War Against the Rull (3 page)

Close around stood the curious, thick-boled trees of this alien jungle—curious because they were not really trees at all but mottled, yellow-brown fungi lifting with difficulty to a height of thirty or forty feet through the encumbering mass of thorn-studded vines, green lichens and bulbous, reddish grass. The ezwal had raged through other such dense wilderness with irresistible strength. For a man on foot—especially one who dared not waste the waning power of his gun—it was a nearly hopeless obstacle to any progress. The narrow strand of beach they had been traveling along was not too far, but it had veered off sharply in the wrong direction a short way back, and the ezwal had turned inland again.

One thing alone could be said for the present situation: at least he was not being borne helplessly along to a warship loaded with Rulls.

Rulls!

With a gasp, Jamieson leaped to his feet. There was a treacherous sagging of the matted grass under him, and he shuffled hastily to firmer ground; there he spoke swiftly in a low monotone, knowing that his thoughts, if not his sounds, would reach the keen intelligence lurking somewhere in that crazy quilt of light and shadow that enveloped him. "We've got to act fast. The discharges of my gun must have registered on Rull instruments, and they'll be here in minutes. This is your last chance to change your mind about the Rulls. I can only repeat that your scheme of enlisting the Rulls as allies is madness. Listen to the simple truth: Spy ships of ours lucky enough to return from their part of the galaxy have reported that every planet of the several hundred they have visited was inhabited by ... Rulls. No other creatures of sufficient intelligence to offer organized resistance were to be found. There must have been some.
What happened to them?"

Jamieson forced himself to pause, to let the question sink in, then went on rapidly. "Do you know what
M
an does when he
encounters blind, fanatical hostility on any planet? It has happened a number of times. We quarantine the planet, at the same time throwing a cordon of ships around it to defend it from possible Rull attack. We then spend a great deal of time, which the Rulls would consider wasted, in attempting to establish peaceful relations with the planet's inhabitants. Teams of trained observers study their culture and infer as much as possible of their psychology, in order to get at the root of the trouble.

"If all attempts fail, we determine the most bloodless way of taking over their government or governments, and when this is accomplished we set about carefully revising their culture to remove from it only those elements, usually paranoid, which prevent co-operation with other races. After a generation, complete autonomy is restored and they are given the free choice of whether to join the federation which now includes nearly five thousand planets. Not once has this gigantic, expensive gamble on our part failed to pay off.

"I cite these examples merely to show you the vast gulf between the human way and the Rull way. There should be no need of our taking over Carson's Planet. You ezwals are intelligent enough to see who is your real enemy if you will open your minds. You yourself, here and now, can be the first."

There was no more to be said. He stood, then, and waited what seemed like a long time, but no faintest answering thought came from the strange, hushed wilderness about him. His shoulders slumped dejectedly. It was late afternoon, and he could see the blur of the sun through low-hanging vines. The hard realization came to him that his plight, already desperate, would soon get worse.

For even if he escaped the Rulls, in two hours at most the great fanged hunters and the reptilian flesh-eaters that roved the long nights of this primeval planet would emerge ravenous from their hideaways, their senses attuned to prey far better equipped to survive than he. Maybe if he could find a real tree with good, strong, high-growing branches and rig up some warning system of vines...

He began to work forward, avoiding those clumps of dense brush which might conceal anything as large as an ezwal. It was rough going, and after a few hundred yards his arms and legs ached from the effort. At this point, quite abruptly, the first indication that the ezwal was still in the vicinity came to him in the form of a thought, sharp and urgent: "There is a creature hovering above me, watching me! It is like an enormous insect, as large as you, with diaphanous, almost invisible wings. I sense a brain, but the thoughts are ... meaningless! I—"

"Not meaningless!" Jamieson cut in, his voice tense. "Alien is the word. The Rull is far more different from you and me than we are from each other. There is reason to think they may be from another galaxy, although this theory is unconfirmed. I don't wonder that you cannot read its mind."
'

As he spoke, Jamieson moved slowly into denser cover, holding his gun raised alertly. "Also, it is supported by an antigravity unit smaller and more efficient than any we human beings have been able to produce so far. What appears to be wings is only a sort of aura, an effect of its cellular control of light waves. You have the dangerous privilege of seeing a Rull in its natural form, which has been revealed to few human beings. The reason may be that it thinks you are a dumb beast, and you may be safe if— But no! It must be able to see the harness you are wearing!"

"No." There were overtones of distaste in the ezwal's denial. "I pulled the thing off right after we parted."

Jamieson nodded to himself. "Then
act
like a dumb beast. Snarl at it and sidle away but run like hell into the thickest underbrush if it reaches with one of its reticulate appendages toward any of those notches on either side of its body."

There was no answer.

The minutes dragged while Jamieson strained to catch sounds that might give a hint of the critical situation going on somewhere out of his s
i
ght Would the ezwal make an attempt to communicate with the Rull by means other than telepathy, despite the danger which it seemed to realize? Worse yet, would the Rull, in becoming aware of the ezwal's intelligence, see an advantage in forming an unholy alliance? Jamieson shuddered to contemplate what might happen on Carson's Planet in that event.

He heard sounds—small, perturbing noises from all about: the distant crackle of undergrowth giving way to some large, unguessable body; faint snortings and grunts; an unearthly, pulsating low cry from some indeterminate point, possibly quite nearby. He burrowed deeper into the tangle of brush and peered out warily, half expecting some vast, menacing shape to form among the fetid mists now settling over the darkening ground.

The tension grew greater than he could bear. He
had
to know what was happening out there. Therefore, he would assume that the ezwal was acting on his advice.

With silent concentration, he projected a thought. "Is it still following you?"

The quick response surprised him. "Yes! It seems to be studying me. Stay where you are. I have a plan."

Jamieson sat bolt upright in his hideaway. "Yes?" he said.

The ezwal continued. "I will lead the creature to you. You will destroy it with your gun. In exchange, I offer to help you cross the Demon Straits."

Weariness slipped from Jamieson's shoulders. He straightened up and strode forward a few steps exultantly, momentarily unmindful of possible dangers.

There could be no doubt: the ezwal had abandoned all plans of an alliance with the Rulls! Whether this was because of Jamieson's explicit warnings or simply because of the ezwal's own discovery of the communication barrier made little difference. The important thing was that the threat which had come into being with the first sighting of the Rull ship was now ended.

It suddenly dawned on him that he was neglecting to accept the ezwal's proposal formally. He was about to do so when a wave of scathing thought from the giant beast made his response unnecessary.

"I sense your agreement, Trevor Jamieson, but take heed! I considered the Rull as an ally only in order that we might divest ourselves of our foremost enemy—Man! There was never any assurance that others of my race would have consented to an alliance of any kind. To many of us it would be unthinkable. Right now, I trust you are ready; I'll be there in seconds!"

Off to Jamieson's left there was a sudden rending of brush. He tensed himself and as the sound grew louder raised his weapon expectantly. Through the mists, he caught sight of the ezwal, moving in a deceptively ponderous fashion on its six legs. At fifty feet, its three-in-line, steel-gray eyes were pools of light. And then as he searched the swirls of vapor over the beast's head for a dark, hovering shape—
"Too late!"
came the ezwal's piercing thought. "Don't shoot; don't move! There are a dozen of them above me, and—"

A glaring white light burst silently over the scene, blanking out the flow from the ezwal's mind, then faded abruptly. With the after-image burning his eyes, Jamieson sank helplessly to a crouching posture, waiting for a doom that seemed certain.

Agonizing moments passed, and nothing happened. As his eyes partially regained their function, he could see what had saved him—no miracle, but only the fog, now rolling more thickly than ever. Distasteful though it was, it nevertheless concealed him as he cautiously worked his way back into the dense thicket and lay prone, peering out warily. Once or twice, through the obscuring mist, he glimpsed drifting shapes overhead. The absence of any wisp of thought from the ezwal
was disturbing. Could that mighty beast have been struck dead so quickly and without an audible struggle?

It seemed unlikely. Energy in sufficient quantity for the purpose would not have been soundless. There was a more probable alternative: the Rulls must have worked a psychosis on the ezwal. Nothing else could explain that incoherent termination of thought in so powerful a mind.

Protective psychosis was used mainly on animals and other uncivilized and primitive life forms, unaccustomed to that sudden interplay of dazzling lights. And yet, in spite of its potent brain, the ezwal was very much animal, very much uncivilized and possibly extremely susceptible to mechanical hypnosis.

This line of reasoning would indicate that the Rulls had assumed that the ezwal
was
merely a primitive animal. Considering its appearance and deliberate behavior, this was a natural enough conclusion. Why, then, would they want to capture it alive? Perhaps they knew it was not native to this planet and were now seeking a clue as-to its origin. Although this planet was within the periphery of human military bases, it was accessible enough to the Rulls that they could have visited here before.

Jamieson smiled bleakly. If the Rulls took the ezwal aboard their ship under the impression that it was an unintelligent animal, they could be in for a rude awakening when it regained its senses. The beast had wiped out a shipload of human beings who had been much closer to realizing its full potentialities.

A flicker of lightning lighted up the twilight sky to the north, and after a few seconds came the expected roll of thunder.

Jamieson sprang to his feet in abrupt excitement. No storm, that. It was man-made thunder, unmistakable to his ears—the vibrant roar of a broadside of hundred-inch battleship projectors.

A battleship! A capital ship, probably from the nearest base, on Kryptar IV, either on patrol or investigating energy discharges.

As he watched, there came another fleeting glare, and answering thunder, closer but on a smaller scale. The Rull cruiser would be lucky if it got away!

But Jamieson's feeling of exultation dwindled quickly. This new turn of events could benefit him little, if at all. For him, there remained the night and its terrors. True, there would be no trouble now from the Rulls, but that was all. The running fight between the two ships would take them far into space and might last for days. Even if a patrol ship were sent here, and if
he happened to see it, he had no way to signal it except with his gun—if there were any charge left in it by that time.

It was now so dark that his visibility was reduced to a very short distance, and his personal danger was thereby increased in geometric proportion. His eyes and his gun were his only safeguards; the former would very soon become nearly useless, while the small reserve of power in the latter had to be conserved for an indefinitely—perhaps impossibly—long time.

Uneasily, Jamieson peered into the gathering darkness around him. It was possible that he was already being stalked by some unseen monster. He started forward involuntarily, then checked himself. Panic would only invite disaster. He placed a finger in his mouth, held it up and felt a faint coolness on the right side of it. This direction was not too far from that in which he judged the antigravity raft might lie—but that was scarcely to be thought about now.

He started off upwind and promptly learned that progress through the jungle maze, difficult enough by day, was almost impossible by night. He could not retain any sense of direction and was obliged to recheck wind direction every few yards. It was now pitch-dark, and the continual stumbling over unseen obstacles made his passage so noisy that he debated the advisability of going on. But the alternative of remaining there immobile through the long hours of darkness seemed a thousand times worse. He blundered on, and a few moments later his fingers touched thick, carboniferous bark.

A tree!