NINE
"Janice!"
Loring spoke her name in a choked whisper, as if an instrument of torture had been applied without warning to his flesh and was slowly crushing every bone in his body. He whispered her name twice, and then his voice broke and he could only stare, gripped by a fear so tormenting that it completely shattered all of his defenses.
He was unable to move or think clearly. If the aliens had chosen that moment of shock to attack nothing could have saved him, for he was incapable of resistance. But they did not attack. It was almost as though they themselves had been caught off guard, checkmated by the very violence of his emotions. Perhaps they had not known that a man in love may lose all concern for his own safety and redouble it in another direction, transfer it to someone whose life is infinitely more precious to him. Perhaps that total forgetfulness of self was so alien to their thinking that they were unable to make instant and effective use of it as a weapon.
Janice's voice broke the stillness, calling out to him in a frightened appeal. "David! David! Where are you? I was too worried about you to wait any longer. When you didn't come back—"
She swayed a little and moved a few steps closer to him, as if groping for something tangible to guide her in the darkness. Then he was at her side, stilling her trembling with the firmness of his embrace, murmuring reassurances.
"What I just said was a lie, David," Janice whispered, holding on to him as if she would never let him go. "Your mind was made up, so I had to pretend I wasn't going to follow you. Now there's nothing you can do about it, is there, darling?"
"No, nothing," Loring said, smoothing her hair, wishing it weren't true but not wanting to alarm her more than he had to.
"You're glad I'm here—glad I did come?"
"Very glad," Loring said, the lie making him tormentingly aware of how difficult it would be to tell her the truth. But she had to know.
The insect might attack at any moment. It was still close to him in the darkness, close to Janice now as well and when he strained his ears he could still hear the faint whirring of its wings. He was aware of its chilling odor too: acrid, and laden with a slight effluvium of mustiness and decay, as if it had just emerged from some airless, long-abandoned sepulchre deep underground.
He tried to keep his voice level when he described it to her, holding nothing back, making no attempt to minimize the danger and asking her to listen herself to the faint whirring of the creature's wings.
She began to tremble again, slightly at first and then more violently, so that he had to tighten his grip on her shoulder and draw her firmly back against the wall.
"Something seems to be keeping it from attacking," he whispered. "Perhaps it won't attack at all if we keep very still and think about getting out."
"Think about it?" Her voice was so faint he had to strain to catch the words. "The entrance is right in front of us. Why can't we make a dash for it?"
"We may have to. It may be a risk we'll have to take. But if we can save ourselves in some other way—"
"What do you mean? Why should we even try? If we head straight for the entrance we'll be outside in two or three seconds. Can that—that insect thing move fast enough to intercept us if we know that our lives are at stake?"
"I think it can. If they release it, I think it can. They may expect us to try to get out that way. Remember, an insect can move with lightning swiftness."
"But there's only one entrance. We can't hope to escape in any other way?"
Loring did a strange thing. He leaned back against the wall, pressed himself more firmly against it, and ran his fingers exploringly over its smooth metal surface.
Then he tightened his grip on Janice's arm and moved slowly along the wall, continuing to explore the surface with his free hand as he drew her with him through the darkness.
Before he had progressed more than four yards his fingers encountered a slight roughness. The roughness increased as he advanced, became a series of firmly projecting ridges. He stopped advancing, his breathing slightly quickened, and tugged experimentally at one of the ridges.
Nothing happened for an instant. Then he felt the wall move slightly under his hand. He tugged more vigorously, increasing the tightness of his grip. A section of the wall began to swing open. He wedged one shoulder solidly against it, and exerted a steady, unrelenting pressure, to counterbalance the tugging and keep the movement stabilized.
There was a sudden change in the darkness. It became less impenetrable and by straining his eyes he could make out the shadowy outlines of a flight of steps leading downward. A blast of cold air swept upwards through the aperture, causing Janice to cry out in surprise and press closer to him. She spoke with a stunned breathlessness.
"David, how did you know?"
"I think—they wanted us to know."
"But why, David? I don't understand."
"I had a sudden impulse to look for another way out. It was as if the thought had been implanted in my mind, as if I was being guided. Something started me searching the instant you said there was only one way to escape, through the doorway. They may have feared I'd decide not to make a dash for it. And I think they want us to go on, to at least try to escape. I don't know why. I can't explain it."
He reached out for her hand, clasped it firmly. "We're going down those stairs. Even if it's what they want us to do we're going to take the risk. To stay here would be too dangerous. The slightest display of weakness or indecision could offset any advantage we might gain by staying. With you here, sharing the danger, I couldn't withstand the pressure. I'd be sure to crack."
She was in his arms suddenly, embracing him with a passion so maddeningly feminine in its soft, clinging sweetness that he forgot for an instant that it must have been inspired by terror and desperation, and a mad desire to wed her body to his for the comfort he could bring her.
"David," she whispered. Her hand was exploring him with tender concern. "I want you—now. I must."
"But, darling—"
"That's why, darling," she whispered, "I love you. I want your seed to grow inside me before one of those monsters rapes me. And David, if anything happens to you, I want someone to remember you by. It's our duty David. We must survive."
He was roused. He touched her, and he knew she was ready for him. "It seems crazy, Janice," he protested, "but your reasons are sound. As you say, darling."
Her lips burned on his. Her lovely breasts pressed against his torso. Her small round stomach quivered against his.
"They might see," he warned. "They're watching us."
"I don't care!" Janice cried fiercely. "Let them see how decent human beings behave." She moved against him. "I'll conceive, David, I know. I'm ovulating. It's one of the unsafe days. Remember how careful we used to be." Her voice was almost gay. "Now we can be utterly careless. With your child in me, David, I won't be scared of anything. Come on, darling."
She took him then. The bliss of their union banished his fears. The warmth of her pulsating body, the rapture of her lips, the quivering of her loins, brought them together in complete harmony. The moment that is eternity for lovers came to both simultaneously.
"Hold me tight just for a little while," Janice pleaded afterwards. "Don't move!" She locked her arms round his waist.
Their bodies still joined, she leaned away from him, hanging her head back exposing the loveliness of her throat. Loring kissed it, because it seemed the natural thing to do. It was an impulsive gesture.
He was startled to feel her tighten against him, as if she were suddenly roused again. Slowly, with a beatific smile on her face, she raised herself, and looked up at him. Love stars were shining in her eyes.
"David," she said seriously, "That was the rightest, purest thing we have ever done. Now we both have something to live for. I am not afraid any more."
He released her wordlessly, tightened his grip on her hand and together they started downward. The stairway was in darkness at first, but it began to glow as they descended.
They moved hand-in-hand, aware that the stairway was even longer than the one they had previously descended; both longer and set at a more precipitous angle. Vast distances fell away beneath them, and Loring knew that they were descending into the heart of the city.
"Don't look down," Loring warned, slowing his steps. The steepness was one source of danger, but there were others which he feared more: the dazzling brightness of the radiance which now enveloped them or a sudden seizure of dizziness.
"Listen!" Janice whispered, halting abruptly and turning to face him with a swift intake of her breath.
"What is it? We can't—"
"Listen, David. Don't you hear it? A whirring sound, right up above us. Not too near, but—David, I'm frightened. That thing must be following us!"
He had to stand very still and strain his ears for an instant before he caught it. It was unmistakable, but so faint that, under calmer circumstances, he would have been amazed by the acuteness of Janice's hearing. But now there was no room in his mind for amazement. Only horror.
"All right," he said. "It's following us. We might have known that it would. I sensed its rapacity the instant I saw it, and if they kept it from attacking us they must have had a reason."
"What reason, David? Don't try to spare me, if you think you know."
"I don't know for sure. How could I? But I can make a guess that has some ugly implications. It could be a kind of insectlike—"
He hesitated, fighting for control, reproaching himself for his harshness. He was making no attempt to soften the blow and he knew why. He had spoken with a slight edge of angry impatience in his voice because he did not want her to know how profoundly the thought had unnerved him.
It was more than chilling, for there was something diabolically calculated, wholly vicious, about the use of such a horror as a weapon.
A relentlessly pursued man—an escaped prisoner floundering in desperation through a swamp or trapped in a mountain gully—can experience many dreads. But only one that claws at his mind like a sharp-taloned, utterly merciless harpy.
The appeal in Janice's eyes put a quick end to his hesitation. "What could it be, David? Tell me."
"A kind of insectlike bloodhound. A scent-tracking animal can demoralize a fleeing man in a very terrible way, and I'm sure they know it. I think they deliberately kept it from attacking to give us time to escape from the building. Then they let it pick up our scent. They may be planning to prolong the pursuit until we abandon all hope and just wait helplessly for the worst to happen."
He gave her no time to reply. Tightening his grip on her hand he pulled her forward, his voice urgent, rising a little as the distance beneath them dwindled and they could see the shining expanse of metal at the base of the stairway.
"I didn't tell you that to frighten you. But we've got to build up our mental defenses fast. You've got to try not to think of it as a bloodhound. Our instinctive fear of insects isn't as great as our fear of savage, wolflike animals. Bloodhounds aren't wolflike, but to a pursued man there are no beasts more sinister. We must keep thinking of it as an insect."
"Are you sure that will help, David? An insect so large—"
"On Earth all insects are small. It's natural for us to think of them as small. Remember, man's fear of insects is real enough. But it can be overcome, thrown off. All small, crawling things make us recoil in revulsion. But the bloodhound image strikes a deadlier chord of fear. We've got to shut our minds to it."
"Then why didn't you keep silent about it? If you hadn't told me, if I hadn't known at all—"
"You had to know. You can't fight the Unknown, can't use the right mental weapons unless you know exactly what it is you've got to overcome. Full knowledge first, and then a choice of weapons. We're choosing a weapon that will clamp a mental block on that knowledge where it has sharp points of deadliness. We'll keep it limited, but we won't forget the danger. The weapon we're choosing is—a controlled self-hypnosis."
Janice flushed and flashed a quick glance at him. She was still trembling, breathless with hurrying, but the strain in her eyes had diminished a little. "Darling, I—I'm sorry. I pleaded with you to tell me. I guess I was being stupidly unthinking and irrational."
"I only told you because I thought it would cut down the danger. You've got to do your best to substitute another, less destructive fear. You're in a garden and a spider is moving slowly toward you across a gleaming web. But even if it's a black widow spider you don't succumb to panic. You know that you have time to leap up and run swiftly out of the garden."
"But I could also reach out and crush the spider between my thumb and forefinger. Or stamp on it. Shake it from the web, and mash it into a pulp. But we're not in a garden on Earth, David. We're trapped on an alien world, with not even a garden wall to protect us. How can we hope to outdistance an insect larger than we are? You said yourself that insects can move with lightning speed."
"Not this particular insect, perhaps. In the building it seemed to move slowly, with a shuffling sound. I was afraid it could move swiftly and that made me hesitate to make a dash for the entrance. But now we can't afford to let such a possibility demoralize us. We've got to seize on the doubt and build it up in our minds. Build it up, do you understand?Make ourselves believe it."
"But the creature is winged! David, I thought—"
"Don't think. Just make yourself believe. Not all winged insects can fly. The wings may be vestigial. You've got to believe that it's slow moving and blot its size from your mind. We instinctively think of insects as small, visualize them as small. Hold fast to that visualization. You can if you try."
"You mean deliberately distort the truth, cling to an illusion which we know, deep in our minds, can't possibly be true?"
"Only in regard to its size. It may well be slow-moving. That margin of doubt gives us an advantage we'd be foolish to abandon. If we can control our fear in the right way we won't succumb to panic."
"The right way? Just what is the right way, David? How do you want me to feel?"
"As if you were being pursued by an insect on Earth. A dangerous insect, but small. We've got to stay alert to the danger without succumbing to a paralyzing fear. Just remember that it's not a baying, savage dog."
"All right, David. I'll try."
"Just will yourself to believe that we can save ourselves if we move fast enough. There's a very good chance that we can. We're in no more danger than we'd be if we were well ahead of a swarm of foraging army ants in the African jungle. We could outrun the ants easily enough by keeping our heads and keeping to the trail."
"You think they're trying to break down our resistance by making a deliberate attack on our minds. Is that it?"
"That's about it. We can't afford to lower our defenses for an instant. Our lives may depend on it."
"All right, darling. No doubts. It helps just to know we're together."
"We're close to the bottom now. Just twenty or thirty steps to go. But the glare's getting worse. We've got to be careful. They may be hoping we'll stumble."
"We won't, David. I'm watching every step."
"The steps are tricky. Stay careful and keep close to me. There are buildings straight ahead. Three or four, about two hundred feet from the bottom. I can just barely make them out."
"I can see them," Janice said quickly. "Just the roofs. They look more like shining disks hovering in the air. Are you sure they're buildings?"
"They're buildings, all right. The nearest one stands out when the brightness shifts a little."
"Yes ... I can see it now. Quite plainly. Three buildings."
When they reached the bottom of the stairs, Loring paused for an instant to make a quick survey of the shining metal pavement directly ahead of them, and the nearest of the three buildings. The pavement was similar to the slightly mushrooming surface on the level above, widening out as it swept toward the buildings.
The brightness ahead was so dazzling that it was difficult to make out the massive foundations of the nearest glow-enveloped structure, but by straining his eyes he could tell that it was a far larger structure than the one from which they had escaped.
He did not regret having taken the gamble. It was better to be free and pursued than imprisoned with a gigantic insect in total darkness. The memory made his flesh crawl. It had never completely stopped crawling, but even a limited freedom of movement, a freedom that could end at any moment, was better than the feeling that you were hideously trapped and had no chance of keeping terror at arm's length. There was no chance at all if you waited in blind panic with the deadliness drawing closer, relentlessly closing in.
Any action was better than the paralysis of inertia, the helplessness which panic could bring about. Any action. He must keep remembering that. Must force himself to remember, keep all of his thoughts centered on the one aspect of the struggle that was vital when survival became the sole prize to be won, the only issue immediately at stake.
He looked at Janice and nodded, sensing the need for continued haste. They headed straight for the nearest building, with no exchange of words now, for they were both too sharply aware of the danger to experience a need to talk further about it or even to pause for breath.