The World That Couldn't Be Read online

arrow flying past histhroat. A hell of a way for a man to die--out at the tail-end ofnowhere with an arrow in his throat and a scared-stiff native headingback for home as fast as it could go.

  He flicked the control on the rifle back to single fire, crawledaround the rock pile and sprinted for a grove of trees that stood onhigher ground. He reached them and there he flanked the spot fromwhich the arrow must have come.

  He unlimbered the binoculars and glassed the area. He still saw nosign. Whatever had taken the pot shot at them had made its getaway.

  He walked back to the tree where the arrow still stood out, its pointdriven deep into the bark. He grasped the shaft and wrenched the arrowfree.

  "You can come out now," he called to Sipar. "There's no one around."

  The arrow was unbelievably crude. The unfeathered shaft looked as ifit had been battered off to the proper length with a jagged stone. Thearrowhead was unflaked flint picked up from some outcropping or drycreek bed, and it was awkwardly bound to the shaft with the tough butpliant inner bark of the hula-tree.

  "You recognize this?" he asked Sipar.

  The native took the arrow and examined it. "Not my tribe."

  "Of course not your tribe. Yours wouldn't take a shot at us. Someother tribe, perhaps?"

  "Very poor arrow."

  "I know that. But it could kill you just as dead as if it were a goodone. Do you recognize it?"

  "No tribe made this arrow," Sipar declared.

  "Child, maybe?"

  "What would child do way out here?"

  "That's what I thought, too," said Duncan.

  * * * * *

  He took the arrow back, held it between his thumbs and forefingers andtwirled it slowly, with a terrifying thought nibbling at his brain. Itcouldn't be. It was too fantastic. He wondered if the sun was finallygetting him that he had thought of it at all.

  He squatted down and dug at the ground with the makeshift arrow point."Sipar, what do you actually know about the Cytha?"

  "Nothing, mister. Scared of it is all."

  "We aren't turning back. If there's something that you know--somethingthat would help us...."

  It was as close as he could come to begging aid. It was further thanhe had meant to go. He should not have asked at all, he thoughtangrily.

  "I do not know," the native said.

  Duncan cast the arrow to one side and rose to his feet. He cradled therifle in his arm. "Let's go."

  He watched Sipar trot ahead. Crafty little stinker, he told himself.It knows more than it's telling.

  They toiled into the afternoon. It was, if possible, hotter and drierthan the day before. There was a sense of tension in the air--no, thatwas rot. And even if there were, a man must act as if it were notthere. If he let himself fall prey to every mood out in this emptyland, he only had himself to blame for whatever happened to him.

  The tracking was harder now. The day before, the Cytha had only runaway, straight-line fleeing to keep ahead of them, to stay out oftheir reach. Now it was becoming tricky. It backtracked often in anattempt to throw them off. Twice in the afternoon, the trail blankedout entirely and it was only after long searching that Sipar picked itup again--in one instance, a mile away from where it had vanished inthin air.

  That vanishing bothered Duncan more than he would admit. Trails do notdisappear entirely, not when the terrain remains the same, not whenthe weather is unchanged. Something was going on, something, perhaps,that Sipar knew far more about than it was willing to divulge.

  He watched the native closely and there seemed nothing suspicious. Itcontinued at its work. It was, for all to see, the good and faithfulhound.

  * * * * *

  Late in the afternoon, the plain on which they had been travelingsuddenly dropped away. They stood poised on the brink of a greatescarpment and looked far out to great tangled forests and a flowingriver.

  It was like suddenly coming into another and beautiful room that onehad not expected.

  This was new land, never seen before by any Earthman. For no one hadever mentioned that somewhere to the west a forest lay beyond thebush. Men coming in from space had seen it, probably, but only as adifferent color-marking on the planet. To them, it made no difference.

  But to the men who lived on Layard, to the planter and the trader, theprospector and the hunter, it was important. And I, thought Duncanwith a sense of triumph, am the man who found it.

  "Mister!"

  "Now what?"

  "Out there. _Skun!_"

  "I don't--"

  "Out there, mister. Across the river."

  Duncan saw it then--a haze in the blueness of the rift--a puff ofcopper moving very fast, and as he watched, he heard the far-offkeening of the storm, a shiver in the air rather than a sound.

  He watched in fascination as it moved along the river and saw theboiling fury it made out of the forest. It struck and crossed theriver, and the river for a moment seemed to stand on end, with a sheetof silvery water splashed toward the sky.

  Then it was gone as quickly as it had happened, but there was atumbled slash across the forest where the churning winds had traveled.

  Back at the farm, Zikkara had warned him of the _skun_. This was theseason for them, it had said, and a man caught in one wouldn't have achance.

  Duncan let his breath out slowly.

  "Bad," said Sipar.

  "Yes, very bad."

  "Hit fast. No warning."

  "What about the trail?" asked Duncan. "Did the Cytha--"

  Sipar nodded downward.

  "Can we make it before nightfall?"

  "I think so," Sipar answered.

  It was rougher than they had thought. Twice they went down blindtrails that pinched off, with sheer rock faces opening out into dropsof hundreds of feet, and were forced to climb again and find anotherway.

  They reached the bottom of the escarpment as the brief twilight closedin and they hurried to gather firewood. There was no water, but alittle was still left in their canteens and they made do with that.

  * * * * *

  After their scant meal of rockahominy, Sipar rolled himself into aball and went to sleep immediately.

  Duncan sat with his back against a boulder which one day, long ago,had fallen from the slope above them, but was now half buried in thesoil that through the ages had kept sifting down.

  Two days gone, he told himself.

  Was there, after all, some truth in the whispered tales that made therounds back at the settlements--that no one should waste his time intracking down a Cytha, since a Cytha was unkillable?

  Nonsense, he told himself. And yet the hunt had toughened, the trailbecome more difficult, the Cytha a much more cunning and elusivequarry. Where it had run from them the day before, now it fought toshake them off. And if it did that the second day, why had it nottried to throw them off the first? And what about the thirdday--tomorrow?

  He shook his head. It seemed incredible that an animal would becomemore formidable as the hunt progressed. But that seemed to be exactlywhat had happened. More spooked, perhaps, more frightened--only theCytha did not act like a frightened beast. It was acting like ananimal that was gaining savvy and determination, and that was somehowfrightening.

  From far off to the west, toward the forest and the river, came thelaughter and the howling of a pack of screamers. Duncan leaned hisrifle against the boulder and got up to pile more wood on the fire. Hestared out into the western darkness, listening to the racket. He madea wry face and pushed a hand absent-mindedly through his hair. He putout a silent hope that the screamers would decide to keep theirdistance. They were something a man could do without.

  Behind him, a pebble came bumping down the slope. It thudded to a restjust short of the fire.

  Duncan spun around. Foolish thing to do, he thought, to camp so nearthe slope. If something big should start to move, they'd be out ofluck.

  He stood and listened. The night was quiet
. Even the screamers hadshut up for the moment. Just one rolling rock and he had his hacklesup. He'd have to get himself in hand.

  He went back to the boulder, and as he stooped to pick up the rifle,he heard the faint beginning of a rumble. He straightened swiftly toface the scarp that blotted out the star-strewn sky--and the rumblegrew!

  * * * * *

  In one leap, he was at Sipar's side. He reached down and grasped thenative by an arm, jerked it erect, held it on its feet. Sipar's eyessnapped open, blinking in the firelight.

  The rumble had grown to a roar and there were thumping noises, as ofheavy boulders bouncing, and beneath the roar the silky, ominousrustle of sliding soil and rock.

  Sipar jerked its arm free of Duncan's grip and plunged into thedarkness. Duncan whirled and followed.

  They ran, stumbling in the dark, and behind them the roar of thesliding, bouncing rock became a