“If Chthon can summon animals, our problem is solved. Have it bring something to ride.”
There were further negotiations; but before long Aton found himself mounted on the back of an enormous rock-eater, knees braced against the soft scales of its sides, hands gripping the great loose folds of its neck. His weight required it to travel on all fours, but the creature was sturdy enough to carry him easily. The others were similarly steeded. The long trip began, calculated at only two marches this way.
This was the Easy Trek.
The pace was swift. The huge pseudoreptiles, released from Chthon’s direct control after being given the message, hunkered along at a good ten miles per hour. The gray caverns passed as they picked their way through the maze. Aton saw that he could never have found his way out alone. He became drowsy, but did not dare to sleep. He might wake to discover the zombies gone. A strange twist of fate that made such onerous half-people valuable!
Yet common sense told him that there would be no practical way for him to catch the zombies if their animals deviated from the course his own steed was taking. They would be lost in seconds, and Chthon could stun his own mount and prevent any pursuit. With hostages gone, he would have no bargaining leverage. He was really much more at the mercy of the cavern god than it seemed to realize.
He looked around him, aware of the passage of time, his legs cramped by the constant strain. The surrounding caverns had changed, and he knew that he had either slept or been very close to it. But the zombies still paced him. Apparently Chthon was holding to its word. A surprising, unrealistic development. Chthon was hardly that stupid. Why was it humoring him?
Obviously it had rather special plans for him. The agreement had been a ruse to obtain his temporary cooperation. There was nothing he could do now but play along and wait for it to show its—hand.
They were traveling along a tunnel, similar to the prelude to the jelly-whale’s parlor, but with a dry stream bed. The gently ascending path led on and on, meandering but unending. He was reminded of the trans-system of a spaceship, and wondered fleetingly whether they were likely to encounter any cross traffic.
But of course Chthon would warn away any other animals, particularly caterpillars.
More time passed as the tireless creatures proceeded. Aton’s whole body ached. But his demand for freedom overrode any bodily discomfort, and he refused to plead for a halt. He wondered just how hard he would have to fight to obtain that freedom, when the moment of decision came. It would not be granted easily.
Abruptly, it was raining.
We’re on the surface! he thought. We’ve come out of the caverns! Stop the march—I want to get off right here!
But the time had not been sufficient. It was the first march, and they were still deep in the planet. In a few minutes they were out of the weather, under an overhang, and Aton understood that this was simply another wonder of Chthon: an opening so great in size that it had a separate meterology of its own. Or, more likely, there was a steady precipitation from a cold ceiling far above, or a leak from some high river. It had been, nevertheless, a surprise.
The animals ducked into it again, and Aton clung soggily. There was something about exposure to the rain that bothered him. He had a premonition of death, of terror, and of the end of love. Strange—he had never feared the rain before.
Brief flashes of strange vegetation could be seen as they passed. Luminescent gardens, glowing in green and blue, steamed steadily under the precipitation.
Aton was sorry to leave that section behind.
At length the first march was over. They dismounted stiffly and tried to relax. Aton realized that he was hungry; he had been hungry before the weird ride had begun, and now he reeled from it. The Myxo sieges had not strengthened him, either.
The half-woman spoke: “Build a fire, if you wish, for comfort; an animal will come.” And in this manner they were provided for. Aton discovered that there was nothing inferior about zombie-animal meat.
They were camped in wind tunnels, but unfamiliar ones. These might be part of a system opposite the one they had known as prisoners—across the mighty gas-crevasse. He would have been inclined toward exploration, if he had not long since become aware of the futility of it. What could he hope to find, except more caverns?
They slept, Aton with his arm over the half-woman, not from any personal desire for her, but to ensure her security as hostage—for what that was worth. He reasoned that she was the most valuable of the conquests, because her mind was largely intact. Some part of the supposed bargain would be binding as long as he retained power over her. Had there been any other way, he would not have touched her at all; the concept of such alien possession was repulsive to him.
Fresh mounts waited in the “morning,” and the four resumed their journey. The wind tunnels were left behind, and they threaded their way through a forest of stalagmites, brown and discolored with concentric rings marking gradations on the outside. Again the surroundings upset him, vaguely; the sight of such treelike columns rising from the floor reminded him of the childhood forests of Hvee, always friendly—now filled with nameless foreboding. Almost, at this point, he hesitated to leave the protective caverns, with their all-seeing god-figure. He was afraid of what he might find Outside.
He brushed the feeling away. Probably Chthon was trying to tamper with his mind. But nothing could stand in the way of his love for the minionette.
The mounts slowed early in the second march, moving on their equivalent of tiptoe. Aton, more alert than he had been on the previous march, looked around suspiciously. He saw the heaving hide of some gargantuan creature, sleeping. This was some dragon of the underworld, with the bulk of an elephant, lying astride their path. They were in its burrow—passages hewn recently out of the rock, ten feet in diameter, bore the scars of giant claws. But its sleep was sound, assisted, no doubt, by the influence of Chthon.
There was so much to the cavern system, so much more than Aton had ever imagined. Surely this was the greatest of underworld domains anywhere in the galaxy. An independent man could live here in comfort, with challenge.
The mount’s pounding thighs accelerated. Resume safe speed, Aton thought, and smiled. The wonders continued, more than the mind could assimilate in one swift trip. Some day he would have to return, to explore and exploit. There was sheer wealth here beyond calculation, and, more important, knowledge. A life spent here, recording for posterity the endless treasures of nature so much in evidence, would be well spent indeed.
Do not try to distract me from the minionette. She is my life, not this.
Would it ever be possible to map it all? This was a three-dimensional world, level upon level, climate upon climate, teeming with variety. A lifetime would hardly suffice.
Hour after hour. Progress slowed as the ascent became steep. The glow from the walls faded and was gone, leaving him blind. Round rocks clattered away and down, dislodged by feet now blind and clumsy. This was the strangest section of all—too remote for illumination. It frightened him. He was helpless.
“The animals cannot stand the light of day,” the half-woman’s voice came from ahead. “We must stop—”
The light of day!
“On foot. Another turn,” she said. Aton could hear her dismounting, along with the zombies. He joined them. The animals, released, decamped, eager to get away from this area. “We shall not go beyond this point,” she said. “You must go alone.”
Alone! To the fate Chthon planned for him.
The loose boulders banged his bare feet. Aton maneuvered around them painfully, groped his way along the ragged wall, found the dread corner. He turned.