[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

and melted snow to make a hot drink from a ration cube, whistling as he
worked. Buglet started awake, blinking at the snow and the wreck and the bare
peak behind them as if terrified again.
"Davey! She clutched at him desperately, but in a moment she relaxed,
smiling uncertainly. "I thought But I guess we're okay now."
"You dreamed again?" "Forget it. Let's look for our people."
The reek of godsrest gone from her breath, she seemed almost herself
again, nearly too lively, as they packed their gear and tramped on across the
ice toward the clustered huts.
In hearing range, they stopped to listen. She called out, her voice tight
and high. All he heard in answer was the dry wind-whine from the huts. Long
drifts lay among them, dusty crusts unbroken.
"Our people " She turned to stare at him, eyes haunted. "Why aren't they
here?" He had no reply.
Crunching through old snow, they explored the station. The huts had been
left unlocked and empty, though one with windows broken was drifted deep with
snow. Bedding and clothing had been taken from the dormitory. Food was gone
from the kitchen, equipment from the labs, everything from the supply room.
In the lab section they read the story of the station. Dead plants in the
greenhouses, dried to brown sticks. Brown little mummies in the animal cages.
Staring at them. Buglet pressed close against him.
"We're very lucky, Davey! she whispered. "Without the pod, that's what
we would be."
The headquarters hut had been marked with a metal plate that carried
Belthar's triple triangle and the blue Polarian bear. The lower floor was
empty, but they found a built-in desk in the glass-walled cupola that had been
a weather station, faded charts still taped to its top.
"Maps!" Excitement took his breath. "Maps of the planet."
The world chart showed a single great continent with wide white stretches
and long gaps where not even the coasts had been ex-plored. One huge river
drained most of it, flowing to the east coast from a southwestern mountain
range. Only two places were named: Station One, an ink dot near the river
mouth; Station Two, another dot on a cape beyond the mountains, at the south
tip of the conti-nent.
"We must be here." He pointed. "Where the river bends."
"Maybe they moved to Station Two." She looked at him. "Would there be a
reason?"
"The weather, maybe. Two is in the other hemisphere. It would have a
summer of a sort, in spite of the orbit, when winter comes here."
"It must be coming now." With a little shiver, she looked out at the ice.
"The goddess has taken our people to Station Two. At least, with no other
clue, we have to guess that." Her grave eyes came back to him. "Can you carry
us there?"
He shook his head. "I've no image to guide me."
"We have to get there."
"I don't see how." He scowled at the chart. "It looks like eight or ten
thousand miles. Rivers and mountains to cross. No roads and no bridges. No
food anywhere, except the little we found."
"But we must fast!"
Her breathless desperation startled him.
"The dream I had." Her frightened eyes met his. "I didn't want to tell
you because it was so dreadful. The gods had sent a thing to kill us. A demon
thing if there are any demons."
Page 69
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
Her icy fingers gripped his arm.
"Davey, I'm afraid! Afraid it wasn't just a dream."
The storm raged against the Asian temple, wild as some ill-created
monster of the chaos that prevailed before the gods were made. Blinding
lightning burned behind the transceiver pillars. Thunder crashed and rolled
and moaned against the high dome.
Nimbus crimson, the Lord Belthar yelled against wind and thunder,
grilling Zhondra Zhey for more than she knew about the fugitive de-mons. How
had the male got out of his cell? How had he managed to murder Quelf? How had
he carried the drugged female away? Where were they now?
Her aura faint and cold, she said she didn't know.
Were there other premen who might carry the demon genes? Was it possible
that they might survive on Andoranda V? Or even escape from it, to threaten
the immortal gods?
"Nothing can live there long," she answered. "Nothing except the
creatures of its seas, which want no life on the land. Your own Polarians
failed to defeat them. I don't think the premen can."
How long did she expect the premen to survive?
"The supplies we landed with them will be gone in half a Terran year. The
cargo we carry now is not much larger, and they can't grow more. The planet is
now approaching its cold aphelion. They can't live through their next long
winter, unless they get relief "
"Relief?" His incredulous bellow pealed through the sleety fog. "They'll
get no relief." He glared down at her. "I suppose it is use-less to forbid you
to unload the food you have aboard for them, but I'll see that you get nothing
more to take them "
Her image dimmed as if fading from the column.
"Hear me, child!" he bawled. "You belong to the race of gods. Pampering
demons, you bring peril to yourself "
"No great risk." Her aura glowed again. "I know no demons."
"We know them," Belthar boomed. "Well enough to burn them! We won't allow
your sentimental follies to threaten the rest of us. In that, at least, I
believe we stand united."
When his gaze swept the columns, they colored with assent.
"Hear this, my dear." He smiled paternally through scarlet sparks. "You
yourself may feel no danger from your demonic pets, but you stand in peril
from us."
Silent, her image winked out.
Divinely indifferent, he turned to question his remaining guests about
the weapons they had developed to clear useless native life from their own
residential planets. Few of the answers pleased him.
One of Kranthar's twin sons sons by Cynthara and so twice nephews of
Belthar himself had showered neutron bombs from space to soften the urban and
industrial centers of an insectoid civili-zation. The other son had designed
muman look-alikes to infiltrate a culture of green-winged, half-plant beings
"It's demons we're hunting!" Impatience glared through his nimbus. "Mumen
are no good against them they've already killed mumen enough. Neutron bombs
might be better but we have to find them first."
He turned to his daughter, who sat straight in her own strong aura, blue
eyes smiling as if she liked the storm and admired his eternal vigor and found
some wild delight even in fighting preman demons.
Her own chosen world, Belphera said, had been still barbaric, ruled by a [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]