Frontier of the Dark Read online

  He sighed. Then, “We shall just have to use the laser pistols,” he said. “On low intensity.”

  Carlin said to Linda, “You should have brought yours, shouldn’t you?” She scowled at Falsen, remarked cattily, “I seem to remember that you expressed surprise that I, a mere engineer, should be in charge of an exploring party. And now that you, a member of the Lord’s Anointed, are in charge of one, you have given evidence of your lack of forethought.”

  “Call the ship,” Falsen told her. “Tell the Lady Mother that we’re going into a cave. Not all of us. Two of your people will wait outside so they can scream for help if we don’t come out after a reasonable length of time. Unless, of course, your radios can punch their signals through tonnes of earth and rock.”

  “As a matter of fact,” she said, “they can. In some respects our technology is superior to yours.”

  She spoke briefly into her transceiver, listened to the acknowledgement. She said, her voice hostile, “The Lady Mother impressed upon me that you are still in charge.”

  “Then, come on,” ordered Falsen. “Follow me.”

  He pulled his laser pistol from its holster, set it to wide beam and low intensity, pressed and locked the trigger. Even out here, in the diffuse sunlight, the radiance reflected from the rock was almost dazzling. He squeezed his body between the boulders. Where he could go the Doralans would have no trouble following, neither would Linda. There was a little more room inside the cave, but his body blocked the descending tunnel from the view of those behind him. There was a sparse covering of sand on the rocky floor. As he had done in Linda’s cave, he wondered what the geological and meteorological past of this world could have been.

  He called, “You’re right, Linda. They came this way.”

  “Let me see!” cried Carlin. Then, “You clumsy male control-room ornament! Your big feet are obliterating the tracks!”

  “It was something with claws,” said Falsen.

  The tunnel widened and took an upward turn. There was no more sand, only bare rock. Then it plunged downward again, steeply. Falsen kept in the lead, the beam of his laser pistol giving him ample warning of irregularities on the floor. It was not a straight way down. There were turnings, some of them almost at right angles. But still the direction was down, down.

  The air, to Falsen’s nostrils, smelled dry — dry and sterile. It was not the sterility of long-ago death but a sterility that had never known life. But he said nothing. Linda had led the party here, and all that he could do was play along with her. Some extra sense told him of the girl’s mounting excitement, of the eager anticipation of a hunter with the kill almost within sight. An extra sense? Of that he was not quite sure. Perhaps it was only that his other senses were keen enough to appreciate her quickened breathing, the subtle change in her scent, just as the same senses brought him evidence of the fear — a fear that was kept well down, well under control, but still fear — of the Doralans.

  But Carlin’s distinctive odor was unchanged.

  He turned, at last, the last corner.

  His laser beam suddenly impinged upon something smooth and gleaming, something that reflected the light like a huge black mirror. Falsen hurried forward. There was Sand here again, and his feet destroyed the long, undisturbed smoothness of the surface. (If there had been tracks they would have been obliterated.) He directed his laser up, around. They had come, he saw, into a huge cavern, a vast, subterranean hall that was almost filled, at floor level, by the glassy waters of a lake. Only here, where he had emerged from the tunnel, was there any beach. Only directly opposite was there any other way for anything to emerge from the water onto dry land; there was a shelving rock ledge, the rim of it submerged. In the gray but glittering rock wall beyond were the mouths of two smaller caves or tunnels.

  “They must have crossed the water,” said Falsen.

  “If you say so,” said Carlin. “You’ve destroyed what tracks there were.”

  “We shall have to cross,” Linda said. “It looks deep.”

  “There are two tunnels there,” said Carlin. “Which one?”

  “The one to the right,” murmured Linda. “Yes. That one.”

  “Why?” demanded Carlin. “I’m beginning to wonder just what special senses you people have got.”

  “Just what came with the lease,” said Falsen.

  “Nick,” said Linda. “I’m going across. Carlin, I shall want four of your people with me.”

  “You’re not armed,” Carlin told her.

  “But your people are. I suppose that their weapons are waterproof?”

  “Of course they are!”

  Then the Doralan officer snapped orders in her own language, in a bad tempered voice.

  CHAPTER 7

  Four women — a junior officer and three of the enlisted people — reluctantly removed their cloaks and their boots, even more reluctantly pulled off their tunics and stepped out of their brief underwear. It was not prudery that inhibited them, Falsen sensed. It was just that they were scared, badly scared.

  They stood there, shivering, in the harsh light of the lasers. Their bodies were pale, fragile. They were almost breastless, and at their pudenda was only a faint shadow of down. Carlin gave another sharp order and they picked up their belts and fastened them about their slender waists. The stunguns were, of course, still in their holsters. They switched off and holstered their laser pistols. Held by Carlin, Falsen and the other junior officer, they would afford ample light for their passage across the lake.

  Linda stripped.

  She looked far from fragile. Her breasts were not large by Terran standards, but compared to the Doralans she was a refugee from one of the cruder girlie magazines so popular among spacemen. At the base of her belly was a veritable dark-foliaged forest.

  She said, “Come on.”

  She waded into the black water — to knee level, to thigh level, then fell forward with a splash and began to swim. The junior officer followed her, squealing at the first shock. She turned a protesting face to Carlin, to Falsen. She whimpered, in English, “It is cold … ”

  Carlin snarled something in her own language. The girl replied briefly and then set off after Linda, moving sinuously and almost silently across the lake. The three enlisted women followed her.

  Linda reached the far side. She waded up the shelving ledge to dry rock. She turned and stood there, her body whitely luminous in the laser glare against the dark cavern wall. The Doralans joined her, unholstered the weapons that served as torches. Linda turned again, dropped to her hands and knees, made an examination of the rock surface. She straightened up, made a beckoning gesture, set off for the tunnel mouth. The other women, their laser pistols switched on, followed her. The glare faded to a glow as they negotiated a curve, a corner. It died out.

  Falsen said to Carlin, “I wonder what they’ll find.”

  “Nothing!” snapped Carlin. “What is that expression you use? A wild-goose chase? That is what you have led us on.”

  “I am trying to help,” said Falsen virtuously. “We have another saying that you may have heard. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”

  “Horses aren’t the only animals with teeth,” she said.

  It was both what she said and the way she said it that disturbed Falsen. He was trying to think of a suitable reply when there was a sudden ruddy glare from the tunnel entrance. Somebody must be using a laser at full intensity. There was a crackling of rock shattering under the influence of extreme heat. There was screaming. The light died, the crackling noise ceased, but the screaming went on.

  But not for long.

  There was silence, briefly.

  Then something was howling, a horrifying ululation that was not human, that echoed from the rocky walls, that seemed to be amplified rather than diminished with each reverberation.

  The silence fell like a blow.

  Falsen stripped, flinging his garments from him. He entered the water in a shallow dive, gasped as the icy chill of it shocked his
skin. Something passed him, going like a torpedo. It was Carlin. Then the light from behind dimmed, flickered but did not go out, wavered up ahead and to both sides. The other Doralan, the junior officer, must be coming after them, he thought, swimming with the switched-on laser pistol in one hand.

  Carlin reached the shelving ledge, stood up and waded ashore, ran for the tunnel mouth, laser pistol in hand. Falsen hit bottom, scrambled after her, the junior officer close behind. Carlin vanished into the dark opening. Suddenly she screamed — and it signified fury rather than fear. There was the reflected glare of her weapon being used to kill rather than to illuminate. She screamed again, viciously, and something was snarling. Staggering backward, Carlin reappeared in the tunnel mouth. There was a shower of molten rock and red-hot fragments as the laser beam raked across the roof of it. She fell, blundering into Falsen and the other Doralan, tripping them, dropping her gun which, fortunately, was directed only at the rock wall which glowed and splintered.

  And there was something else bursting from the tunnel, something huge and darkly gray and hairy, something whose eyes gleamed green and evil in the reflected light. Its yellowish, bloodstained teeth were suddenly at the throat of the junior officer. She had no time even to scream.

  Falsen fought the thing, pulling it off the body of its victim. He got his fingers into the shaggy mane, his legs around its body. Briefly they rolled on the hard, smooth rock; and then it broke away, ran back into the tunnel. Falsen followed, stepping on Carlin’s supine body. He heard the breath expelled from her lungs in a loud gasp. She would be in no condition, he realized, to come after him.

  Once he was round the corner just inside the entrance, there was no light. Falsen found his way surefootedly, only occasionally putting out a hand to steady himself against the rock wall. The odor of freshly spilled blood was heavy in the air, as was the acridity of scorched and fused rock. His bare foot struck something hard and metallic. He picked it up. It was a laser pistol dropped by one of the Doralans. Working by feel, he made sure that the selector switch was on a safe setting, then turned it on.

  In the harsh glare he saw the bodies.

  The crewwomen were dead. No close examination was necessary; they were too close to being human, Falsen knew, to live with their throats torn out. Linda was there. There was blood on her face and her pale body. She blinked at the bright light.

  She said in a matter of fact voice, “It’s you. Where’s Carlin?”

  “She won’t be following until she gets her breath back.”

  “So there’s time … ” she said.

  “Yes. You must have been injured in the fight … .”

  She laughed. “But I heal quick. Better put the light out, in case she comes … .”

  He switched off the laser.

  There was a little cry of pain from the girl, then, “Couldn’t you have been gentler?”

  “I could,” said Falsen, his voice muffled, distorted, “but this has to look convincing … ..”

  He turned the light on again.

  “She’s coming now,” said Linda.

  Together they listened to the whisper of bare feet on the rocky floor. They saw Carlin round the bend in the tunnel. She was staggering slightly. She stared at the bodies of her women, whispered something in her own language. Then she looked at Linda.

  She said, “You are wounded … ”

  Linda put a hand to the gaping wound on her left shoulder.

  “It is only a scratch,” she said valiantly.

  “Only a scratch? It, whatever it is, nearly bit your arm off. Which way did it go?”

  “Deeper into the tunnel,” said Falsen. “Feel like following it?”

  “No. We were lucky. We’d better stay that way. Can you walk, Linda? Can you swim?”

  “With some help,” she said.

  And Carlin too had been injured, Falsen saw. There were scratch marks on her white belly, on one of her breasts. But unless they became infected, they were not serious.

  She said, “Let’s get out of here. It may come back. But first I must report to the ship.” She spoke at some length into her wrist transceiver in her own language. Falsen could hear the questions and comments from the other end, recognized the Lady Mother’s voice. Then Carlin told Linda and Falsen, “They are sending the airship for us, and a party to collect the … bodies. We will wait for them outside the cave.”

  The three of them, Carlin in the lead, Falsen supporting Linda, made their way through the tunnel, back to the shore of the subterranean lake. They waded out into the cold water, let their bodies fall forward and began to swim. Linda said that she would be able to manage by herself, but Falsen stayed by her side all the way across. On the other side they found a first-aid kit in one of the packs left with the clothing. Antiseptic was applied to the women’s wounds, then syntheskin. The cloaks of those who would no longer need them were used as towels to dry off the bodies of the survivors.

  After they had dressed they entered the passage back to the outside world.

  When they emerged onto the hillside they found that the sun was not far from setting. A damp chill was in the air and a low mist was hanging over every pool and little lake. The airship was approaching, heading straight for them, the grapnels already dangling on their lines. It slowed down as it drew near, stopped when it was almost overhead, its momentum killed by reverse thrust.

  Carlin caught one of the grapnels, wedged its prongs securely under a boulder. Falsen followed her example. Then the thing was winching itself down until the skids under the gondola were almost in contact with the ground. A ladder was thrown out and half a dozen Doralans clambered down. They were armed and were carrying portable lights. There were also long bundles that, thought Falsen, must be stretchers.

  “You will wait here, both of you,” Carlin snapped to Falsen when he made as though to enter the cave.

  “You may need an extra gun,” said Falsen.

  “You are our guests,” the Doralan officer said. “You have risked too much already and Linda has been injured. Wait here.”

  Then she and her party, one by one, negotiated the narrow entrance of the tunnel and vanished.

  • • •

  Falsen and Linda did not talk much while they waited for the reemergence of the Doralans. With the setting of the sun, the air became very cold and they decided that it would be warmer inside the ship. Falsen climbed the short ladder to the control cabin, found that the door at the top of it was firmly shut. He hammered at it with his fist. There was somebody inside the car, more than one person. He could hear conversation, the sound of voices that ceased briefly as he beat on the sliding panel, that resumed almost at once.

  “Let me in!” he shouted. “Let me in!”

  Faintly, through the thin metal, came the reply, “The Lady Carlin says not.”

  “It is cold out here,” he called.

  “The Lady Carlin said that you are to wait outside.”

  It was useless to argue.

  Falsen dropped to the ground, rejoined Linda. They found a cranny between two tall rocks, huddled together. There was some protection from the thin breeze that had arisen, and they derived warmth from each other’s bodies.

  But it seemed a very long wait before Carlin and her party returned to the surface. There had been five bodies to carry and there were only three stretchers.

  CHAPTER 8

  Falsen said to Carlin, “I shall complain to the Lady Mother. She said that I was to be in charge of the hunting party. But you not only took over but forced Miss Veerhausen and myself to wait here, on the hillside, almost freezing to death. We were denied admittance into the airship, on your orders.”

  “There must have been some misunderstanding,” Carlin said. “Some misinterpretation of what I told the pilot. As to the question of who is or is not in charge, I am. When I reported the killings to the Lady Mother she told me that I was, from that moment, fully responsible.”

  “For the killings?” asked Falsen nastily.

&n
bsp; “No. For seeing that there are no more killings.”

  It made sense, Falsen admitted to himself. After all, he was the outsider, the alien. Not only was he a member of a different species but also of the wrong sex. The Lady Mother, familiar with Terran mores, had been prepared to overlook this. Her officers, none of whom had spent as much time on Earth as had their captain, were far less tolerant. Linda they would accept as a sister, but Falsen, a dominant male in his own culture, was a potential enemy.

  “Can We go on board now?” asked Falsen.

  “You may, but wait until the bodies and the equipment have been loaded.”

  Water ballast splashed down to the ground as the extra weight was taken aboard the ship. One by one the mutilated bodies, wrapped in their red cloaks, were passed up to the now open door, then the weapons and the portable lights. The Doralans clambered up the ladder, followed by Linda who, in spite of her injured shoulder, managed without assistance. Falsen climbed after her. Carlin was last.

  This time Falsen was allowed to stay in the control car, although the Doralans carefully avoided contact with him. He watched with interest as tugs on the tripping lines caused the arms of the grapnels to drop, releasing their hold on the soil. The airship lifted slowly, turned until the space vessel, brightly illuminated, a shining tower in the deepening dusk, came directly ahead, a glowing beacon in the milky sea that was the ground mist. The hum of the motors rose to a whine as speed was increased.

  • • •

  Accompanied by Linda and Falsen, Carlin reported at once to the Lady Mother who, with senior officers, listened to their stories.

  When they had finished she said, “You said that you saw a beast slinking outside your cave, Linda, and that you thought that it had a scaly armor. But this thing that you fought today was, you tell me, hairy or furry. I find it hard to understand that it was not killed by laser fire. Heavy scales would afford some protection to their owner; a hairy skin would not.”

  Linda said, “Your people who were with me were using their laser pistols more as torches than as weapons. They were slow in switching from an illuminating to a lethal beam. Then their fire was wild. They might have hit the beast — but if they did it was nowhere vital.”