Still panting, Craig said, "That was close, Bukal. Thanks."
Bukal didn't answer.
Craig craned round, peered up at him. "Bukal! What's the matter?"
The bronzed face stayed bleak and bitter. "It is the end, Earthman," he answered heavily. "The end of my people and their dream of freedom."
"The end—?" Staring, Craig fought down a numbness. "You don't mean—?"
"Yes." Bukal's slash-mouth twisted. "Zenaor has carried out his threat. In a hundred spots south of the barrier, the ourobos are unleashed against us!"
CHAPTER VII
Restlessly, the djevodas lumbered through the grasslands—a large herd, numbering over half a hundred.
A tension seemed to hang about the creatures. Great snout-heads lifted as if sniffing the morning breeze, then lowered again, swinging to and fro, watchful and surly.
"You see?" Bukal clipped. "They sense that today they are the hunted, not the hunters."
Frowning, Craig nodded.
"Come now. The nearest of the places we seek is farther south."
Craig tilted his disc, following Bukal as the Baemae leader skimmed his own saucer away, high above the ranges.
Below them, another herd appeared. Another.
Bukal shouted, "Observe, Craig Nesom! They move north—all of them!"
The Earthman stared. Bukal's words were true. The scene below was like some vast migration—a sudden shift that turned the behemoths ever northward towards the barrier that separated this free land from the tyranny of the Kukzubas barons.
Too, these new herds were moving faster, hardly pausing to tusk up the rich roots on which the monsters fed.
They crossed a river. Bukal drifted his disc in close to Craig's. "Watch, now. From here on we may find ourobos."
Even as he spoke, a wild scream of rage, of terror, rose from a distant group of the djevoda.
"Quick—!" Bukal raced ahead.
Craig followed, sweeping low behind him.
Then they were above the monstrous sextupeds—hovering, peering. Craig glimpsed grey movement amidst the green-gold grass-clumps ... a shimmering as of slime that crawled and eddied. He started to glide lower.
"No—!" Bukal cried. "Stop, Craig! Don't chance it!"
There could be no mistaking the urgency of his tone. Discing higher, Craig studied the ground below in careful detail.
Now it dawned on him that more than one grey splotch showed. Here lay another; there, two more. Like water, they seemed to seep across the land in slithering tendrils.
The djevodas were bunching now, crowding together. Their great feet hammered at the earth. They tusked up clods in sudden furies.
Bukal hung close. "You see? They are surrounded." His voice was bitter.
It was true. Everywhere, grey patches hemmed in the djevoda. While Craig watched, they linked and joined, eddying together ... grew larger, larger, till they lay on the range like a sodden, ever-spreading blanket.
The djevodas stomped and pawed. Rage echoed in their roaring bellows ... rage, and something more, something close akin to panic.
The grey took on new thickness. As if feeding on the very air itself, it piled in glistening layers.
Then, rippling in Boh's green glow, a tendril crept from the mass, slithering through the grass towards the djevodas.
Slowly ... slowly....
It touched a great foot ... curled about the ankle.
Still unaware, the djevoda started to turn.
The slime swirled about the foot—clinging, holding.
The djevoda's bellow went shrill with terror. Aware of the danger now, it lunged savagely.
The foot tore free.
But now panic was upon the giant sextuped. Roaring, it charged across the clear space, straight into the mass of circling grey.
Its fellows followed.
Like a hideous grey wave, the slime swept in upon them—miring them, surging high onto their lumbering bodies.
The djevodas screamed and slashed and struggled.
But it was as if they were wallowing in quicksand. Each lunge, each tusk-slash, only brought the grey tide rolling higher. Splattering, each grey patch grew as it touched its quarry. In bare seconds the wave-thing engulfed the struggling giants.
The last scream died, swallowed up in the grey death of the ourobos. Folds of slime rippled over final, paroxysmal spasms.
Shuddering, Craig whipped his disc into a tight, climbing spiral. The breeze was suddenly chill upon him, and he retched till his quivering stomach emptied.
Grim-faced, Bukal hovered beside him. "A pretty picture, is it not?"
Craig couldn't answer.
"So it goes everywhere across the grasslands. Like a tide, the ourobos sweep over the south, pausing and gathering only long enough to kill, then spreading out once more in ever-greater numbers...." His voice trailed off.
"But—is there nothing—?"
"—Nothing that will stop them? No." Bukal's jaw jutted, hard and angry. "No, Craig. Nothing. Our people learned that long ago, on Xumar, the ourobos' home planet. Tanagree oil injections will render man distasteful to them; otherwise even the barons' military stations there would have had to be abandoned."
"Then—the oil—"
"They do not like it; that is all. It doesn't harm them."
"Oh."
"Already, our villages are emptying. By tomorrow the whole of the free Baemae will be crowded close along the border. The day after—who knows?"
Craig frowned. "Tumek thought he had an answer."
Bukal's face didn't change. "Tumek lies in his grave, and Vydys holds his crystal." His bitterness ate like acid.
Craig had no words. Silently, he stared away, off across the rolling southern grasslands.
Was there no solution anywhere to this monstrous scheme of Zenaor's? Would other planets go down before it like the Baemae? And his own life ... must he resign himself to defeat and death? Was that to be his destiny, the end of his assignment here on Lysor?
Bleakly, he wondered.
Then, afar off, a moving speck appeared, racing through the sky. Craig stiffened. "Bukal...."
The Baemae shaded his eyes. "A disc," he clipped, tight-lipped. "More trouble...."
Together, Lysorian and Earthman lanced towards the approaching saucer.
Then it was close at hand, and Craig could hardly believe his eyes. For a woman rode it—a slim, young girl with golden hair that rippled and shimmered in the sunlight.
"Narla—!" he choked. "Narla!"
She swept close, then, and they grounded their discs on a knoll and she was in his arms again, laughing and crying at once.
Pushing her back at last, Craig held her at arm's length, feasting his eyes upon her. For today she was a different Narla. Her heavy Kukzubas cape was gone, replaced by the scanty scarlet halter and paneled belt of the free Baemae. A fire-gun hung at her hip, a jeweled ceremonial dagger across her thigh, and she carried one of the long black whips with which Bukal's men herded the djevoda.
Laughing, she pirouetted. "You see, Craig? This time I come as one of you, not Zenaor's kidnapped daughter."
Craig nodded. "Yes, I see. But—what of your father? How did you get here?"
A shadow crossed the lovely face. But the girl's grey eyes stayed clear, her voice steady. "Once, Craig Nesom, I told you that I was—would ever be—your woman. That is what brought me here; that only. My father took me from Vydys, yes, trading tanagree oil for my life. But he could not hold me. Not when you stood here, fighting with the Baemae. I fled from the Central Tower to an old friend among the Baemae. She gave me this garb and saucer, and told me where to find you. So, now"—she shrugged smooth shoulders—"I am here, to stand beside you."
Wordless, unable to speak, Craig again embraced her.
Only then Bukal was talking, breaking in upon them. "The ourobos come closer," he clipped. "There's no time to waste. My people need me."
Spinning their discs, the three took to the air and ranged north till they reached the river and the village.
The village. Tension crawled through it now, lined on every face, reflected in every movement. Men, women, children—they crowded round as the trio stepped from their discs.
Bukal searched the frightened faces. "What is it?"
"New nests of ourobos!" a man burst out; and another croaked, "Already, the djevodas are in flight. By tonight—"
He broke off. There was no need to say more.
"Then ... we have no choice." Bukal shrugged, bronzed shoulders heavy. "We must join the others along the barrier."
"Must we?" This from a woman. "Must we, Bukal—when we hold Zenaor's daughter as our prisoner?"
Taut silence echoed, sudden as summer thunder.
Frowning, Bukal looked down at the speaker. "What nonsense—?" he began.
But a man shoved forward and cut in upon him: "No nonsense, Bukal!" he flashed fiercely. "All morning, the amplifiers have been blaring across the barrier. Zenaor says he'll leave us free, safe from the ourobos, in trade for this wench and her alien lover!"
More echoing silence. More vibrant tension.
Then Bukal snapped, "Enough of this drivel! Zenaor's daughter or not, this girl's cast her lot with us. As for Craig Nesom—"
From one side, a rawboned, ape-like discman smashed a blow to the back of Bukal's head. The leader spilled to the ground.
Like wolves, the crowd surged forward.
Craig drove a fist into the face of the man who'd struck Bukal; lashed a kick to the groin of another, beside him.
Then green fire blazed, a blast that seared between him and the Baemae.
The crowd stopped short; fell back.
Fire-gun in hand, bronzed body glistening, Bukal lurched to his feet. Blood dripped from his earlobe. "You scum, would you buy your lives with treason?"
No one moved. No one spoke.
"Craig...."
The Earthman shifted to his friend's side in one quick movement. "Yes, Bukal."
The Baemae chief's eyes stayed on the crowd, his finger tight on the fire-gun's trigger. Face a bleak, expressionless mask, he said, "I see that I can no longer control my people. But at least you need not suffer for it. Take Narla and go!"
Wordless, Craig nodded. The girl beside him, he backed to the nearest discs.
The Baemae fell back before him. He could feel their eyes on his back as he spun the saucers. Their hate surged over him like the magnetic waves on which the discs lifted.
Into the air again, rising ... passing over palisades and circling hills, racing away northwest towards the barons' barrier.
Where could they go? What would they do?
Bleakly, Craig mulled dark thoughts. He was glad that she kept her own counsel, till he saw her brush at her eyes and knew she was crying.
Yet what solace could anyone offer her in this nightmare?
Now other villages passed below them. Grey folds ringed one, glistening in Yoh's white light as they closed in upon it.
Craig closed his ears to the screams of the doomed and sent his disc hurtling faster.
Then the black line of the barrier loomed ahead. The blare of amplifiers rose faintly.
Craig turned. "Hover here awhile, while I reconnoiter."
Mutely, Narla nodded. He sped away.
More villages, more djevoda, more grey patches. The amplifiers, bellowing: "Bring in my daughter, Baemae! Bring in my daughter and the alien!"
No refuge.
Craig circled back.
Only now, two discs swayed where one had hung before. And one was sweeping down on the other.
On Narla.
Craig whipped his own saucer higher, and then higher.
A man in high-fronted metal helmet rode the second disc, the one that was gliding down towards the girl. While Craig watched, he swung out his long black djevoda whip ... tilted his disc till it plummeted like a speeding arrow.
Craig raced towards them.
Now Narla, too, saw the stranger. She tried to tilt her saucer.
But the man in the helmet pancaked his disc down, level ... swung the whip. The lash curled round Narla's wrist.
She jerked back in a panic. Tottered.
Then her disc tilted and she was sliding—falling—
Craig careened his own carrier down.
The stranger's head came round. He clawed for the fire-gun in his belt-holster.
Craig shifted sharply. His disc's edge dropped. Before Narla's attacker could twist or duck, the edge hit him.
He bounced backward, out into empty air, flailing wildly. The handle of his whip sang by Craig's head.
With a desperate lunge, the Earthman caught it ... clung to it while Narla swung in a wide arc beneath him.
The stranger's scream died in the thud of his body striking.
Sweat-drenched, gasping, Craig maneuvered his own disc down till Narla's feet were on the ground once more. Another moment, and he was stumbling to her, hugging her shaking body to his. "My darling ... my darling...."
How long did they stand so? An hour? A minute?
Only then, at last, they were no longer shaking. Once more, Craig could taste her lips and smell her fragrance and feel the softness of her hair as it rippled like ripe rangeland grasses.
But with that consciousness came other things—a far-off scream ... a panic-straut knot of djevoda, fleeing ... the faint, rank distant scent of the ourobos.
Away, beyond the barrier, the amplifier bellowed, "Give up my daughter, Baemae! Give up my daughter and the alien!"
Narla's cheek was soft against Craig's ... softer than any satin. He kissed her eyes ... tasted the salt of the tears that welled from them.
His Narla, crying.
Again the amplifier roared its message: "Give up my daughter, Baemae! That is the price of life! Give up my daughter and the alien!"
Bleakly, Craig turned and looked back across the grasslands.
No longer were they a serfman's refuge. Not now. Not with the ourobos' slime upon them.
A flurry of movement caught his eye. Faintly, he heard djevoda bellow panic.
The panic that came with the ourobos. The same kind that turned free Baemae into wolves, hunting down his Narla.
"If you do not give them up, I'll know my daughter's dead and you will die with her!" the amplifier shrieked. "Give her up, Baemae! Give her up and live! Why should you care what happens to the alien, Nesom?"
Why indeed?
Tight-lipped, Craig pivoted.
His thoughts must have shown on his face, or in his eyes. Narla clung to him—grey eyes tear-filled, lips aquiver. "No, Craig! No!"
He held her to him for a moment.
Hoarse shouts. Djevoda screaming. Rippling eddies, grey and obscene, amid the green-gold of the grasslands.
"Give them up, Baemae! Give them up or die!"
Craig said, "It doesn't matter, Narla. Not really. I've fought and I've lost, and a man has to play the cards fate deals him. But there's no reason for the others, the Baemae, to die with me. Not if there's even the slimmest chance for them to live if I surrender. As for you, your father wants you back, that's all. He'll never harm you."
She was still sobbing as he lifted her onto the saucer....
CHAPTER VIII
The Central Tower of Torneulan, the Tower of Zenaor. Hard-faced guards. Echoing passageways. The bleak metal and leather of Zenaor's private chambers.
And Zenaor.
The Lord Zenaor, high chief of all Kukzubas barons.
The lean face was set in cruel lines now, the jet eyes narrowed to black diamonds beneath their heavy brows.
"So, alien...." His voice rasped, thick with menace. "At last you come to me, begging for mercy—"
"Mercy? From you?" Craig Nesom shrugged in spite of the guards' restraining hands, the shackles. "No, Zenaor. I beg nothing of you, neither life nor lenience. The things I've done I'd do again. I've given up only to stop this senseless slaughter."
"An altruistic gesture, alien," Zenaor chuckled. "But a trifle late."
He rose as he spoke and stepped to a paneled wall behind his seat. A carved section slid back at his touch, revealing a bleak, compact laboratory chamber.
A transparent, closet-sized cubicle stood on a stand in the compartment's center ... a cubicle whose every inch and crack and crevice seethed and eddied with the swirling grey slime of ourobos.
In spite of himself, Craig Nesom stiffened; caught the whisper of Narla's quick-drawn breath.
Zenaor pivoted, still chuckling. "You see, alien? Here we have ourobos!"
Craig nodded slowly.
"And what is the ourobos?" Zenaor was gloating now, caught up in the excitement of his own revelation. "It is what your science would term a thallophyte, Earthman—a semi-intelligent thallophyte, a sort of deadly, highly-mobile fungus for which no specific weapon has been discovered!"
"A fungus—!"
"Yes, alien! That's why no weapon prevails against it! Blast it, even with fire, and still asexual spores fly out, each to form the nucleus for another of its kind, a new ourobos!"
Craig's lips were dry. His voice shook. "Then—this planet, Lysor—"
"Lysor is doomed, you mean?" Triumph rang in the chief barons' voice. "Indeed it is, alien! Now that I've brought the ourobos from Xumar, nothing can stop them! Your sacrifice is wasted! There's barely enough tanagree oil to treat a handful of our barons!"
Craig choked. "No, Zenaor! Not even you could doom a whole race—"
But Zenaor still was speaking: "This is my answer to the free Baemae, Earthman! They wanted Lysor—they shall have it! As for the rest of us—my friends among the Kukzubas, a few loyal serfmen—I have ships already ramped to take us off to Odak, third planet of our system."
Craig stood numb, unable to move or speak.
So now, at last, he knew the truth—the secret behind Zenaor's dark dream of conquest.
Only now was too late. Now was a nonexistent second between the moment of the chief of barons' flight and the time when he'd lay down his challenge to a hundred, a thousand, other planets, backed by the horrid, devastating threat of the ourobos.
And Narla—
Slowly, desolately, Craig turned to look at her ... to see again the helpless anguish stamped on her lovely, horror-blanched face.
"Now you look to my daughter for solace, Earthman?" Again, it was Zenaor speaking. "You seek to drown the bitterness of death and failure in the knowledge that she, at least, will live because you came in and surrendered?"
New tendrils fluttered in Craig Nesom's belly. He swung back; stared at his lean, merciless captor.
"Shall I tell you more, alien—another thing you did not know?" The chief of barons bared his teeth in a grin that belonged on a bleaching skull. He leaned forward, voice dropping lower: "Though I raised her as such, Narla is not my daughter!"
The very walls rang with shock. Even the cold-eyed guards went rigid.
Zenaor said: "Her father was of the Baemae, alien—and I lusted after the Baemae wife who bore his daughter, Narla. So I slew him, and took wife and child alike into my harem."
"Father—Zenaor...." Narla's poise was cracking.
Ruthlessly, the other pressed on: "She is not of my blood, alien. No ties coerce me to forgive her treason. So she dies here with you—with you, and all my enemies, Baemae or baron!"
A madness seized Craig Nesom. Savagely, he hurled himself at his tormentor.
But the guards were too quick, too strong. Brutally, they jerked him back.
He writhed helpless, raging.
Only then a voice—a woman's voice, low and gentle as the hiss of the asp is gentle: "Your enemies, Zenaor—like me, perhaps?"
Craig went rigid. The guards, too; Zenaor; Narla.
A hanging moved aside. Dark Vydys the Cruel stood framed in a doorway—fire-gun in hand, liveried warriors behind her.
"Vydys—!" Zenaor's color was draining.
The woman laughed softly. "Surely, my lord, my coming does not surprise you? By way of a test, I injected some of the fluid you gave me into a serfman, then sent him out to meet the ourobos. But they swallowed him up as they would any other, so I came here to discuss it." Airily, she gestured. "Of course, there was some small difficulty with your men at the gates. My troops had to slay them—"
Zenaor sucked in air.
Vydys said, "Your plans for the spaceships—they please me. The fleet shall blast for Odak according to schedule." A pause. A cat's smile. "Of course, you'll not be with it. It's better that you stay here with the Baemae."
"Vydys, in the name of our ancestors—our common blood as Kukzubas—"
"I remember it, Zenaor. You shall not stand unprotected." Vydys brought a flat object from beneath her waist-cape, tossed it onto a table. "Here. I leave you this weapon."
It was the jewel-box that held Tumek's crystal.
Zenaor's fists clenched. "Curse you, Vydys—!"
She turned away as if he had not spoken. Smiling at Craig, she purred, "A last chance for you, Earthling. Would you join me?"
Craig's eyes met Narla's. Then, quietly, he said, "You know my answer, Vydys."
Her face contorted. "Die, then, you fool!"
She started to turn back to Zenaor.
Only then, incredibly, a fire-gun was in his hand, too, whipping up from beneath his scarlet cloak.
They fired together.
Vydys screamed in the same instant. For the fraction of a second green flame seemed to envelope her. A great black char-scar spread across her naked belly.
She tottered. Her guards lunged forward.
But already Zenaor was leaping into the laboratory chamber. Headlong, he dived for the transparent cubicle in the center and wrenched its hatch open.
Like a wave of slime, the ourobos belched forth, spilling across the floor in a hideous, writhing blot.
The foremost of Vydys' charging guards screamed and tried to stop.
Too late. He pitched into the fungous tide; screamed just once more.
A bubbling scream....
The room erupted into chaos. Alike, Vydys' men and Zenaor's fled in shrieking panic.
Craig thrust a foot across one's path; snatched a fire-gun as the man fell sprawling.
The room was empty, then ... empty save for dead Vydys and her guard, and Zenaor, and Narla, and Craig Nesom.
And the ourobos.
Coolly, Zenaor stood his ground beside the cubicle. Ourobos swept in close about his feet, then eddied back. They would not touch him.
He laughed; gestured. "You see, alien? The tanagree oil is in my veins; they will not touch me. But you...." He laughed again.
Craig said, "Much good may it do you, Zenaor. A corpse is a corpse, even if the worms won't eat it."
He raised the fire-gun.
Zenaor's laughter died. He half-turned. "Wait, Earthman—"
He whipped up his own weapon.
Craig fired.
Zenaor died.
Then Narla was in the Earthman's arms again, heedless of the ourobos' creeping tendrils. "So we die, Craig Nesom. But at least we die together."
Craig held her close. "No, Narla."
"No—?" He could feel her body stiffen. "But—what—?"
"I said no, Narla. We don't die. Neither of us."
She stared at him.
He said, "Don't you see? The ourobos—they're thallophytes. That's the answer." And then, when she still showed no comprehension: "Tumek knew. That's why he said his crystal was the only weapon that would stop them. And Bukal hit it right—by accident—when he looked at the thing and said it might as well be a lamp-lens."
"Craig, I don't understand—"
"I'll show you." Pushing the girl back, Craig took the jewel-case from the table where Vydys had tossed it and crossed to the nearest lamp ... carefully replaced the focus prism with the crystal.
The beam sprayed out, all green and purple.
Tilting the lamp, Craig brought it to bear on the encroaching slime of the ourobos.
Before his and Narla's very eyes, the creatures shriveled. The grey wave drew back.
Craig clipped, "This crystal concentrates some ray that's deadly to the ourobos, just as on my world quartz glass lets ultraviolet pass. That was Tumek's secret. Somehow, he discovered Zenaor's plans and then worked out this answer.
"Now, Baemae craftsmen can duplicate the formula and produce crystals by the thousands. It means the end of the ourobos."
He moved the light. More grey slime dried to sticky viscous blackness.
Then, arm in arm, together, he and Narla walked out into Yoh's bright noonday light, shining down on the free-world-to-be of Lysor.