<h2><SPAN name="THE_HOUND" id="THE_HOUND"></SPAN>6. THE HOUND</h2>
<p>The sun was a harsh ball of heat baking the ground and then,
in some odd manner, drawing back that same fieriness. In
the coolness of the eastern mountains Shann would not have
believed that Warlock could hold such heat. The men discarded
their jackets early as they swung to dip the poles. But
they dared not strip off the rest of their clothing lest their
skin burn. And again gusts of wind now drove sand over the
edge of the cut to blanket the water.</p>
<p>Shann wiped his eyes, pausing in his eternal push-push,
to look at the rocks which they were passing in threatening
proximity. For the slash which held the river had narrowed.
And the rock of its walls was naked of earth, save for
sheltered pockets holding the drift of sand dust, while boulders
of all sizes cut into the path of the flowing water.</p>
<p>He had not been mistaken; they were going faster, faster
even than their efforts with the poles would account for. With
the narrowing of the bed of the stream, the current was taking
on a new swiftness. Shann said as much and Thorvald
nodded.</p>
<p>"We're approaching the first of the rapids."</p>
<p>"Where we get off and walk around," Shann croaked
wearily. The dust gritted between his teeth, irritated his eyes.
"Do we stay beside the river?"</p>
<p>"As long as we can," Thorvald replied somberly. "We have
no way of transporting water."</p>
<p>Yes, a man could live on very slim rations of food, continue
to beat his way over a bad trail if he had the concentrate
tablets they carried. But there was no going without water,
and in this heat such an effort would finish them quickly.<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_57" id="Page_57"></SPAN></span>
Always they both listened for another cry from behind, a
cry to tell them just how near the Throg hunting party had
come.</p>
<p>"No Throg flyers yet," Shann observed. He had expected
one of those black plates to come cruising the moment the
hound had pointed the direction for their pursuers.</p>
<p>"Not in a storm such as this." Thorvald, without releasing
his hold on the raft pole, pointed with his chin to the swirling
haze cloaking the air above the cut walls. Here the river dug
yet deeper into the beginning of a canyon. They could
breathe better. The dust still sifted down but not as thickly as
a half hour earlier. Though over their heads the sky was now
a grayish lid, shutting out the sun, bringing a portion of coolness
to the travelers.</p>
<p>The Survey officer glanced from side to side, watching the
banks as if hunting for some special mark or sign. At last he
used his pole as a pointer to indicate a rough pile of boulders
ahead. Some former landslide had quarter dammed the river
at that point, and the drift of seasonal floods was caught in
and among the rocky pile to form a prickly peninsula.</p>
<p>"In there——"</p>
<p>They brought the raft to shore, fighting the faster current.
The wolverines, who had been subdued by the heat and the
dust, flung themselves to the rocks with the eagerness of passengers
deserting a sinking ship for certain rescue. Thorvald
settled the map case more securely between his arm and side
before he took the same leap. When they were all ashore he
prodded the raft out into the stream again, pushing the platform
along until it was sucked by the current past the line
of boulders.</p>
<p>"Listen!"</p>
<p>But Shann had already caught that distant rumble of sound.
It was steady, beating like some giant drum. Certainly it did
not herald a Throg ship in flight and it came from ahead,
not from their back trail.</p>
<p>"Rapids ... perhaps even the falls," Thorvald interpreted<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_58" id="Page_58"></SPAN></span>
that faint thunder. "Now, let's see what kind of a road we
can find here."</p>
<p>The tongue of boulders, spiked with driftwood, was firmly
based against the wall of the cut. But it sloped up to within
a few feet of the top of that gap, more than one landslide
having contributed to its fashioning. The landing stage paralleled
the river for perhaps some fifty feet. Beyond it water
splashed a straight wall. They would have to climb and follow
the stream along the top of the embankment, maybe being
forced well away from the source of the water.</p>
<p>By unspoken consent they both knelt and drank deeply
from their cupped hands, splashing more of the liquid over
their heads, washing the dust from their skins. Then they
began to climb the rough assent up which the wolverines had
already vanished. The murk above them was less solid,
but again the fine grit streaked their faces, embedding itself
in their hair.</p>
<p>Shann paused to scrape a film of mud from his lips and
chin. Then he made the last pull, bracing his slight body
against the push of the wind he met there. A palm struck
hard between his shoulders, nearly sending him sprawling.
He had only wits enough left to recognize that as an order to
get on, and he staggered ahead until rock arched over him
and the sand drift was shut off.</p>
<p>His shoulder met solid stone, and having rubbed the sand
from his eyes, Shann realized he was in a pocket in the cliff
walls. Well overhead he caught a glimpse of natural amber
sky through a slit, but here was a twilight which thickened
into complete darkness.</p>
<p>There was no sign of wolverines. Thorvald moved along the
pocket southward, and Shann followed him. Once more
they faced a dead end. For the crevice, with the sheer descent
to the river on the right, the cliff wall at its back, came to an
abrupt stop in a drop which caught at Shann's stomach when
he ventured to look down.</p>
<p>If some battleship of the interstellar fleet had aimed a force
beam across the mountains of Warlock, cutting down to what<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_59" id="Page_59"></SPAN></span>
lay under the first envelope of planet-skin, perhaps the resulting
wound might have resembled that slash. What had caused
such a break between the height on which they stood and
the much taller peak beyond, Shann could not guess. But it
must have been a cataclysm of spectacular dimensions. There
was certainly no descending to the bottom of that cut and
reclimbing the rock face on the other side. The fugitives would
either have to return to the river with all its ominous warnings
of trouble to come, or find some other path across that gap
which now provided such an effective barrier to the west.</p>
<p>"Down!" Just as Thorvald had pushed him out of the murk
of the dust storm into the crevice, so now did that officer jerk
Shann from his feet, forcing him to the floor of the half cave
from which they had partially emerged.</p>
<p>A shadow moved across the bright band of sunlit sky.</p>
<p>"Back!" Thorvald caught at Shann again, his greater
strength prevailing as he literally dragged the younger man
into the dusk of the crevice. And he did not pause, nor allow
Shann to do so, even when they were well undercover again.
At last they reached the dark hole in the southern wall which
they had passed earlier. And a push from Thorvald sent his
companion into that.</p>
<p>Then a blow greater than any the Survey officer had aimed
at him struck Shann. He was hurled against a rough wall with
impetus enough to explode the air from his lungs, the ensuing
pain so great that he feared his ribs had given under that
thrust. Before his eyes fire lashed down the slit, searing him
into temporary blindness. That flash was the last thing he
remembered as thick darkness closed in, shutting him into the
nothingness of unconsciousness.</p>
<p>It hurt to breathe; he was slowly aware first of that pain
and then the fact that he <i>was</i> breathing, that he had to endure
the pain for the sake of breath. His whole body was
jarred into a dull torment as a weight pressed upon his twisted
legs. Then strong animal breath puffed into his face. Shann
lifted one hand by will power, touched thick fur, felt the
rasp of a tongue laid wetly across his fingers.<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_60" id="Page_60"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>Something close to terror engulfed him for a second or two
when he knew that he could not see! The black about him
was colored by jagged flashes of red which he somehow
guessed were actually inside his eyes. He groped through
that fire-pierced darkness. An animal whimper from the throat
of the shaggy body pressed against him; he answered that
movement.</p>
<p>"Taggi?"</p>
<p>The shove against him was almost enough to pin him once
more to the wall, a painful crush on his aching ribs, as the
wolverine responded to his name. That second nudge from
the other side must be Togi's bid for attention.</p>
<p>But what had happened? Thorvald had hurled him back
just after that shadow had swung over the ledge. That
shadow! Shann's wits quickened as he tried to make sense of
what he could remember. A Throg ship! Then that fiery lash
which had cut after them could only have resulted from one
of those energy bolts such as had wiped out the others of his
kind at the camp. But he was still alive—!</p>
<p>"Thorvald?" He called through his personal darkness. When
there was no answer, Shann called again, more urgently. Then
he hunched forward on his hands and knees, pushing Taggi
gently aside, running his hands over projecting rocks, uneven
flooring.</p>
<p>His fingers touched what could only be cloth, before they
met the warmth of flesh. And he half threw himself against
the supine body of the Survey officer, groping awkwardly for
heartbeat, for some sign that the other was still living.</p>
<p>"What——?" The one word came thickly, but Shann gave
something close to a sob of relief as he caught the faint mutter.
He squatted back on his heels, pressed his forearm
against his aching eyes in a kind of fierce will to see.</p>
<p>Perhaps that pressure did relieve some of the blackout,
for when he blinked again, the complete dark and the fiery
trails had faded to gray, and he was sure he saw dimly a
source of light to his left.</p>
<p>The Throg ship had fired upon them. But the aliens could<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_61" id="Page_61"></SPAN></span>
not have used the full force of their weapon or neither of the
Terrans would still be alive. Which meant, Shann's thoughts
began to make sense—sense which brought apprehension—the
Throgs probably intended to disable rather than kill. They
wanted prisoners, just as Thorvald had warned.</p>
<p>How long did the Terrans have before the aliens would
come to collect them? There was no fit landing place hereabouts
for their flyer. The beetle-heads would have to set
down at the edge of the desert land and climb the mountains
on foot. And the Throgs were not good at that. So, the fugitives
still had a measure of time.</p>
<p>Time to do what? The country itself held them securely
captive. That drop to the southwest was one barrier. To retreat
eastward would mean running straight into the hands
of the hunters. To descend again to the river, their raft gone,
was worse than useless. There was only this side pocket in
which they sheltered. And once the Throgs arrived, they
could scoop the Terrans out at their leisure, perhaps while
stunned by a controlling energy beam.</p>
<p>"Taggi? Togi?" Shann was suddenly aware that he had
not heard the wolverines for some time.</p>
<p>He was answered by a weirdly muffled call—from the
south! Had the animals found a new exit? Was this niche more
than just a niche? A cave of some length, or even a passage
running back into the interior of the peaks? With that faint
hope spurring him, Shann bent again over Thorvald, able
now to make out the other's huddled form. Then he drew
the torch from the inner loop of his coat and pressed the lowest
stud.</p>
<p>His eyes smarted in answer to that light, watered until tears
patterned the grime and dust on his cheeks. But he could
make out what lay before them, a hole leading into the cliff
face, the hole which might furnish the door to escape.</p>
<p>The Survey officer moved, levering himself up, his eyes
screwed tightly shut.</p>
<p>"Lantee?"<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_62" id="Page_62"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>"Here. And there's a tunnel—right behind you. The wolverines
went that way...."</p>
<p>To his surprise there was a thin ghost of a smile on Thorvald's
usually straight-lipped mouth. "And we'd better be
away before visitors arrive?"</p>
<p>So he, too, must have thought his way through the sequence
of past action to the same conclusion concerning the
Throg movements.</p>
<p>"Can you see, Lantee?" The question was painfully casual,
but a note in it, almost a reaching for reassurance, cut for the
first time through the wall which had stood between them
from their chance meeting by the wrecked ship.</p>
<p>"Better now. I couldn't when I first came to," Shann answered
quickly.</p>
<p>Thorvald opened his eyes, but Shann guessed that he was
as blind as he himself had been, He caught at the officer's
nearer hand, drawing it to rest on his own belt.</p>
<p>"Grab hold!" Shann was giving the orders now. "By the
look of that opening we had better try crawling. I've a torch
on at low——"</p>
<p>"Good enough." The other's fingers fumbled on the band
about Shann's slim waist until they gripped tight at his back.
He started on into the opening, drawing Thorvald by that
hold with him.</p>
<p>Luckily, they did not have to crawl far, for shortly past
the entrance the fault or vein they were following became
a passage high enough for even the tall Thorvald to travel
without stooping. And then only a little later he released his
hold on Shann, reporting he could now see well enough to
manage on his own.</p>
<p>The torch beam caught on a wall and awoke from there a
glitter which hurt their eyes—a green-gold cluster of crystals.
Several feet on, there was another flash of embedded crystals.
Those might promise priceless wealth, but neither Terran
paused to examine them more closely or touch their surfaces.
From time to time Shann whistled. And always he was answered
by the wolverines, their calls coming from ahead. So<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_63" id="Page_63"></SPAN></span>
the men continued to hope that they were not walking into a
trap from which the Throgs could extract them.</p>
<p>"Snap off your torch a moment!" Thorvald ordered.</p>
<p>Shann obeyed. The subdued light vanished. Yet there was
still light to be seen—ahead and above.</p>
<p>"Front door," Thorvald observed. "How do we get up?"</p>
<p>The torch showed them that, a narrow ladder of ledges
branching off when the passage they followed took a turn to
the left and east. Afterward Shann remembered that climb
with wonder that they had actually made it, though their
advance had been slow, passing the torch from one to another
to make sure of their footing.</p>
<p>Shann was top man when a last spurt of effort enabled him
to draw himself out into the open, his hands raw, his nails
broken and torn. He sat there, stupefied with his own weariness,
to stare about.</p>
<p>Thorvald called impatiently, and Shann reached for the
torch to hold it for the officer. Then Thorvald crawled out;
he, too, looked around in dull surprise.</p>
<p>On either side, peaks cut high into the amber of the sky.
But this bowl in which the men had found refuge was rich in
growing things. Though the trees were stunted, the grass grew
almost as high here as it did on the meadows of the lowlands.
Quartering the pocket valley, galloped the wolverines, expressing
in that wild activity their delight in this freedom.</p>
<p>"Good campsite."</p>
<p>Thorvald shook his head. "We can't stay here."</p>
<p>And, to underline that gloomy prophesy, there issued from
that hole through which they had just come, muffled and
broken, but still threatening, the howl of the Throgs' hound.</p>
<p>The Survey officer caught the torch from Shann's hold
and knelt to flash it into the interior of the passage. As the
beam slowly circled that opening, he held out his other arm,
measuring the size of the aperture.</p>
<p>"When that thing gets on a hot scent"—he snapped off
the beam—"the beetle-heads won't be able to control it. There
will be no reason for them to attempt to. Those hounds obey<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_64" id="Page_64"></SPAN></span>
their first orders: kill—or capture. And I think this one operates
on 'capture.' So they'll loose it to run ahead of their party."</p>
<p>"And we move to knock it out?" Shann relied now on the
other's experience.</p>
<p>Thorvald rose. "It would need a blaster on full power to
finish off a hound. No, we can't kill it. But we can make it a
doorkeeper to our advantage." He trotted down into the valley,
Shann beside him without understanding in the least, but
aware that Thorvald did have some plan. The officer bent,
searched the ground, and began to pull from under the loose
surface dirt one of those nets of tough vines which they had
used for cords. He thrust a double handful of this hasty harvest
into Shann's hold with a single curt order: "Twist these
together and make as thick a rope as you can!"</p>
<p>Shann twisted, discovering to his pleased surprise that
under pressure the vines exuded a sticky purple sap which not
only coated his hands, but also acted as an adhesive for the
vines themselves so that his task was not nearly as formidable
as it had first seemed. With his force ax Thorvald cut down
two of the stunted trees and stripped them of branches, wedging
the poles into the rocks about the entrance of the hole.</p>
<p>They were working against time, but on Thorvald's part
with practiced efficiency. Twice more that cry of the hunter
arose from the depths behind them. As the westering sun,
almost down now, shone into the valley hollow Thorvald set
up the frame of his trap.</p>
<p>"We can't knock it out, any more than we can knock out
a Throg. But a beam from a stunner ought to slow it up long
enough for this to work."</p>
<p>Taggi burst out of the grass, approaching the hole with
purpose. And Togi was right at his heels. Both of them
stared into that opening, drooling a little, the same eagerness
in their pose as they had displayed when hunting. Shann
remembered how that first howl of the Throg hound had
drawn both animals to the edge of the occupied camp in
spite of their marked distaste for its alien masters.<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_65" id="Page_65"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>"They're after it too." He told Thorvald what he had noted
on the night of their sortie.</p>
<p>"Maybe they can keep it occupied," the other commented.
"But we don't want them to actually mix with it; that might
be fatal."</p>
<p>A clamor broke out in the interior passage. Taggi snarled,
backing away a few steps before he uttered his own war cry.</p>
<p>"Ready!" Thorvald jumped to the net slung from the poles;
Shann raised his stunner.</p>
<p>Togi underlined her mate's challenge with a series of snarls
rising in volume. There was a tearing, scrambling sound from
within. Then Shann fired at the jack-in-the-box appearance of
a monstrous head, and Thorvald released the deadfall.</p>
<p>The thing squalled. Ropes beat, growing taut. The wolverines
backed from jaws which snapped fruitlessly. To Shann's
relief the Terran animals appeared content to bait the now
imprisoned—or collared—horror, without venturing to make
any close attack.</p>
<p>But he reckoned that too soon. Perhaps the stunner had
slowed up the hound's reflexes, for those jaws stilled with a
last shattering snap, the toad-lizard mask—a head which was
against all nature as the Terrans knew it—was quiet in the
strangle leash of the rope, the rest of the body serving as a
cork to fill the exit hole. Taggi had been waiting only for such
a chance. He sprang, claws ready. And Togi went in after her
mate to share the battle.</p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_66" id="Page_66"></SPAN></span></p>
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