Should he risk a shot after all? he wondered. It would take Cat a while to a.s.sume a more mobile shape. He would doubtless have several opportunities during that time....
Movement again. The rock shifted, flowed, reformed far- ther along the wall.
Suffer, tracker. You are going to die. Four first shot will betray you and I will dodge all of the successive ones. You
will see me when I am ready to be seen and you will pre it then.
The movement commenced again, drifting toward a real rock beneath a shelflike overhang. Within the amorphous form the glittering of Cat"s eye became visible; his limbs began to take form.
Billy bit his lip, recalling having seen a torglind meta- morph run up a near-vertical wall on the home planet. He triggered the weapon then and missed.
Cat froze for a split second as the flash occurred high overhead, then moved more slowly than Billy had antici- pated, leading Billy to believe that the beast was indeed injured. Cat sprang back toward a line of stones nearer the wall. And then, realizing his mistake as he glanced upward, his legs bunched beneath him and he sprang forward again.
But not in time.
A large slab of stone facing, blasted loose by the shot, slid down the wall, striking the shelf beneath which Cat crouched. Even as his feet left the ground, it descended upon him.
Hunter! I believe - you"ve won.... "
Billy fired again. This time he scorched the earth ten yards off to the right of the fall. He moved the barrel slightly to the left and triggered the weapon again. This time the top of the rubble heap exploded.
It seemed that he could make out a single, ma.s.sive fore- limb projected near the front of the pile. But at that distance he could not be certain.
Was that a twitch?
He fired again, blasting the center of the heap.
The canyon rang with a ma.s.sive cawing note. The flapping sound began again, slowly. He looked up briefly and glimpsed the shadow moving off to his right.
"It is over," he sang, head rested upon his forearm, "and my thanks rise like smoke...."
His words trailed off as his eyes moved across the canyon floor. Then his brow furrowed. He raised himself. He leaned forward to peer.
"Why?" he said aloud.
But nothing answered.
The trail he had followed did not terminate at this place.
Somehow he had not noticed this earlier. It ran off to his right, curving out of sight beyond the canyon wall, presum- ably continuing on into the farther reaches of the place.
He slung his weapon and adjusted his pack. He did not understand, but he would go on.
He returned to the place where he had climbed and began his descent.
His shoulder ached. Also, it was raining on his face and a sharp stone was poking him in the back. He was aware of these things for some time before he realized that they meant he was alive.
Ironbear opened his eyes. Yellowcloud"s light lay upon the ground nearby, casting illumination along a gravel slope.
He turned his head and saw Yellowcloud. The man was seated with his back against a stone, legs straight out before him. Both of his hands were gripping his left thigh.
Ironbear raised his head, reached out a hand, levered himself upward.
"I live," he said, swinging into a sitting position. "How"re you?"
"Broken leg," Yellowcloud answered. "Above the knee."
Ironbear rose, crossed to the light and picked it up, turned back toward Yellowcloud.
"Bad place for a break," he said, advancing. "Can"t even hobble."
He squatted beside the other man.
"I"m not sure what"s the best thing to do," he said. "Got any suggestions?"
"I"ve already called for help. My portaphone wasn"t damaged. They"ll be along with a medic. Get me out of here in a sling if they have to. Don"t worry. I"ll be okay."
"Why are we still alive?"
"It didn"t think we were worth killing, I guess. Just an annoyance, to be brushed aside."
"Makes you feel real important, doesn"t it?"
"I"m not complaining. Listen, there"s dry wood along the wall. Get me a couple of armloads, will you? I want a fire."
"Sure." He moved to comply. "I wonder how far along "
that thing has gotten?"
"Can"t you tell?"
"I don"t want to get near it at that level. It can hurt you just with its mind."
"You going after it?"
"If I can figure a way to follow it."
Yellowcloud smiled and turned his head, gesturing with his chin.
"It went that way."
"I"m not a tracker like you."
"h.e.l.l, you don"t have to be. That thing"s heavy and it"s running, right out in the open. Nothing fancy. It couldn"t care less whether one of us knows where it went. You take the light. I"ll have the fire. You"ll be able to see the marks it left."
He carried over the first load of kindling, went back to look for more. By the time he returned with the second load, Yellowcloud had a fire going.
"Anything else I can do for you?" he asked.
"No. Just get moving."
He slung his weapon and picked up the light. When he played the beam Up the canyon he saw the tracks readily enough.
"And take this." Yellowcloud pa.s.sed him the portaphone.
"Okay. I"ll go try again."
"Maybe you ought to aim for its eye."
"Maybe I should. See you."
Good luck."
He turned and began walking. The water was a dark, speaking thing whose language he did not understand. The way was clear. The tracks were large.
The wind stirs the gra.s.ses.
The,snow glides across the earth.
The whirlwind walks on the mountain, raising dust.
The rocks are ringing
high on the mountain, behind the fog.
The sun"s light is running out like water from a cracked pitcher.
We shall live again.
The snowy earth slides out of the whirling wind.
We shall live again.
AROUND THE CURVE OF THE.
canyon wall, walking. Gusts of wind here over stream grown wider, swirling glittering particles across watersong gone wild. Other side more sheltered but the red way lies close to the wall, here, rising now. Ripples like rushing pictographs.
Pawprints of the perfidious one. Ice-rimed bones beside the trail. Rabbit. Burnt hogan, green glow within. Place of death. Shift eyes. Hurry on. Shine of crystal. Snow-streaked wall, texture of feathers. "Bail winding on. As far as the eye will go. What now the quarry?
Pause to drink at the crossing of tributary streamlet Burning cold, flavored of rock and earth. Fog bank ahead, moving toward him, masked dancers within; about a south- blue blaze. Rhythms in the earth. He is become a smoke, drifting along his way, silent and featureless, rushing to merge with that place of flux and earthdance cadence. Yes, and be lost in it.
White and soft, smothering sounds, like that place where he had hunted the garlett, so long ago...
Dancers to the right, dancers to the left, dancers crossing his way. Do they even see him, invisible and spiritlike, pa.s.sing among them, along the stillbright, stillred way writ- ten upon the ground as with fire and blood?
One draws nearer bearing something covered by a cloth woven with an old design. He halts, for the dancer moves to bar his way, thrusting the thing before him. It is uncovered, displaying a pair of-hands. He stares at them. That scar near the base of the left thumb... They are his hands.
At the recognition they rise to hover in front of him, as if he were holding them before his face. He feels them, glove- like, at the extremity of his spirit. He had skinned game with them, fought with them, stroked Dora"s hair with them....
He lets them fall to his sides. It is good to have them back again. The dancer moves away. Billy swirls like a whirlwind of snow and continues along his trail.
There is no time. A cl.u.s.ter of gray sticks, rising from the
earth on the slope to his right, beside the trail... He pauses to watch as the sticks turn green, b.u.mps appearing along their surfaces to become buds. The buds crack, leaves unwind themselves, turn, enlarge. White flowers come forth.
He pa.s.ses, swinging his hands. Another dancer with an- other parcel approaches from his left.
He halts, hovering, and with his hands he accepts the gift of his feet and restores them to their places on the ground below him. The many miles we have come together...
Walking, again walking, upon the trail. Feeling the heart- beat of the earth through the soles of his feet. There is no time. Snowflakes blow upward before him. The stream has reversed its direction. Blood flows back into the wounded deer lying still across his way. It springs to its hoofs, turns and is gone.
Now, like curtains, a parting of the fog. Four masked dancers advance upon him, bearing the body that is his own.
When he wears it again, he thanks them, but they withdraw in silence.
He moves on along the trail. The fog is shifting. Every- thing is shifting but the trail.
He hears a sound which he has not heard in a great counting of years. It begins off in the distance behind him and rises in pitch as it comes on: the whistle of a train.
Then he hears the chugging. They no longer make engines of this sort. There is nothing here for it to run on. There is - He sees the rails paralleling his trail. That ledge ahead seems a platform now....
The whistle sounds again. Nearer. He feels the throb of the thing, superimposed upon the earth rhythms. A train such as Be has not beheld in years is coming. Coming, impossibly, through this impossible place. He keeps walk- ing, as the sound of it fills the world. It should be rushing up beside him at any moment.
The shriek of the whistle fills his hearing. He turns his head.
Yes, it has come. An ancient, black, smoke-puffing dragon of an engine, a number of pa.s.senger cars trailing behind. He hears the screaming of its brakes begin.
He looks back to the area of the platform, to where a single, slouched figure now stands waiting. Almost familiar...
With a clattering and the cries of metal friction the engine draws abreast of him, slowing, slowing, and pa.s.ses to halt