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Chapter 32




Dawn came, the light of the rising sun striking through but diffused by the tattered fabric that obscured the outside of the wardroom windows. Su Lin led the way into the galley where each of them selected a knife. Grimes did not like knives; he made no secret of his preference for doing his killing from a distance, lobbing missiles and directing assorted lethal rays at some enemy whom he would never meet face to face while, of course, this same enemy would be reciprocating in kind.

These sharp blades, however, were better than nothing—not as good as Su Lin’s versatile lighter but the charge in that would not last forever.

The three of them made their way aft, frequently having to hack their way through the tough fabric of the collapsed helium cells. They cut their way into the workshop. They found not only the laser gun—it looked like a weapon, a pistol, but its range would be pitifully short—but also two long-handled spanners, a big screwdriver that might be used as a stiletto, and a hammer.

Egress would not be possible through the control car; comparatively gentle as their fall had been at the finish, that compartment had taken the brunt of the impact. The thin metal skin forming the envelope must, Grimes knew, have been pierced by the sharp prow of Flattery’s airship and by the fire of the major’s automatic cannon—but none of them could do more than hazard a guess as to where the bigger rents would be. So, even though they were conscious that they were using power which might be badly needed for defense, Sanchez cut through the metallic integument, burning what was, in effect, a large inverted U, a panel that was easily bent out and down.

Fat Susie had found her last home on top of a low, rounded hillock. No, not a hillock. It was an island in the middle of a river. It would be an easy swim to either bank. Furthermore, that stream would be a valuable source of fresh water.

Grimes was the first out through the improvised doorway although the others tried to restrain him. He stood there in the warmth of the morning sun, savoring the fresh air, the light breeze that carried the not unpleasant tang of some vegetable growth. He straightened up from his knife-fighter’s crouch, an attitude which he felt must look more than a little foolish. He wished that he had a sheath into which to stick the long, sharp blade.

‘ Su Lin joined him, her golden lighter, ready for action, gleaming in her right hand. Sanchez—the captain, last to leave his ship—jumped down. Unlike the others he did not stand admiring the scenery. He stared up at Fat Susie, a great, gleaming beached whale that had been run down and almost cut in two by some passing vessel. .

“The bastards!” he muttered with great feeling. “The bastards!’”

“But not very efficient ones,” commented Grimes. “They should have made sure of us.”

“But they have, Commodore. They have. This is the Unclaimed Territory.”

“All that I see,” Grimes told him, “is a quite pleasant little island in the middle of a river, with the eastern and western banks within easy reach of even such a poor swimmer as myself. The banks are well wooded—and that looks like fruit on some of the trees. Is it edible, I wonder?”

Su Lin muttered something about Gutsy Grimes.

“We have to eat, don’t we?” Grimes said. “Fat Susie wasn’t stocked for a long voyage. We have to live off the land.” He grinned. “Unless we resort to long pig,” he finished.

“The Governor’s talking sense, Su Lin,” Sanchez admitted. “What do you know, really know, about the Unclaimed Territory? Apart from hearsay, that is. . . .”

“What do you know, Raoul?” she countered.

“Not much. Not one quarter as much as I should. It’s a reserve of native life-forms, some of them nasty. . . .”

“Like that?” asked Grimes.

He indicated with his knife something that, moving silently, was almost upon them. It didn’t look like much to worry about. It could have been an almost deflated air-mattress, garishly striped in blue, green and orange, flung carelessly down upon the mossy ground. But it was motile, flowing over the irregularities of the surface.

“Just a glorified amoeba . . .” he said.

Foolishly—as he was very soon to realize—he squatted, prodding the wetly glistening surface with the point of the blade. He wondered dazedly what had hit him as he was hurled violently backwards. He sprawled there, paralyzed. He was dimly aware that Su Lin had her lighter out, was directing its shaft of intense flame at the . . . thing. There was a strong smell of burning. Grimes was expecting it to be of seared meat but he was surprised. The smoke that irritated his nostrils, that made him sneeze, that made them all sneeze, was one that he would have associated with a grass fire.

He heard rather than saw the flurry of activity as the creature, flapping madly in its death throes, died.

Then Su Lin was beside him, kneeling by him, her strong, capable hands stroking him gently.

“Commodore! Are you all right?”

“What. . . . What hit me?”

“It was an electric shock. I should have remembered what these things look like. . . .”

“What . . .things?”

“Shockers, they call them . . .”

He managed to sit up.

“Then this must be the Shocking River that I saw on the chart. And the shockers themselves . . . Like electric eels and rays back on Earth, and similar animals elsewhere. . . .”

“Yes. But these aren’t animals. They’re plants. They use their chlorophyll to convert sunlight into electricity. . . .”

Grimes was recovering now, his interest diverting his attention from the pain that persisted in his cramped muscles.

“Plants, you say? Motile plants . . . But why motile?”

“So that they can move from shadow into sunlight to recharge their batteries, crawl back into the shade to avoid an overcharge.” She laughed. “I gave this one an overcharge, all right! Too, very often, their victims are thrown away from them by the shock. Then they have to ooze toward them and over them to envelop and ingest them.”

Grimes shuddered. He did not fancy being enveloped and ingested.

“But why,” he persisted, “are their victims such mugs as to touch them in the first place?”

“Why were you such a mug. Commodore?”

“Mphm. And, come to that, why did I get a shock? The knife has a wooden handle. It should have been a fairly effective insulator . . .”

He was still holding the weapon. He dropped it to the ground, saw the metal studs that secured the hilt to the blade.

“Yes, Su Lin, I was a mug. But why are the local animals mugs too?”

“They are attracted by the gaudy coloration—which duplicates, almost exactly, the coloration of other plants, non-motile and without built-in solar power plants, which are very good eating. I hope that we find them so—as we might be here for a very long time.”

“If you will excuse me from the natural history lesson,” said Raoul, “I’ll carry on with my survey of the ship.”

“Do that,” said Grimes. “Su Lin and I will explore the island, what there is of it, and see what it has to offer in the way of a balanced menu.”

“We will keep together,” said the girl firmly. “As far as I can recall, from what I have read, the shockers are the least dangerous of the life forms that we are liable to encounter. So, while one is poking around the wreckage, the other two will be keeping a lookout. I shall have my lighter and the Commodore will have the laser pistol.”

“I wish it were a real pistol,” said Grimes.

“We have to make do,” she said, “with what we’ve got.”










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Framed