At first Cord thought it was simply a rise in the land. A smoothly rounded hillock of turf, the top of it higher than Rontal’s scarred head, and more than twice as broad as it was high. But then Cord looked again and caught his breath, recognizing the shape.

  The Lamprey saw the look on his face and followed his gaze. “Now look at that,” he said, with a grin. “The big daddy of all the crawlies in the forest.”

  Again the laserifle flashed up, and the beam struck out. Turf blazed up briefly on the side of the immense hillock. And when it subsided, the glint of shiny-brown shell was obvious.

  “It is!” Heleth breathed. “Lamprey, don’t wake it up!”

  But the titanic mound showed no signs of moving. And as the others relaxed, Jeko sidled forward— and suddenly leaped, scrambling up the side of the huge hump of turf. On the rounded top, he glanced round at the others, then stamped his foot.

  “C’mon, monster!” he shouted. “Wake up! Take me for a ride!”

  “Have you for dinner, more like,” Heleth told him, as the others began to laugh.

  But then Jeko saw that the Lamprey was glowering impatiently, and he slid quickly down. “So long, big fell’,” he said to the motionless mound. “Sleep a long time.”

  The group moved away, Cord trailing in the rear. He was staring even more watchfully around at the forest, wondering what new strangeness, or men’ ace, might next emerge from the shadows. And they had travelled less than half a kilometre farther when he had his answer.

  He barely caught the distant movement, at the edge of his vision, but it was enough. He wheeled— and froze. And the others also went rigid, as they followed his gaze. Only Samella spoke aloud.

  “Aliens!”

  There were about a dozen of them, silent and watchful in the forest shadows about a hundred metres away. They were squat and solid-bodied, stooping slightly, with small heads jutting forward from powerful shoulders. Their arms and legs were long and sinewy, and their large, gnarled hands and feet had too many fingers and toes. Their skins were a pasty grey-blue, like mould, though most of their bodies were covered in a thick pelt of woolly hair, a dark blue-black. And their faces were frightening— huge round staring eyes like dark mirrors, no noses, wide mouths that drooped open to reveal curved and sharp-pointed teeth.

  But they were empty handed, and did not seem threatening. The two groups simply stared at one another, while Cord struggled with the numbing chill that came with the realization that the forest of Klydor was inhabited.

  Then the Lamprey broke the frozen silence. “I’ve seen ugly,” he snarled, “but these blank-heads are it.”

  And before anyone could speak or move, he swung the laserifle up and fired its deadly beam into the alien group.

  8 Alien Attack

  Three of the beings crumpled silently. Others fell back, clutching wounds, with cries like the squalling of angry cats. But a few, protected by tree trunks from the sweeping beam, melted silently away into the shadows.

  But before then, while the alien cries were still echoing through the forest, mingling with Samella’s shriek of outrage, Cord had lunged forward. Hardly knowing what he was doing, he wrenched the rifle out of the Lamprey’s hands, and swung a crashing back’ hand blow against the side of the man’s narrow jaw.

  Taken totally by surprise, the Lamprey was hurled backwards, slamming against the bole of a sturdy tree. For a moment his eyes glazed, and his knees buckled.

  Behind him there was a murmur, as if of ap proval. But Cord did not turn to see who had made it. The Lamprey was recovering. A trickle of blood ran from the thick-lipped mouth, and the deep-set eyes were flaring with homicidal fury.

  “I’m going to shred you, MaKiy,” the Lamprey hissed, “and feed you to the worms.”

  He dropped into a crouch, one side of his face twitching madly. And Cord might have used the rifle, then, without a second thought—except that he had no idea how to fire one. Instead, he hefted it like a club, while knowing it would be little use against the deadly combat skills of the ex-Crusher.

  But before either of them could move, Heleth’s voice stopped them.

  “Look! The aliens!”

  The urgency in her voice sliced through even the Lamprey’s manic fury. The glittering eyes shifted, and widened, and Cord too turned to look.

  The forest seemed suddenly full of the stooping, humanoid shapes. About forty of them, Cord guessed— and with a difference. These aliens had objects like blades in their gnarled hands. And Cord realized that the objects were segments of the sharp-pointed leaf-branches of the trees. They had been trimmed so that the stout stems jutted a little, like hilts, making the weapons look like short swords.

  Warily, but steadily, the forest beings were filtering among the trees, towards the humans.

  “Give me that rifle, MaKiy!” the Lamprey snarled.

  “No chance!” Cord snapped. “Samella—can you use this thing?” And when the girl nodded, wide-eyed, he tossed the laserifle to her. “Then use it. But just scare them off, keep them back, so we can get to the shuttle.”

  “You want to run?” the Lamprey sneered. “From a bunch of big-eyed uglies?”

  Cord glared at him. “You think you can kill them all? We don’t know how many more there are—and they know this forest better than we do.”

  “Makes sense,” Jeko muttered. He and Rontal loped swiftly away, with Heleth following. For a moment, again, the madness returned to the Lamprey’s eyes as he faced Cord. But Samella had stepped back out of reach, and now she raised the rifle and aimed it between the Lamprey’s glittering eyes.

  “Do what he says, Lamprey,” she ordered. “Back to the shuttle.”

  For a second Cord thought that the madman might even spring directly at the muzzle of the rifle. But perhaps it was the cold anger in Samella’s steady gaze that held him back.

  And then there was no more time. The forest silence was torn apart by a chorus of savage, howling shrieks, as the aliens abandoned their wary advance and charged.

  Instantly, coolly, Samella swung the rifle and fired—into the ground, in front of the leaders of the charge. The turf erupted into sudden, short-lived flame. And the leaders halted, falling back with howls of terror, and vanished with the others behind the shelter of tree-trunks. In that lull, the humans turned and fled.

  Heleth and the Streeters were now out of sight, and the Lamprey sprinted after them at an astonishing speed. But Cord doubted that it was from fear. More likely, he thought, he wants to get back to the shuttle and set up some surprise for me. But he pushed that thought away, and glanced back.

  The aliens were not pursuing. In fact they did not even seem to be looking at the retreating hu^ mans. They were staring upwards, looking oddly as if they were listening to something that Cord could not hear. Then they turned and filtered away through the shadows, almost at once lost to view.

  Cord and Samella slowed their pace to a swift walk. Samella was as silent as ever, not looking at Cord, and he felt his gloom and misery returning as before. But he was more concerned with keeping a careful watch on the forest around them, in case the aliens were circling around, intending to ambush them. So he jumped, startled, when Samella spoke.

  “The Lamprey will try to kill you now, for certain,” she said.

  Cord glanced at her. Taut lines of pain on her face showed that the strange headache had not left her, but she seemed to be controlling it. And Cord strove to keep his own voice just as calm.

  “Maybe,” he said. “But only if I go back.”

  Samella turned, frowning. “What do you mean?”

  “It might be best if I left,” Cord said flatly. “Aliens or no.”

  “You’d just walk away?” Samella asked, staring.

  Cord shrugged. “Why not? Like you said, the Lamprey won’t let me get away with what I did. And I don’t feel like getting killed—whatever kind of coward I seem, to you and the others.”

  Samella was silent for a moment. “Is that what you think I feel?” she said at last.

  “That’s how you’ve acted,” Cord said bluntly.

  “Like you couldn’t speak to me or even look at me, because I shamed myself by backing down.”

  Samella’s lips tightened. “You ignorant… barbarian!” she said hotly. “I don’t know or care about the others, but the last thing I wanted was for you to fight that killer. When he challenged you, I was terrified that you wouldn’t back off. And then I kept quiet, and kept away from you, so he wouldn’t think we were conspiring against him.”

  Cord’s eyes had grown wide during this out’ burst. “So… you don’t think I’m a coward?” he asked at last, lamely.

  “Even if I had,” Samella replied, “I wouldn’t now, after what just happened.”

  Cord had begun to grin a huge relieved grin, but that reminder brought him back to reality. “But now, because of that, I do have to leave. Or fight.” “You can’t leave,” Samella told him fiercely. “We need you. You’re used to forests and wild places. And you can make decisions—GUIDE proved that, by waking you, in space. We need you to help us deal with the Lamprey.”

  “You keep saying ‘we’,” Cord said. “But the others don’t seem bothered.”

  “They’re just keeping their heads down, hoping for the best,” Samella assured him. “You really don’t know much about people, do you? They’re terrified of the Lamprey, too, because he’s dangerously in’ sane, and because not one of them would last a minute against him, hand to hand. So if you fought him, they’d stay neutral, in case he won.”

  “In case?” Cord laughed bitterly. “Of course he’d win. Will win—because if I stay, I’ll have to fight him.”

  “No, you won’t.” Samella’s voice was firm. “Because I have the rifle now.”

  Cord looked at her wonderingly, and then a thought struck him. “He can’t make another rifle, can he? From those spare parts you showed me?” She shook her head. “They’re just replacement parts, and spare power packs—not enough to build a whole rifle.” She grinned fiercely, hefting the weapon in her hand. “This is the only laserifle on Klydor, as far as I know, and I mean to hold on to it.” “Would you use it on him?” Cord asked.

  “If I had to.”

  Cord saw the grim, steady look in her eyes, and knew that she spoke the simple truth. And he smiled, but there was respect and admiration in his voice. “Seems that if anyone should be leader of this group, it’s you.”

  “That’s true,” Samella said, with one of her crooked smiles. “Except I don’t believe in leaders, and I don’t think you do either. I think we believe in things like sharing, and co-operation, and partnership. But the other three come from the city gangs, where there are always leaders. And I think they’ll follow you more easily than me.”

  “Maybe they can learn differently, in time,” Cord said. “Like I’m learning—so much that I sometimes feel I can’t take it all in.”

  “We’re all learning,” Samella said gravely. “It’s the only way to live. We’ve got all Klydor to learn about—if the aliens let us. And if we can do something about the Lamprey.”

  “Well,” Cord said, taking a deep breath, “let’s go and get started.”

  But their start was delayed. As they drew near to the clearing they saw Jeko, moving uneasily among the trees, staring around. When he spotted them, he jogged forward, looking relieved.

  “Where you been?” he said. “Thought the aliens got you.”

  “They stopped chasing us,” Cord said, “so we took our time.”

  Jeko seemed hardly to have heard him. “We got a problem. Clearing’s full of aliens. We’re cut off from the shuttle.”

  Appalled, Cord set off at a swift lope, the others keeping pace. And soon he saw the problem for himself.

  The clearing held more than a hundred of the huge-eyed forest beings, all of them hard at work— clearing away the trees crushed and felled by the shuttle’s crash. Two or three at a time, they were picking up the shattered trunks—almost tenderly— and carrying them into the forest. And Cord saw more aliens working at the same task, along the broad corridor cut through the forest by the shuttle’s slide.

  By then the clearing was almost bare, except for some ragged stumps, splintered leaf-branches and other minor litter. And Cord noticed that the aliens were not concerned about the lower portions of any trees that had been broken in two. Only the upper segments, that held the strange fungus-growths, drew their almost gentle attention.

  “Where are they taking them?” Samella whispered. “We didn’t follow any, to find out,” Jeko said sarcastically. “They’re not the problem.”

  Cord saw what he meant. About forty other aliens were not at work among the fallen trees. They were gathered near the open airlock of the shuttle, peering warily in, growling among themselves. And that group—probably the ones who had attacked them in the forest, Cord thought—was carrying the sword-like weapons made from the leaf-branches.

  “They know we’re out here,” Jeko muttered. “They’re prob’ly waiting for us to try for the shuttle.” By then Rontal and Heleth had joined them, and Cord glanced around. “Where’s the Lamprey?” “Right here,” said a snarling voice behind him. Cord wheeled. The Lamprey had materialized, silently, out of the shadowed trees. His glittering eyes fixed on Samella, whose grip had tightened on the rifle.

  “You’re going to have to use that gun, girl,” he said.

  Samella shook her head firmly. “They might never have attacked us if you hadn’t shot at them. And we can’t kill them all off. We’ll just wait. Maybe when they’ve finished clearing away the trees, they’ll go away and leave us alone.”

  The Lamprey sneered. But before he could speak, they heard another eruption of bestial howling from a group of aliens on the far side of the clearing. And when they turned, they saw that three of the thick, turf-covered worm-things were moving into the clearing, oozing along in their ghastly silent slither, heading for a cluster of fallen trees.

  The armed group of aliens left the shuttle, and darted towards them, howling and screeching. At once the worms reared up, deadly hooked tentacles flailing. But the aliens did not hesitate. They sprang at the creatures, the leaf-blades stabbing at the gaping mouths, and at the joints between the segmented armour-plating of the shell. Several of the aliens fell back at once, as the lethal barbed hooks sank into their flesh, and lay writhing and convulsing on the ground. But the others did not pause, in their frantic and furious battle.

  Within moments two of the worm-things, both small ones, lay motionless, a watery slime seeping from their wounds. But the third one was bigger— two metres long, and as thick as Cord’s thigh—and its whipping tentacles were keeping the aliens at bay. By then nearly ten aliens were writhing on the ground, but their weapons had been snatched up by ten others, who had instantly, fearlessly, joined the battle. Yet they were losing. They could not get close enough, past the flashing sweeps of those venomous tentacles, to stab at the larger worm’s vulnerable areas. And slowly, steadily, the worm was continuing to move, as it fought—heading for a tree that was bent but not broken, leaning at a steep angle on the clearing’s edge.

  Screeching even louder in their frenzy, the aliens battled on, more and more of them falling as the tentacles’ barbs found their mark, but always being replaced. Then finally it was too late. The worm slithered up the angled trunk, climbing swiftly with the aid of the sharp hooks on its underside. And Cord stared with sickened fascination as it reached the top, and settled its repulsive mouth on to the fungus growth that crowned the trunk.

  “Now’s our chance!’’ the Lamprey said. While the others had been watching the chilling battle, he had seen that the shuttle had been left unguarded. Heleth and the Streeters followed as he sprinted away across the clearing.

  But Cord did not join them. Samella was slumped against a tree, face twisted with pain and pale as death. The rifle dangled loosely from her hand, and Cord was grateful that the Lamprey had been too concerned about the shuttle to notice. He stepped quickly towards her, knowing that the pain did not affect Samella when she was inside the shuttle. So he flung a muscular arm around her waist and, half-lifting her from her feet, set off in an awkward jog across the clearing.

  He was less than halfway across when he heard the alien cries change their tone. Glancing back, he felt icy fear sweep over him.

  Snarling and screeching, brandishing their leaf-blade weapons, some three dozen of the alien beings were charging across the open space towards him.

  9 Night Watch

  Even through her pain, Samella seemed aware of the danger, and tried to speed her staggering pace, still being half-carried by Cord. But the laserifle, drooping from her hand, became tangled with her feet, and she tripped, dragging Cord off balance. He stumbled, and had to release her so they would not both sprawl on the turf.

  And in that moment, they saw that they would not make it.

  As the screeching aliens bore down upon them, Cord stooped swiftly. On the ground before him lay a sturdy length of tom-up root from one of the felled trees. Its butt end was as heavy as the head of a club, and the haft was as thick as his own wrist. He snatched it up, and sprang to meet the rush of the aliens.

  Many people would have needed two hands to wield that weapon, but Cord swung it one-handed as if it were a slender switch. The club whistled as he flailed it in front of him, back and forth in a sweeping arc.

  The charging aliens were halted by that furious barrier. And Cord drove them back, maintaining the slashing sweeps of the club. Two of them tried to circle and attack him from the side, but he leaped at them, the club thumping into the wide flat chest of one of them, hurling the creature off its feet to collide heavily with the other. By then Cord had sprung back to face the main body of attackers, again keeping them at bay with the menacing club.

  But then the aliens divided into separate groups, to come at him from opposite sides. With a yell of rage, Cord leaped at one group—but they held their ground, striking with their leaf-weapons at the flailing club. And there were enough of them to jolt Cord’s arm, to slow the club’s furious pendulum swing.

 

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