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were going in the opposite direction. Even under two gravities, they moved.
Jason had a naked feeling of being alone on the stage. He was in the center of
the street, and the others had vanished. No one remained. Except the wounded
man Jason had helped. He stumbled toward Jason, waving his good arm. Jason
couldn't understand what he said. Kerk was shouting orders again from one of
the trucks. They had started to move too. The urgency struck home and
Jason started to run.
It was too late. On all sides the earth was buckling, cracking, as more loops
of the underground thing forced its way into the light. Safety lay ahead. Only
in front of it rose an arch of dirt encrusted grey.
There are seconds of time that seem to last an eternity. A moment of
subjective time that is grabbed and stretched to an infinite distance. This
was one of those moments. Jason stood, frozen. Even the smoke in the sky hung
unmoving. The high-standing loop of alien life was before him, every detail
piercingly clear.
Thick as a man, ribbed and grey as old bark. Tendrils projected from all parts
of it, pallid and twisting lengths that writhed slowly with snake-like life.
Shaped like a plant, yet with the motions of an animal. And cracking,
splitting. This was the worst.
Seams and openings appeared. Splintering, gaping mouths that vomited out a
horde of pallid animals. Jason heard their shriekings, shrill yet remote. He
saw the needle-like teeth that lined their jaws.
The paralysis of the unknown held him there. He should have died. Kerk was
thundering at him through the power speaker, others were firing into the
attacking creature. Jason knew nothing.
Then he was shot forward, pushed by a rock-hard shoulder. The wounded man was
still there, trying to get Jason clear. Gun clenched in his jaws, he dragged
Jason along with his good arm. Toward the creature. The others stopped firing.
They saw his plan and it was a good one.
A loop of the thing arched into the air, leaving an opening between its body
and the ground. The wounded Pyrran planted his feet and tightened his muscles.
One-handed, with a single thrust, he picked Jason off the ground and sent him
hurtling under the living arch. Moving tendrils brushed fire along his face,
then he was through, rolling over and over on the ground. The wounded
Pyrran leaped after him.
It was too late. There had been a chance for one person to get out. The Pyrran
could have done it easily-instead he had pushed
Jason first. The thing was aware of movement when Jason brushed its tendrils.
It dropped and caught the wounded man under its weight. He vanished from sight
as the tendrils wrapped around him and the animals swarmed over. His trigger
must have pulled back to full automatic because the gun kept firing a long
time after he should have been dead.
Jason crawled. Some of the fanged animals ran toward him, but were shot. He
knew nothing about this. Then rude hands grabbed him up and pulled him
forward. He slammed into the side of a truck and Kerk's face was in front of
his, flushed and angry. One of the giant fists closed on the front of Jason's
clothes and he was lifted off his feet, shaken like a limp bag of rags. He
offered no protest and could not have even if Kerk had killed him.
When he was thrown to the ground, someone picked him up and slid him into the
back of the truck. He did not lose consciousness as the truck bounced away,
yet he could not move. In a moment the fatigue would go away and he would sit
up.
That was all he was, just a little tired. Even as he thought this, he passed
out.
13
"Just like old times," Jason said when Brucco came into the room with a tray
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of food. Without a word Brucco served Jason and the wounded men in the other
beds, then left. "Thanks," Jason called after his retreating back.
A joke, a twist of a grin, like it always was. Sure. But even as he grinned
and his lips shaped a joke, Jason felt them like a veneer on the outside.
Something plastered on with a life of its own. Inside he was numb and
immovable. His body was stiff as his eyes still watched that arch of alien
flesh descend and smother the one-armed Pyrran with its million burning
fingers.
He could feel himself under the arch. After all, hadn't the wounded man taken
his place? He finished the meal without realizing that he ate.
Ever since that morning, when he had recovered consciousness, it had been like
this. He knew that he should have died out there in that battle-torn street.
His life should have been snuffed out, for making the mistake of thinking that
he could actually help the battling Pyrrans. Instead of being underfoot and in
the way. If it hadn't been for Jason, the man with the wounded arm would have
been brought here to the safety of the reorientation buildings. He knew he was
lying in the bed that belonged to that man.
The man who had given his life for Jason's.
The man whose name he didn't even know.
There were drugs in the food and they made him sleep. The medicated pads
soaked the pain and rawness out of the bums where the tentacles had seared his
face. When he awoke the second time, his touch with reality had been restored.
A man had died so he could live. Jason faced the fact. He couldn't restore
that life, no matter how much he wanted to. What he could do was make the
man's death worthwhile. If it can be said that any death was worthwhile.... He
forced his thoughts from that track.
Jason knew what he had to do. His work was even more important now. If he
could solve the riddle of this deadly world, he could repay in part the debt
he owed.
Sitting up made his head spin and he held to the edge of the bed until it
slowed down. The others in the room ignored him as he slowly and painfully
dragged on his clothes. Brucco came in, saw what he was doing, and left again
without a word.
Dressing took a long time, but it was finally done. When Jason finally left
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