rand’s pride to be pushed aside like this. He had been calling the shots up till now, ever since they first boarded the lifeship. And he thought he had done a pretty good job.

But now they were in the jungle. And Dombey seemed to understand the jungle, in some weird way. Maybe he didn’t have much of an education, but book-learning didn’t count for much here.

Dombey knew the jungle the way Rand knew machinery and electronic gear.

Maybe Dombey deserves to be running the expedition, from here on in, Rand thought.

It was a little like putting a child in charge. An overgrown child. A child who might just be the best leader in this jungle, though.

Rand knew he didn’t have much choice, anyway. Dombey had the muscle to take over, whether Rand liked it or not. He had just shown that, back by the path. The smart thing to do was to give in gracefully.

“All right, Dombey. You’re the top man, now,” Rand said. “You lead the way. Get us to the beacon.”

“Okay, boss.”

“You better not call me boss any more. You’re the boss now.”

“Whatever you say, boss.”

Dombey turned and looked through the thick underbrush. Without glancing back, he signaled to Rand and Leswick with his hand.

“Come on,” he called. “Animals are gone. Back to the path, now. You can leave all that fruit here,” he said to Leswick. “We’ll find plenty more.”

He led them in cautious single file through the thicket to the main path. Rand brought up the rear, taking the position that Dombey had had.

They walked a little way. Then Rand began to feel funny. He broke out in a strange sweat and his stomach started to complain.

The heat’s getting me, he told himself.

But the heat didn’t seem to bother Leswick or Dombey. Rand was uneasy about that. Maybe it’s because of the fight, he thought. But I shouldn’t get sick to my stomach from a fight.

He walked on another hundred feet. Suddenly he was shivering. His legs felt wobbly.

He stopped and called to the others. “Wait a minute. I’m feeling kind of—”

Rand doubled up with cramps. His head was spinning and his skin felt as if it had caught fire. He dropped to his knees and realized he was going to be very sick.

His lunch left him in a hurry.

When he was finished throwing up, he didn’t feel quite so bad. He got up slowly, shaking a little. Dombey handed him a canteen and he took a deep pull of water.

“Better now, boss?”

“Better,” Rand said hoarsely.

“I guess you should have left them berries alone, back there. I had a hunch that place wasn’t no good.”

“Is that what your hunch was? That the berries were bad to eat?”

“Sort of,” Dombey admitted.

Angrily Rand said, “Then why didn’t you speak up? You saw me eat them! You could have said something!”

“Gosh, boss, you were sore at me for telling you not to stop there! I figured I better stop buttin’ in!”

“Okay,” Rand said sourly. “Okay. I guess I had that coming to me. But from now on, when you see trouble coming, don’t keep the news to yourself.”

“I won’t, any more,” Dombey said.

Rand didn’t feel very proud of himself. Dombey had really fixed him! Letting him eat those berries when his hunch told him they were bad! Well, I can’t blame him, Rand told himself. I laughed at his hunches. So he let me find out about that clearing my own way.

The sickness had gone. It was a lucky thing he had only eaten a handful of berries. More than that might have really made him sick. Or poisoned him, maybe.

Rand kept quiet, now, as they marched along. He admired the graceful way Dombey moved through the dense forest. Dombey’s size didn’t cause any troubles for him. He always seemed to find the right opening in the curtain of hanging vines that blocked the way.

That nickname of “Tarzan” was the right one, Rand saw. Dombey was really at home here in the jungle. It seemed as natural to him as water was for a fish.

Rand found out why, toward nightfall. Dombey picked a place to stop for the night, and they pitched camp. Using gestures more than words, Dombey showed them the safest places to put their sleeping bags.

Leswick said, “Where did you pick up all this jungle lore, Dombey? You didn’t learn it on a spaceship.”

“Learned it before I went to space,” he said. “Grew up on Hothouse. That planet, it’s got some pretty good jungles too.”

“Why did you leave?” Rand asked.

Dombey grinned. “Got tired of jungle,” he said. “Signed up as a spacehand.”

“You should have told me you were an expert on jungle life,” Rand said.

“You didn’t ask,” Dombey told him.

They had a good dinner that night. Dombey climbed a tree and caught half a dozen little squirrel-like animals. Then he discovered a plant with fat, fleshy roots that turned out to make tasty eating. After they ate, they crawled into their sleeping bags beside the fire. Rand took a reading on the detector before sacking out.

The jungle noises were as loud that night as they had been the night before. Somehow Rand didn’t mind them as much, though. He was too tired to worry about anything. He closed his eyes and drifted off into deep sleep.

Not without some bad dreams, though. Dreams of long green arms rising from a brook. Dreams of ugly, snorting animals with long teeth parading through the jungle. Dreams of monsters far more nightmarish than those.

He woke up a couple of times, imagining that they were being attacked. He lay awake for a while, listening to the grunts and growls and hisses and screeches coming from every direction. Then he fell asleep once more.