Marlin woke with a smothering sensation and a foreboding. Fumbling for his flashlight, he sought the others.
Maw Barstow was snoring stertoriously in her cubbyhole. Pearl, who should have occupied the pallet next to her, was gone. Sally, pale from the retching she had endured, was sleeping fitfully.
In the storeroom, he found DuChane, lying in a stupor beside an empty bottle. There were several empties, in fact. DuChane and McGruder must have returned to make a night of it. But McGruder was nowhere in sight.
With a grunt of distaste, Marlin turned his attention to the hull. It was progressively deteriorating. The blow had ruptured the corroded shell-plates in numerous places, and they were constantly giving way under the shifting stresses.
His thoughts returned to Pearl. Strange that he had not come across the girl. He made an unavailing search of the staterooms, storerooms, the control room, and all passages and aisles of the unsteady superstructure.
A taut feeling constricted his chest. She was so defenseless in her childish simplicity. She might have wandered out in the dark and fallen from any one of a dozen or more points of danger he could imagine. Memory of the fate that had overtaken Link, and presumably Norma's body, caused him to shudder.
From searching the likely places, he fell to searching the unlikely ones. His flashlight beam unexpectedly picked up the two of them—Pearl and McGruder—in a segment between the outcurving hull and the end-wall of the cabin-like structure containing their sleeping compartments. The narrow crevice between the corner of the straight wall and the hull made it an almost inaccessible retreat.
In the brief glimpse Marlin caught before McGruder turned his startled, snarling face toward the flashlight, the whole story was apparent.
McGruder had pursued the girl and finally cornered her. She was struggling to escape from his grasp.
The man cringed away from the light. "Get outa here!" he yelled hoarsely. "This don't concern you."
"No?" Marlin spoke with deadly intensity. "Take your hands off that girl."
"Says who?"
"I've still got the gun, McGruder—and I don't mind admitting that I've itched all along for an excuse to use it on your carcass. Let go, damn you!"
McGruder jerked the girl roughly around so that she offered a shield for his body.
"Come ahead—shoot!" he taunted.
Marlin pocketed his gun. "I'm coming after you."
The lower part of the crevice was too narrow to admit his body, but it widened out above, where the hull sloped away from the wall. Pearl could have squeezed through at the floor level, but McGruder must have had to inch himself up a couple of feet before he could follow her. Methodically, Marlin set out to do the same.
The feat required both hands, and McGruder seized the opportunity, when Marlin had squirmed himself part way up, to release the girl and plunge toward him with clenched fist. Marlin saved himself from a paralyzing blow in the midriff by leaping backward.
He snatched for the gun, but before he could recover it, McGruder was well back inside, again using Pearl for a shield.
"Smart guy!" he yelled tauntingly. "Coming in, are you!"
This time, Marlin held his flashlight in one hand and the automatic in the other, training both on McGruder, while he slowly worked himself up the angle formed by the two walls by pressure of his out-thrust knees and elbows.
McGruder, eyes glittering, backed away, still holding the bewildered girl before him. Slowly, keeping the gun and flashlight trained upon him, Marlin squeezed his bulk through the crevice.
The vessel gave one of its now frequent lurches, groaning with the strain on yielding hull and weakened girders. In that instant, Marlin felt a movement of the two steel walls as they spread apart. He would have fallen if he had not involuntarily spread his elbows and shoulders to maintain his position. The next instant, the walls closed in on him, crushing—crushing—squeezing the life out of his body.
Even in that agonized moment, a horrified gasp escaped his lips, at what was revealed by the stabbing ray of the flashlight.
The heaving side of the vessel tightened cruelly, then released him from its vice-like grip. Limp with pain, Marlin dropped heavily to the floor within the narrow enclosure.
He lay for a moment gasping for breath, neither knowing nor caring whether any bones were cracked. Then he gathered himself for a supreme effort. His body was one solid ache as tortured muscles strained to obey his will.
"Look!" he gasped hoarsely, flashlight pointing. "Look—behind—!"
McGruder, struggling dazedly to his feet with the girl still clutched in his embrace, swung around at the warning, but it was already too late. A great seam had opened in the hull directly behind him, and a mass of ooze was pouring in, like a surge of lava.
Caught off-balance, he stumbled and slipped on one knee in the encroaching tide. As he floundered a bellow like that of a mired bull escaped his distorted lips. He was gripped tenaciously by the pitiless exudation. His eyes roved frantically. Then, as Marlin dragged himself partly erect, he saw McGruder do an incredible thing.
Desperately, the detective twisted himself half around, with the girl in his arms, and forced her into the viscous tide. She struggled in a faintly bewildered manner. Bracing himself against her body, he gained a leverage which enabled him to release, first one foot and then the other. As he stumbled free, the girl was engulfed, almost before she could cry out.
In that moment of horror, Marlin was conscious only of a consuming rage—a lust to kill that obliterated all else. Forgetful of the automatic, he dived toward McGruder, with hands that had suddenly become claws.
"Don't! Don't! We've got to squeeze out of here! Before it catches—"
McGruder's screaming protest was strangled as ruthless fingers closed around his windpipe.
When the smothering ooze closed over both heaving bodies, Marlin was scarcely aware, through the red fury of his demoniac rage, that the end had come....
..."But, mother, the goddesses were all beautiful, were they not?"
"Yes, son, but Pi-Ruh-Al was the most beautiful."
"Then why do the carvings always show Sa-Hala-Lee with a face, while Pi-Ruh-Al has none? I would think—"
"Hush child! The beauty of Pi-Ruh-Al was so dazzling that no mortal might look upon it. Even the gods could scarce endure its splendor, and no sculptor has dared presume to represent her features. Not so with Sa-Hala-Lee, who is the goddess of N'urthly beauty and constancy. A touching legend relates to the manner by which she was wooed by Mah-Gurru-Dah, Lord of the East, patron of the forge. He was forced to wound her sore unto death with a lightning bolt forged in his smithy before she yielded—but thereafter she remained loyal with a faithfulness beyond mortal understanding. Yea, though it is reputed that both Maha-Ra-Lin and Bar-Du-Chan sought her because of her siren-like allure, she repulsed them with scorn.
"Thus wrote the prophets of old: 'In the beginning was El-Leighi, dweller in the sun, who looked upon the sea of space and saw that it was a void, barren of all things. And El-Leighi hurled forth his thunderbolt and created a sphere of matter within that void. And he cast his thunderbolts again and yet again until he had created many spheres which circled slowly through the emptiness of space.
"'El-Leighi looked upon his work, yet was not satisfied. Four of his bolts had formed spheres revolving so close to the sun that its rays scorched them with heat unbearable. Others—the mightiest bolts of all—formed planets immeasurably far away, lost in frigid coldness.
"'So once again El-Leighi gathered his forces and hurled a thunderbolt into space. And on that thunderbolt rode great beings—gods inferior only to El-Leighi himself—whom he commanded to create a world on which life might exist.
"'When the thunderbolt shattered, in a temperate region of space beyond the fourth planet, these gods fulfilled their destiny by gathering its fragments and out of them creating a new world....'"
From a narrow strip of shore that fringed a murky sea, sheer cliffs rose—black, beetling, forbidding. In one direction the rampart lost itself in the haze of a bleak horizon; in the other it merged into a rocky but sloping ascent.
The sea itself was of a muddy hue, reflecting feebly the rays of a sun which seemed to begrudge what little warmth it spared. The sky, gray though nearly cloudless, seemed overcast with a dusty haze.
Where the sea washed into a narrow inlet at the foot of the last great promontory along the line of ramparts, a boulder—distinguished from others because it seemed grayer, smoother, more friable—contributed to the muddiness of the sea.
Each time the tide rose and the waters swept over it, they softened and dissolved some of its outer coating. As the tides receded, they left a blob of mud, which slowly hardened through exposure to the sun, only to soften and disintegrate a trifle more at the next return of the tide.
It was an irregular tide. Its surges occurred in unpredictable cycles and in varying degrees of intensity. On a few occasions its high level reached a mark far up the cliff; on others it forgot to recede for a time; and yet again it was such a feeble tide that it barely washed the base of the boulder, which was in reality a clod of hard-baked clay.
Now and again, after the tide receded, some furry object lay gasping in the sun, and presently scuttled toward the less precipitous stretch of shore. Or a bird fluttered to the rampart, or a cricket vented a dismal chirp and sought the damp underside of a rock. In a nearby cleft, a scattering of seeds had been caught in the backwash of tide and blades of grass clung tenaciously to a meager deposit of soil.
How long the sea had washed this blob of clay could only have been estimated by some observer who noted its size when it was first carried down to water level in a rock slide, and watched the progress of its disintegration. But there was no observer to note these things.
There came a day—a day like many another, cloudless, murky, cold—when it would have been apparent, had such an observer existed, that imbedded within the blob of mud was a foreign object. It might have been a log, for all the amorphous outlines revealed. Whatever it was, the water continued to wash at intervals over the coating, and gradually carried it away. As this continued, the uncovered portions of whatever lay within gradually seemed to lose their gray, desiccated look.
And there came another day when the coating was gone, and after the tide had receded and the sun had poured its rays down with unusual warmth for some hours, a quiver ran through the outstretched object.
The tide returned. As it gently lapped the figure on the sands, some instinct of preservation stirred in that which had been nothing but a core of foreign matter in a blob of clay. It shivered slightly and squirmed to a higher position on the shore.
When the tide next returned, the creature, born of a mud clod was hunched in a sitting position, gazing with dull, uncomprehending eyes at the bleak prospect which was coming into focus before it.
... Just when awareness of himself returned to Dave Marlin, he could not have told. There was a borderline phase in which a bewildered, naked creature stumbled along the rocky shore with only vague consciousness of self. Memories of the past mingled fantastically with the present. Impressions of an endless journey, of a huddled group within a shadowy interior, of black, star-studded vistas, were intertwined with breaking waves, a sense of chill discomfort, and a dull yearning toward the coppery disc that hung in the mist overhead.
Gnawing hunger in his vitals gradually thrust the present into dominance. He dropped down and drank thirstily of the lapping fresh water sea. This partly appeased the discomfort, but a grub which he pounced upon a moment later satisfied it more. Eagerly he set about finding other objects to still that ever-present hunger.
Instinctively the man had turned toward the less precipitous region. Grim and forbidding though it was, it bore some evidence of life—increasingly more evidences on the rocky hillocks that receded from the barren shore. There were clumps of grass and bushes, an occasional bird winging overhead and here and there glimpses of squirrels, chipmunks, and other small animals.
A tawny streak flashed through the bush. At the squeal of its victim, Marlin dived toward the spot, frightened the creature from its kill, and hungrily appropriated the squirrel. In the moment of satisfying his ravenous hunger with the warm bleeding flesh, he was troubled by no memories of the process to which flesh was subjected before eating, in that shadowy former existence.
Somehow he lived, aimlessly wandering, sleeping, when darkness came, in the shelter of the moment, constantly alert for something to appease the gnawing within him. More frequently than not, he went hungry, for the region was sparse in its vegetation and niggardly in sentient life. He chewed on roots, eagerly pounced on insect larvae, now and then caught or killed with rocks some of the small animals and birds that his unceasing search flushed from cover.
It is doubtful whether he at any time thought clearly, "I am Dave Marlin, a man, who once lived on a planet called Earth." His mind was far behind his body in recovering from the paralysis of disuse.
A new excitement stirred him one day. Farther inland, a thin column of smoke was rising. Smoke! The ascending smudge wakened something within him. Smoke was connected with that former life. It meant the presence of his own kind!
He climbed toward it with frantic eagerness and presently looked down into a sheltered cleft of a valley. By his former standards it would have seemed a barren strip indeed, but in comparison with the terrain surrounding, it was an Eden.
Grass and scraggly bushes struggled for foothold on the hillsides. A brook trickled through the bottom and its banks revealed crude attempts at cultivation. Stunted growths that looked like corn stalks straggled across a narrow field. A gaunt heifer was tethered on one slope.
The smoke rose from a smoldering fire on a blackened area in front of the cave. In the mouth of the cave squatted a woman, clothed in a shapeless garment of skins, suckling a scrawny infant.
Incoherent choking sounds came from Marlin's throat as he descended upon this scene of domestic tranquility. At his approach, the woman glanced up, gave a shrill cry, and disappeared into the cave.
From a crevice beyond appeared a man, likewise clad in skins, brandishing a crooked stick. At sight of Marlin, he stopped in his tracks, then scampered toward the cave, turning at the entrance as if to make a last desperate stand.
Marlin came on with eager stride, but he stopped a few feet away and the two looked at each other.
The cave dweller was under-sized, bearded, and shaggy. His arms and legs protruded in ungainly fashion from the ill-fashioned skin garment. Something about the manner in which the sharp eyes gleamed at him through a tangle of overhanging hair struck a chord in Marlin's memory.
"You're—you're Link!" he said thickly. The words came with difficulty from unaccustomed lips. "Slinky Link! Remember? I'm—Marlin."
The woman's head emerged cautiously from behind her man. The scarred lip again prompted Marlin's memory.
"Maw—Barstow!"
"What you want?" demanded Link. The words were thickly spoken, as if he, too, rarely used his speech organs.
Truly Marlin did not know what he wanted. Nothing, perhaps, beyond the association of his own kind. For the first time he realized that he was cold. He approached the smoldering embers and knelt over them, gratefully warming himself in the glow.
The other two eyed him resentfully, but when the sun sank low they prepared a frugal meal and grudgingly offered him a portion. He ate greedily of the hard, gritty cake of ground corn and morsel of half-cooked flesh; smacked his lips over the swallow or two of thin milk which they allowed him to drink from a crudely formed earthen cup.
The urge to talk was strong within Marlin—to exchange views with these, perhaps the only members of his kind in all the region. But memories of the old life and speculations as to the manner of their arrival seemed to have little reality in the minds of the two. Maw was brooding and taciturn, wrapped in an animal-like concern for her scrawny infant. Link vaguely recalled that they had wandered until they came to this valley, where it was somehow easier to wrest an existence than on the outer slopes.
He had found two half-starved cattle, captured one, and Maw made him keep it alive for its milk. The other was a bull, but so far it had eluded his attempts at capture. He had learned to make fire, the primitive way, through striking certain kinds of rock together.
These were his preoccupations. He quickly tired of the conversation and crawled into the cave to sleep.
In the morning, there was less to eat. When Marlin sought to help himself to the fresh milking, Maw snatched the clay vessel and scuttled with it into the cave.
Link thrust a piece of stringy meat into Marlin's hands, then caught up his stick and brandished it threateningly.
"This is our place," he snarled. "You go."
Marlin crammed the partly cooked flesh into his mouth.
"Why?" he demanded.
"Eat too much," was the laconic response.
Marlin reflected on this. He had not eaten much, but the little tasted good, and he wanted to stay.
"Go," insisted Link, prodding with his stick. He added as an afterthought, "You're uncovered—don't look nice."
Marlin looked down at his sun-browned body. In that vaguely remembered former existence he had worn clothes. Now he was naked. The thought shamed him. Disconsolately, he turned and plodded away.
Thereafter, the recovery of his brain cells was more rapid. The old earth life still seemed incredibly remote—as detached as though it belonged to another person—but upon its vague memories he drew in order to create a more satisfying existence.
He fashioned crude cutting implements and spears by chipping stones and fitting them to handles made from tough growths of brush. He learned deft ways of making fire, and usually cooked his meat. He pieced together an abbreviated garment of skins. Each day he developed new adaptations to the harsh environment.
Usually, he was too tired to think of anything beyond the physical needs of the moment, but now and then, after a meal of unusual repletion, he lay on his back and gazed thoughtfully at the coppery sun, or at the two small moons which, with their uncoordinated orbits, created such eccentricity in the tides. Then he recalled incidents of the past, of the strange journey in the clay-covered sphere, and speculated as to the mystery of his coming to this bleak new world—of the manner of its creation.
Waking one morning, he was startled to find that a fire had been built and there was an odor of scorching meat. Erect in one bound, he stared incredulously at the other man who was nonchalantly making free with his camp.
"Kinda surprised—eh?"
For a moment, Marlin did not know the long-haired, bearded, skin-clad stranger. He peered uncertainly.
"You're—you're DuChane, aren't you?"
"The old maestro himself," grinned the other. "Came across your trail two days ago. Campfires—footprints. Nearly caught up with you last night, but the dark overtook me. Guess we're the sole survivors."
"No," Marlin told him. "Maw Barstow and Link—I ran across them back there." He waved an arm vaguely.
"Maw and Slinky Link!" DuChane laughed uproariously. "That's good. Is the little shrimp still balmy?"
Marlin scratched his head. "I'd forgotten that. Guess he got over it, in a way. They've got a kid—and a cow. Kicked me out on my ear."
It was good to have companionship. Talking things over made things clearer. For one thing, he hadn't been able to understand at all how he came to be wandering over the face of this strange planet. "Last thing I remember was struggling with someone—and the ooze closing over. Then I found myself stumbling along this coastline."
DuChane stared. "Don't you know?"
He took Marlin down to a sheltered cove. "There's a type of clay formation—you get so you can spot it by the color—and where there's one chunk you'll usually find several. Look for them above the tide level. Most of those below that line have been dissolved away. Here's a sample."
He took the small lump of clay—it seemed as hard-baked as earthenware—and immersed it in a pool.
"It'll take some time. We might look for more."
In the end, they deposited several of the fragments in the pool, and late in the day small objects began drifting to the surface.
"The clay dissolves. Seems to be somewhat porous and the moisture seeps through to what's inside. Recognize this?" He fished in the pool and laid an inert insect on the bank.
"Cricket," observed Marlin. "I remember—" His thoughts reverted to a small creature that someone—he could not quite recall who—had resurrected from the sticky ooze back in that shadowy interior.
"This'll do the same," declared DuChane. "See. Its legs are twitching already. Here's something larger." He fished out a bedraggled bird.
"Then this is how it all came about?" queried Marlin. He swept the landscape with an inclusive gesture. "These birds—squirrels—Link's cow and the bull. You and I?"
"Sure thing. And the vegetation. The clay is rich in seeds. Everything that blew into that pit stuck." DuChane raked the surface of the water and held the gathered scum in his palm so that Marlin could see. "Seeds. Insects and larvae. Must have been washing out and drying and blowing over the landscape—taking root—for years."
"How many?"
DuChane shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine. I think we'll find that the shell broke up along this stretch of coastline and all the life of the planet is concentrated here. It must have commenced releasing the life it brought as soon as the water reached it."
"But before that—how long—? The clay is hard as rock!"
"Dave—that's something to think about. I've an idea it was terribly long. That earth of ours—for all we know man finished his evolution there—billions of our kind were born and died—while we lay in the chrysalis waiting for conditions to ripen. Worlds aren't finished in a day—unless you're thinking of cosmic days. Not even when it's a case of gathering up the debris of an asteroid belt and molding it into a planet—a New Earth."
Marlin stared. His mind sought to envision the slow natural processes that would achieve such a result.
"It's not hard to conceive," continued DuChane reflectively. "Earth scientists generally agreed that the original life spores reached our system from distant parts of the galaxy. When you think of the distances and eons of time they had to traverse, our little moment of suspended existence fades into insignificance."
"You've been awake—longer than I have," Marlin confessed dazedly. "My rusty brain can't follow you."
They wandered down the coastline, the two together faring better in the hunt for small game and edible growths than either had succeeded in doing alone.
Whenever he found a scattering of the baked clay fragments, or even isolated lumps, Marlin made it a point to carry them down to the water's edge, where in due course they would add to the life of the planet. It would be splendid to locate some larger pieces. There might be something to those stories of goats and sheep trapped by the ooze. A dog would be a find.
DuChane was off hunting by himself when Marlin came upon the largest deposit of clay fragments he had yet encountered. One of the lumps was of boulder size. He studied it with mounting excitement. It might prove entirely barren, as many of the fragments did, or it might prove to contain only tiny creatures. On the other hand, it could be the chrysalis of a fairly good-sized animal.
Transporting it to the water's edge was out of the question, but Marlin solved the problem by dredging a channel through the sand and rock debris which had isolated the deposit. When the next tide rose, it poured through the channel, immersing the clay boulder, and when the tide receded, the greater part of the water remained in the pool.
He did not tell DuChane of his discovery when they returned to camp at sundown. It would be a thrill to surprise him, if the find proved worth while.
Beyond assuring himself at intervals that the clay boulder was covered with water, there was little that Marlin could do to assist nature. From morning to morning, on various pretexts, he opposed DuChane's restless desire to move camp, while he watched the slow disintegration of the clay. Now and then he fished small creatures out of the water; others floated to the edge and revived of themselves. He was beginning to fear that the large blob contained no more than a sprinkling of such life, when, peering through the murky water, he saw a streak of lighter coloration along one side.
That it might be a human limb he refused even to hope. It seemed hairless, but often the small animals were bald in spots when they emerged, presenting a pathetically moth-eaten appearance. He could do nothing all day but watch. At sundown, DuChane made caustic observations upon his failure to contribute to their larder. Marlin scarcely bothered to offer an excuse.
Early next morning, he was back at the pool. By this time, the body within the partly disintegrated chrysalis was so definitely outlined that he could almost be certain of its human shape. The exposed portions were still hard and rigid to the touch. He restrained his impatience to break away the encrusting clay. Experience had shown that attempts to hasten the process usually resulted in injury or death to the enclosed creature. Yet by mid-afternoon enough of the deposit had dissolved to assure Marlin, not only that the body was human, but that it was quite probably feminine. The head and upper portion were still encrusted with the clay. He could only hope that they would be free by morning.
Had it not been for questions it would arouse in DuChane's mind, he would have remained all night by the pool. When he forced himself to return to camp, DuChane regarded him sourly. Suspicion mounted as Marlin set about unaccustomed preparations.
Selecting the sharpest of his stone implements, he ground it to a still keener edge. Then, painfully and methodically, he began scraping his beard. The coming of darkness made little difference, since he was working by sense of touch. When the growth had been removed from his face, after a fashion, he hacked at his tangled locks until something that might be termed a haircut had been achieved.
Long before he had finished, DuChane was snoring, but in the morning he looked at his companion with undisguised amusement.
"Why the beauty treatment?"
"We're civilized beings," retorted Marlin defensively. "Why look like savages?"
Restraining his impatience until he was sure DuChane had gone his own way, he gathered some food and all the animal skins they had accumulated between them and hastened to the pool.
A tide had risen and ebbed during the night, leaving the water comparatively clear. The body of the girl was floating on the surface, face and shoulders entirely freed of clay but submerged.
A desperate fear clutched Marlin's vitals. He should have been there when the last of the clay dissolved, ready to drag her clear of the water. What if the delay had allowed her to drown?
Dropping his armful of skins on a flattened rock, he plunged into the pool and bore her to the improvised couch. The skins with the softer fur he spread beneath, and with those remaining he covered the slender body.
Not until then did he look at the wan face with any impulse of curiosity. It had not especially mattered who she was. It was enough that she was a member of the human species—a girl.
Now he realized that she was Norma, the moody outlaw maiden. And with the realization came a stab of dismay.
Norma had been dead before the crash. The barest accident alone had saved her body from the incinerator. The life-maintaining clay had closed over her too late to preserve a vital spark already fled. No wonder she lay so inert and motionless.
With leaden heart, he looked down at the still features—so cold and immobile. Not until then did he realize how vehemently he had counted on bringing her into his world—how he had needed and yearned for such companionship. It had not seemed to matter who the girl was; but now he realized that he wanted Norma—that life would never be complete without her.
He touched the cheeks, the hands, the scarred neck. They were cold—cold as the stone on which she lay. And yet a sense of perplexity assailed him.
Not one fragment of inorganic life had been preserved in the clay, as far as he had discovered. It seemed to maintain all forms of life or potential life; other substances had invariably been consumed.
His clothing and everything he carried had succumbed to the disintegration, yet his body had emerged from its clay entombment unscathed—not only that, but strengthened, purified, adapted to its new environment, so that he experienced no great discomfort in a climate markedly colder than Earth's. He and DuChane had discussed this and decided that the body metabolism had been altered, making them definitely coldblooded.
If the purifying clay could do this, could it not also have drawn the poison from Norma's system, maintaining a spark of life that still persisted despite her seeming death? From the mere fact that her body was preserved, what other conclusion was it possible to draw?
With renewed hope, Marlin set frantically about trying to establish respiration by artificial means. Was it imagination, or did he feel a slight surge of warmth in the limp body? As a last resort, he bent over the still face and blew his breath into the delicate nostrils.
A long drawn, quivering shudder swept the form. Stilling his excitement, he blew again and yet again, slowly working the arms back and forth. And presently, beyond doubt, she was breathing naturally, her flesh was taking on a glow of warmth, the long-lashed eyes opened for a second.
Throughout the morning, Marlin nursed his charge. From time to time, he moistened the pale lips with water and allowed a trickle to run into her mouth. When the sun reached its zenith, she made an effort as if to rise, and he helped her to a sitting posture.
She looked around blankly, scarce seeming to know what she saw, and aware of Marlin only as an object that moved.
She was not beautiful by Earth standards, but those standards were far away. To Marlin, her very presence was intoxicating. He could have knelt and worshipped her.
How long he had been observed, in his preoccupation, he had no way of knowing. When he glanced up at an overhanging rock-ledge above the pool, DuChane was regarding him with sardonic amusement.
"I figured you were up to something," the man called down. "So this was the inspiration for the shave."
Marlin licked his lips, stifling a wave of apprehension.
"She's mine," he said.
DuChane circled the ledge until he found a place to descend. Making his way down slowly, he strode toward the girl—would have touched her but for a warning gesture from Marlin.
He turned abruptly.
"We may as well get this settled." His voice was harsh—his eyes had grown hard. "One of us gets her—the other doesn't."
"She's mine," Marlin repeated doggedly. "I found her—opened the channel to the tide—brought her to life."
"You want her," returned DuChane, "because she's a woman. I want her because—she's the one. I'd come to feel that way about her back in the space ark."
Filled with a blind rage, Marlin plunged toward him. DuChane carried a spear, and he raised it in defense, but in the fury of his onslaught Marlin brushed it aside and heard it clatter on the rock.
He landed a fist squarely on the other's jaw and followed it with flailing blows on face and body.
DuChane made a quick recovery. He lowered his head and bored through the barrage to get a strangle hold on Marlin's neck.
Forced to adopt similar tactics, Marlin struggled for his opponent's throat. They fell together, thrashing over the rocky slope.
With an unexpected twist, DuChane wrenched free. Attempting to follow him, Marlin slipped on the wet rock and fell with a resounding splash into the pool. By the time he could scramble out, DuChane had recovered his spear and was warily bearing down upon him, the stone point poised for a deadly thrust.
Before the sure death presaged by the snarling features, Marlin cautiously retreated. By this time, his mind had regained its alertness. For all his rage, he realized that, unarmed, he was no match for DuChane while the latter possessed the spear.
Whirling suddenly, he made a dash for freedom. Before DuChane could hurl his shaft, he had scrambled over the edge of the embankment and was running toward camp.
Quickly, Marlin gathered all the spears belonging to their combined store. Thus fortified, he warily circled the higher ground which overlooked the pool.
DuChane was squatting before the girl, but his preoccupation was not so intent that he failed to glimpse the movement above. Instantly he was erect, spear in hand.
Poising his best shaft, Marlin flung it straight toward the other's breast. DuChane leaped aside, and the spear struck a rock behind him a glancing blow. The head shattered, while the shaft rebounded, striking the girl.
Sick with dismay, Marlin saw her recoil and then bewilderedly attempt to rise. DuChane caught her in his arms and forced her down on the bed of skins, then turned vindictively toward the man above.
Defeated for the moment, Marlin withdrew. He could not risk throwing more spears while DuChane remained near the girl.
Throughout the rest of the day, he stalked the other. DuChane was too wary to be taken off guard. He was even supplied with rations—the delicacies Marlin had brought from camp with which to feed the girl when she regained consciousness. He saw DuChane put occasional morsels into her mouth. She swallowed, mechanically but eagerly.
Toward evening, Marlin was sure he heard her utter a few hesitant syllables in answer to DuChane's low-voiced remarks.
He kept up the siege through the night, hoping to slip down unobserved and creep up on the other man, but the night happened to be one in which the moons were both in evidence. Their radiance was sufficient to give the alert DuChane warning of his approach.
The one thing to his advantage was an unusually high tide. It drove DuChane and his charge up the slope to a position beneath the overhanging ledge. Studying the situation by the first rays of the morning sun, Marlin decided on a plan of action.
He gained a vantage point as nearly as possible above the two. By hurling himself over the ledge, he might be able to overcome the other in a surprise attack.
Waiting until the murmur of voices below indicated that DuChane was at least partly off guard, he poised himself, spear in hand, then leaped.
It was a fall of a good twelve feet. He landed on all fours on the sloping descent, the jar breaking his hold on his spear. A sharp pain stabbed up one leg.
DuChane sprang to his feet, spear upraised, but Marlin charged toward him without hesitation.
The jagged point of the spear pierced his side, but he plowed on, forcing the other back up the slope by sheer fury of the onslaught.
Again they were at close grips, gouging, tearing, surging back and forth across the slope. Once DuChane gained a strangle hold on Marlin's throat. Fingers, hard and cruel as talons, sank deep into his windpipe. Mustering all his energy, Marlin broke the hold by forcing the other back against the rock wall and pounding his head against the jagged surface.
They broke apart, Marlin gasping for breath, DuChane shaking his shaggy head to clear it. Then, with the fury of desperation, Marlin stumbled back to the fray.
This time DuChane met the attack by hurling his body down upon him with the force of a catapult.
They hurtled down the slope together, but Marlin was beneath, and the crash of landing knocked the breath from his body.
DuChane scrambled for his spear, but when Marlin tried to rise, he found his muscles too weak to obey the demand of his will. He was faint from loss of the blood which gushed from his torn side, and the pain stabbing up from his ankle was rising to the threshold of consciousness with unbearable intensity.
With glazing eyes, he looked up to see DuChane poised for the kill.
The spear-arm hesitated. Through a throbbing haze of waning consciousness, Marlin heard the other man's voice.
"I don't want to kill you—Dave. What about it? Will you go your way and leave us in peace?"
Then blackness blotted out the scene.
Marlin regained consciousness in the camp. He was stiff and weak and sick with the pain of his ankle. DuChane and the girl stood over him.
"Sorry, old man," DuChane said regretfully. "You put up a good fight, but I had the advantage."
Marlin made no reply. But in the days that followed, while slowly regaining his strength, he observed the pair. It was clear that he was definitely out of the picture. The girl, Norma, taciturn as ever, nevertheless followed DuChane with her eyes and seemed to dwell on his every word. Daily she accompanied him on the hunt, becoming as adept as a man with spear and club.
Sometimes she returned early to prepare the evening meal. On one such occasion Marlin abruptly asked:
"You like him? You're satisfied?"
The girl, in her single brief garment of skins, dropped down beside him. She was tanned and strong-looking now, and a new radiance had replaced the old sullen look on her face.
"You found me, didn't you?" she said slowly. "It was you who gave me back to life—and I've never thanked you."
Marlin gingerly flexed his injured ankle. "Forget the thanks," he returned gruffly.
"It seems funny," she went on, "to thank you for saving me. I used to reproach you for saving me the first time, and I tried to fling away the life you'd given back. But somehow, now, it's different. I want to live! I feel somehow that I've found the place where I belong—a world where living is real and glorious, as it should be."
He looked at her thoughtfully.
"I guess you're right. Everything's as it should be."
As soon as he could walk with but a slight limp, he gathered up his spears and implements.
"I've a notion there's better hunting farther south," he observed.
DuChane avoided his eyes. Norma said nothing, but it was apparent that she wished to be alone with her man.
"I'll drop around sometimes—keep in touch with you," Marlin assured them cheerfully. "So long."
Thus casually, he set out alone in the wilderness.
For weeks he hunted along the shore of the murky sea. One day he picked up a shaft in which was bound a spearhead unlike any that either he or DuChane had fashioned. It was a crudely hammered thing of metal—and the red stain with which it was encrusted revealed that the metal was iron.
While he stood looking at it, a shrill vituperation startled his ears, and two figures came dashing over the ridge beyond. In the brief glimpse he had before the pursuer felled the one in advance, he was sure the victim was a woman.
She had fallen beneath the blow, but in an instant was on her feet, screaming, struggling, and scratching. Before the fury of her attack, the man retreated, and finally broke away, waving his spear ominously when she threatened to follow up the advantage.
Both became aware of Marlin at the same instant.
He walked toward them slowly.
"Sally!" he called out, and then, doubtfully: "Len McGruder?"
Eyes riveted on Marlin's face, the girl approached, slowly, almost like one groping in the dark. She touched his cheeks diffidently with both hands.
"You're Dave! Dave Marlin!" she gasped.
McGruder eyed them with fierce resentment, then lunged forward and thrust Sally away.
"Damned slut!" he growled. "Get back to your brats."
She swung on him furiously. "Shut Up! I'll stay where I please."
Marlin noticed with sickened comprehension that there was an ugly welt on her temple and many bruises showed on the exposed parts of her body. But then, there were scratches and welts on McGruder that might not have been due altogether to entanglement with brush.
"You'll stay with us tonight," Sally informed Marlin. "You'll be surprised at what a good housekeeper I am."
There was no second to the invitation from McGruder, but Marlin cheerfully accompanied them home.
Their refuge, like that of Maw and Link, was a cave. In an improvised enclosure, two naked children rolled contentedly in the dirt—one about two, the other a babe in the crawling stage. Cute little brats, Marlin thought, and Sally appeared to be casually proud of them.
There was no evidence that they had attempted to cultivate growing things, but they had a fire, and Marlin was interested in the forge McGruder grudgingly showed him. He had fashioned other things besides spearheads—crude knives and an attempt at an axe—but he jealously refused to divulge the location of his metal deposits.
As a special treat, Sally cooked a delectable stew of meat and edible roots.
During the evening, the pair staged a bitter quarrel over some trifle, in the course of which McGruder sent Sally reeling with a cuff on the side of the head and she came back tooth and nail to retaliate. Marlin refrained from taking a hand. The girl seemed able to take care of herself.
When the embers of the fire burned low, Sally carried her offspring into the cave. McGruder, with a snarling remark that might have been taken for a goodnight followed her. Marlin made himself as comfortable as possible under a ledge some distance away.
He wakened at the sound of crunching sand. In an instant, Sally was beside him, her arms circling his neck. She was sobbing.
"Take me away, Dave!" she moaned. "I can't stand it. He beats me—he's a beast! It's been a living hell."
He stroked her hair gently, reveling in the soft tangle. He did not blame her for wanting to leave a brute like McGruder. In point of fact, she was voicing a thought which he had been pondering as he fell asleep.
Her lips sought his and clung, deliciously.
"Your kids," he suggested presently. "You wouldn't want to leave them. How'll we manage—?"
"I've thought it all out," she told him breathlessly. "In the morning you'll start down the coast. If he thinks you're out of the way, he'll go hunting as usual. Then you can come back and we'll slip away together."
"Suppose he follows. With two children we can't travel very fast."
"What if he does! You're strong, Dave—and unafraid. I've always admired you. He found me wandering around alone, frightened and starved, and we—well, there just wasn't anybody else. You know how it is."
"Sure," he agreed. "I don't blame you, kid."
Another clinging kiss, and she slipped away.
Marlin lay contentedly thinking of the morrow. He'd found the companionship he craved, at last. Sally was an attractive kid. In this new world, for all its hardships, she had blossomed in a full-bosomed, satisfying way. Her kisses were pleasant to recall. Now he could establish a home and live the way a man was meant to live.
That she was already encumbered with two children did not disturb him in the least. Hungering for companionship, he liked the idea of having others dependent upon him—others for whom he could work and hunt, and to whom he would mean something.
True, they were another man's children. Presumably McGruder had some feeling for them; he couldn't be entirely lacking in human traits. Probably even cared for Sally in his way. But a scurvy brute who didn't know how to treat a woman deserved to have her run away with another man.
Involuntarily, Marlin strove to put the thought in different words. The idea of running away was repellent. Why do it by stealth? He wasn't afraid of McGruder.
Why not go up to him and say: "I'm making off with your wife and kids. What are you going to do about it?" That was better.
McGruder would put up a howl. Marlin hoped he'd be man enough to fight. Somehow, you didn't feel quite so mean about taking a man's possessions if you proved you were entitled to them by right of superior prowess.
But whether you took them by stealth or force, you'd have occasional moments of remorse. It wasn't as if—
Impatiently, Marlin twisted to his other side and tried to sleep. Thinking about it didn't help. Perhaps Sally's idea was better, after all. It wasn't the fight he wanted to avoid—it was the accusation he'd feel in the other man's eyes. Even a rat like McGruder could have moral right on his side....
Morning found Marlin many miles down the coast and still feverishly pushing on. Too bad he couldn't have left some word for Sally; but she'd probably understand.
His failing to show up for breakfast would be the tipoff. She'd realize that he must have decided that he couldn't do this thing.
In the long run, she'd be glad that the father of her children still had the responsibility of caring for them. What if he did beat her occasionally? Recollection of the fight they'd staged last evening recurred to mind, and he grinned. Sally gave as good as she took. He half suspected that she enjoyed the excitement.
Still, there were her kisses and her warm vital body. Most of all, there was the hunger for companionship. It was just as well to put a lot of distance between himself and these ever-tempting possibilities.
Perhaps, if he was doomed to be alone, he might find some creature of the wild for company. The section of the shore which he was approaching really promised well.
He had supposed that the center from which most of the vegetation sprang was somewhere in the neighborhood of his emergence. Probably just a fellow's egotistical way of regarding himself as the center of the universe. Now it began to look as if this region to the south was relatively a garden spot, the older section—so far as growth was concerned.
The bushes were more luxuriant; there were even some fledgling trees. Wild life was more abundant. He caught glimpses of rabbits and of a distant creature that might have been one of the legendary sheep which were supposed to have been trapped in the ooze before the sphere took its plunge into space.
It seemed to Marlin that even the sun shone brighter; his skin felt a gentle warmth in place of the ever-present chill. It was almost like coming home.
More and more frequently he came upon things that gladdened his spirit. Sheep there undoubtedly were, back among those rocks, and stalks of corn, not nearly as stunted as those which Link had painstakingly cultivated. Bees hummed around the blossoms of occasional flowers. At the base of a huge rock outcropping he found a nest hollowed out in a pocket of dry leaves, and in the nest were eggs—pullet eggs.
On the slope of a hillside rising from the other side of the rock was a small flock of clucking hens, scratching industriously under the supervision of a strutting cock. Off to the right a pair of goats raised their heads and blatted at him in mild astonishment.
A well-defined trail led to the crest of the outcropping. Trembling with anticipation of he knew not what, Marlin plodded up the path. Reaching the top, he paused. Something constricted his throat.
Calm and tranquil, like an aloof goddess, she sat on a boulder in a grassy knoll overlooking the sea. She wore a knee-length garment which seemed to be woven of plaited grass. Her long golden hair hung in loose braids over her shoulders, and she cuddled a chick to her breast, cupping it in both hands while the mother hen, with the rest of her brood, clucked at her feet. On the slope above, a black and white pup paused in the act of worrying a stick, and stood looking at the newcomer with one ear comically cocked.