A Tenderfoot in Space Page 6

  Hans bolted his cake, hurried out. He was back a few minutes later. "Maw, where's the flamer?"

  "Paw is using it."

  Hans looked blank. "Well...we don't have to have it. Come on, Chuck." He carried two hefty machetes, a blade in each hand; he handed one to Charlie.

  "Okay." Charlie stood up. "Thanks, Mrs. Kuppenheimer -- thanks a lot."

  "Call me 'Maw."

  "Hurry up, Charlie."

  "Right. Say -- how about that call to my folks?"

  "I forgot! Maw, would you phone Mrs. Vaughn? Tell her Chuck is staying all night?"

  "Yes, surely. What's your frequency, Charlie?"

  "Ub, you have to call city exchange and ask them to relay."

  "Jawohl. You boys run along."

  They headed off through the fields. Nixie was allowed to run, which be did with glee, returning every thirty seconds or so to see that his charges had not fainted nor been kidnapped in his absence.

  "Where are we going, Hans?"

  Hans' eyes brightened. "To see the prettiest plantation land on Venus!"

  "It's mighty pretty, no doubt about it."

  -- "Not Paw's land. I mean my plantation."

  "Yours?"

  "Will be mine. Paw posted an option bond. When I'm old enough, I'll prove it." He hurried on.

  Shortly Charlie realized that he was lost even though they were in a cultivated grove. "Hold it, Hans! Can I borrow your polarizer?"

  "What for?"

  "I want to establish base, that's what. I'm all mixed up.',

  "Base is that direction," Hans answered, pointing with his machete. "My polarizer is at the house. We don't need it."

  "I just thought I ought to keep straight."

  "Look, Chuck, I can't get lost around here; I was born on this piece."

  "But I wasn't."

  "Keep your eyes open; you'll learn the landmarks. We're heading that way -- " Hans pointed again. " -- for that big tree." Charlie looked, saw several big trees. "We cut over a ridge. Pretty soon we come to my land. Okay?"

  "I guess so."

  "I won't let you get lost. Look, I'll show you the bush way to establish base -- polarizers are for townies." He looked around, his quick eyes picking up and discard,ing details. "There's one."

  "One what?"

  "Compass bug. Right there. Don't scare him. Back, Nixie!"

  Charlie looked, discovered a small, beetle-like creature with striped wing casings. Hans went on, "When they fly, they take right off toward the Sun. Every time, -- Then they level off and head home -- they live in nests." Hans slapped the ground beside the little creature; it took 0ff as if jet propelled. "So the Sun is that way. What time is it?"

  "Ten thirty, about."

  "So where is base?"

  Charlie thought about it. "Must be about there."

  "Isn't that the way I pointed? Now find another compass bug. Always one around, if you look."

  Charlie found one -- frightened it, watched it take off in the same direction as the first. "You. know, Hans," he said slowly, "bees do something like that -- fly by polarized light, I mean. That's the way they get back to their hives o~ cloudy days. I read about it."

  "Bees? Those Earth bugs that make sugar?"

  "Yes. But they aren't bugs."

  "Okay," Hans answered indifferently. "I'll never see one. Let's get moving."

  Presently they left cultivation, started into bush. Hans required Nixie to heel. Even though they were going uphill, the bush got thicker, became dense jungle. Hans led the way, occasionally chopping an obstacle.

  He stopped. "Trash!" he said bitterly.

  "Trouble?"

  "This is why I wanted the flamer. This bit grows pretty solid."

  "Can't we chop it?"

  "Take all day with a bush knife; need heat on it. Going to have to poison this whole stretch 'fore I get a road through from Paw's place to mine."

  "What do we do?"

  "Go around, what else?" He headed left. Charlie could not see that Hans was following any track, decided he must know his way by the contour of the ground. About half an hour later Hans paused and whispered, "Keep quiet. Make Nixie keep quiet."

  "What for?" Charlie whispered back.

  "Good chance you'll see kteela, if we don't scare them." He went noiselessly ahead, with the other boy and the dog on his heels. He stopped. "There."

  Charlie oozed forward, looked over Hans' shoulder -- found that he was looking down at a stream. He heard a splash on his right, turned his head just in time to see spreading ripples. "Did you see him?" asked Hans in a normal voice.

  "Shucks, he was right there. A big one. Their houses are just downstream. They often fish along here. Have to keep your eyes open, Chuck." Hans looked thoughtful. "Kteela are people."

  "Huh?"

  "They're people. Paw thinks so. If we could just get acquainted with them, we could prove it. But they're timid. Come on -- we cross here." Hans d~scended the bank, sat down on muddy sand by running water and started taking his shoes off. "Mind where you sit."

  Charlie did the same. Bare-footed and bare-legged, Hans picked up Nixie. "I'll lead. This stretch is shallow -- keep moving and don't stumble."

  The water was warm and the bottom felt mucky; Charlie was glad when they reached the far side. "Get the leeches off," Hans commanded as he put Nixie down. Charlie looked down at his legs, was amazed to find half a dozen purple blobs, large as hens' eggs, clinging to him. Hans cleaned his own legs, helped Charlie make sure that he was free of the parasites. "Run your fingers between your toes. Try to get the sand fleas off as you put on your boots, too -- though they don't really matter."

  "Anything else in that water?" Charlie asked, much subdued.

  "Oh, glass fish can bite a chunk out -- of you...but they aren't poisonous. Kteela keep this stream cleaned up. Let's go."

  They went up the far side, reached a stretch that was higher and fairly dry. Charlie thought that they were probably-going upstream, he could not be sure.

  Hans stopped suddenly. "Dragonfly. Hear it?"

  Charlie listened, heard the high, motor-like hum he had heard the night before. "There it is," Hans said quickly. "Hang onto Nixie and be ready to beat it off. I'm going to attract its attention."

  Charlie felt that attracting its attention was in a class with teasing a rattlesnake, but it was too late to object; Hans was waving his arms.

  The fly hesitated, veered, headed straight for him. Charlie felt a moment of dreadful anticipation -- then saw Hans take one swipe with his machete. The humming stopped; the thing flOttered to the ground.

  Hans was grinning. The dragonfly jerked in reflex, but it was dead, the head neatly chopped off. "Didn't waste a bit," Hans said proudly.

  "Huh?"

  "That's lunch. Cut some of that oil weed behind you." Hans squatted down. In three quick slices he cut off the stinger and the wings; what was left was the size of a medium lobster. Using the chrome-sharp machete as delicately as a surgeon's knife, he split the underside of the exoskeleton, gently and neatly stripped out the gut. He started to throw it away, then paused and stared at it thoughtfully. --

  Charlie had been watching in queasy fascination. "Trouble?"

  "Egg sac is full. They're going to-swarm."

  "That's bad, isn't it?"

  "Some. They swarm every three, four years." Hans' hesitated. "We'd better skip seeing my land. Got to tell Paw, so they'll keep the kids in."

  "Okay, let's get started."

  "We'll eat lunch first. Ten minutes won't matter -- they aren't really swarming yet, or this one wouldn't have been alone."

  Charlie started to say that he wasn't interested in lunch -- not this lunch -- but Hans was already starting a fire. --

  What was left in the exoskeleton was clean milkywhite meat, lean flying muscle. Hans cut out chunks, toasted them over the fire, salted them from a pocket shaker. "Have some."

  "Uh, I'm not hungry."

  "You're crazy in the head, too. Here, Nixie." Nixie had been
waiting politely but with his nose quivering. He snapped the tidbit out of the air, gulped it down, waited still more eagerly while Hans ate the next piece.

  It did smell good...and it looked good, when he kept his mind off the source. Charlie's mouth began to water. Hans looked up. "Change your mind?"

  "Uh...let me tastc just a bite."

  It reminded Charlie of crab meat. A few minutes later the exoskeleton was stripped too clean to interest even Nixie. Charlie stood up, burped gently, and said, "Ready?"

  "Yeah. Uh, Chuck, one thing I do want to show you...and there's a way back above it maybe quicker than the way we came."

  "What is it?"

  "You'll see." Hans headed off in a new direction. Charlie wondered how Hans had picked it without the aid of a compass bug.

  In a -- few minutes they were going downhill. Hans stopped. "Hear it?"

  Charlie listened, seemed to pick out a soft roar under the ever-present multiple voice of the jungle. "It's not a dragonfly?"

  "Of course not. You've got ears."

  "What is it?" Hans did not reply, led on. Presently they broke into a clearing, or rather a room, for the jungle closed in overhead. It enclosed a delightful, surprising waterfall; the muted roar was its song.

  "Isn't that swell?"

  "It sure is," Charlie agreed. "I haven't seen anything so pretty in years."

  "Sure, it's pretty. But that's not the point. My land is just above. I'll put a water wheel here and have my own power." Hans led his two friends down near it, began to talk excitedly about his plans. The noise of falling water was so great that he had to shout.

  So neither one of them heard it. Charlie heard Nixie bark, turned his head and saw it at the last moment. "Hans! Dragon!"

  Too late -- the thing nailed Hans between his shoulder blades. It laid no eggs; Charlie killed it, crushed it with his hands. But Hans had already been stung.

  Charlie wiped his trembling hands. on his pants and looked down at his chum. Hans had collapsed even as Charlie had killed the thing; he lay crumpled on the ground. Charlie bent over him. "Hans! Hans, answer me!"

  Hans' -- eyelids fluttered. "Get Paw."

  "Hans...can you stand up?"

  "Sorry...Cbuck" -- then very feebly, "My fault." His eyes stayed open, but Charlie could get no more out of him. --

  Even in his distress Charlie's training stayed with him. He could not find Hans' pulse, so he listened for his heart...was rewarded and greatly relieved by a steady, strong flub-a-dub!...flub-a-dub! Hans looked ghastly -- but apparently it was true that they just paralyzed; they didn't kill.

  But what to do?

  Hans had said to get his father. Sure -- but how? Could he find his way to the house? Even if he could, could he lead them back here? No, he wouldn't have to -- surely Mr. Kuppenheimer would know where the waterfall was that Hans meant to harness. So what he had to do was simply get back. Now let's see; they had come down the bank there -- and after they had crossed the stream -- it must be this same stream; they hadn't gone over any watershed. Or had they?

  Well, it had better be the same stream, else he was lost beyond hope. Back through the bush, then and across the stream -- How was he going to-cut back in and hit the stream at the place where it could be forded? The bush all looked pretty much alike.

  Maybe he had better go downstream along the bank until he hit it. Then cross, and if he could find a compass bug, he could strike off in the general direction of the Kuppenheimers until he came to civilization. He remembered which way base was when they had first started out; that would orient him.

  Or would it? They had gone first to that place that couldn't be passed without a flamer -- but where had they gone then? How many turns? Which way were they heading when they reached the place where he had not quite seen a kteela?

  Well, he would just have to try. At least he could get onto the same side of the stream as the plantation.

  Nixie had been sniffing at Hans' still body. Now he began to whine steadily. "Shut up, you!" Charlie snapped. "I don't want any trouble out of you, too."

  Nixie shut up.

  Charlie decided that he couldn't leave Hans; he would have to take him with him. He kneeled down and started wrestling Hans' limp body into a fireman's carry, while wondering miserably whether or not Hans had told his mother where they were going? Or if it would do any good if he had, since they were not where Hans had originally intended to take them.

  "Heel, Nixie."

  An indefinitely long time later Charlie put Hans down on the ground in a fairly open place. It had taken only a few minutes of struggle to convince him that he could not carry Hans along the bank of the stream. A man might have been able to carve his way through with a machete -- but while Charlie had two machetes he could not swing them and carry Hans as well. After giving that route up, he abandoned one machete by the waterfall, thinking that Hans could find it there some other day. He was tempted to abandon both, for the one on his belt was heavy and got in his way, but he decided that he might have to have it; they had done plenty of chopping in getting here.

  So he set out again, this time trying to retrace their steps through the bush, hoping to spot the places they had chopped to help him find his way.

  He never -- spotted such -- a sign; the living green maze swallowed all such puny marks.

  After a long time he decided to go back to the familiar waterfall -- he would stay there, nurse Hans, filter water for them all, and wait. Surely Mr. Kuppenheimer would eventually think of the waterfall!

  So he turned back...and could not find the waterfall. Not even the stream.

  He walked through something. He couldn't see -- it, there were branches in his face. Whatever it was it clung to his legs like red-hot wires; he stumbled and almost dropped Hans getting free of it. Then his leg did not stop paining him. The fiery burning dropped off a little but a numbness crept up his right leg.

  He was glad indeed to put Hans on the ground at the first fairly open place he came to. He sat down and rubbed his leg, then checked Hans -- still breathing, heart still beating...but out like a light.

  Nixie sniffed Hans again, then looked up and whined inquiringly. "I can't help it," Charlie said to him. "He's a mess. I'm a mess. You're a mess, too."

  Nixie barked.

  "I will, I will...just as soon as I can move. Don't hurry me. How would you like to carry him for a while?"

  Charlie continued to rub his leg. The pain was going away but the numbness was worse. At last he said to Nixie, "I guess we ought to try it, pal. Wait a second while I look for a compass bug -- the way I f~gure it, we came mostly base, so I guess we ought to try to head reverse." He glanced at his wrist to see what time it was.

  His watch had stopped.

  But jt couldn't stop -- it was self-winding.

  Nevertheless it had. Perhaps he had banged it in the bush, perhaps...no matter, it had stopped. He looked. for Hans' watch, thinking that its twenty-four-hour face was easier to use as a compass dial anyhow.

  But Hans was not wearing his watch, nor was it in any of his pockets. Whether he had left it at the house, along with his polarizer and duffel bag, or whether it had dropped off while Charlie was carrying him, did not matter. They had no watch between them and Charlie did not know what time it was, not even approximately. It seemed to him that he had been carrying Hans, fighting this dreary bush, for a week.

  So a compass bug couldn't tell him anything.

  He almost felt defeated at that moment. But he rallied, telling himself that if he went downhill he was bound to find that stream...then he would either find the ford or the waterfall, one or the other. He hauled himself around into position to lift Hans, favoring his right leg.

  He need not have bothered; his right leg was not working.

  The "pins and needles" in it were almost unbearable, as if he had sat much too long in a cramped position. But they would not go away as they always had in the past; nothing he could do would make that leg obey his orders. -- He lowered his head aga
inst Hans and bawled.

  He became aware that Nixie was licking his face and whining. He stopped his useless blubbering and raised his head. "It's all right, fellow. Don't you worry."

  But it wasn't all right. While Charlie was no jungle rat, he did know that search parties could comb the area f weeks -- and not -- find them, could pass within feet of tl~ spot and never see them. Possibly no human being h~ ever been where they were now; possibly no hum~ would reach this spot in many years to come.

  If he didn't use his head now, they would never get oi~ Nixie sat patiently, watching him, trusting him. "Nixie, this is up to you now, boy. You understar me?"

  Nixie whined. "Go back to the house. Fetch! Fetch Maw. Fet anybody. Right now! Go back to the house."

  Nixie barked.

  "Don't argue with me. You've got to do it. Gohom Go back and fetch somebody!"

  Nixie looked -- dubious, trotted a few steps in the direction in which they had come, stopped and booke around inquiringly. "That's right! Keep going! Go bac to the house! Fetch somebody! Go!"

  Nixie looked sharply at him, then trotted away in businesslike fashion.

  Sometime later Charlie raised his head and shook i Gosh! he must have gone to sleep...couldn't do th~

  What if another dragonfly came along...have I stay awake. Was Hans all right? Have to pick him up an get out of here...where was Nixie? "Nixie!"

  No answer. That was the last straw. But he'd have I get moving anyhow -- His leg wouldn't work...felt funny. "Nixie! Nixie!

  Mrs. Kuppenheimer heard the scratching and whining at the door, wiped her hands on her apron and went to open it. When she saw what was there she threw her hands up. "Lieber Gott! What happened to you?" She knelt swiftly, picked up the little dog and put him on her clean table, bent over him, talking to him and picking leeches from him, wiping away blood. "Schrecklich!"

  "What happened to him, Mama?"

  "I don't know." She went on working. But Nixie jumped Out of her arms, charged straight for the closed door, tried to crash his way out -- unsuccessful, he leaped and clawed at it and howled. --

  Mrs. Kuppenheimer gathered him up and held his struggling body against her breast. "Gerta! Get Paw!"