Perhaps he could get a better measure of the risk by seeing how far Kruger was prepared to go to keep them from this phenomenon. With this thought in mind Dar Lang Ahn deliberately turned once more and again started walking toward the irregular, dull, “Plop, plop, plop,” that was now coming clearly through the trees.
Kruger was in a quandary. He had never dreamed of having to impress his opinions on Dar by force; he was not sure what the result of trying it would be. In any case he did not want to do anything that might give rise to enmity or even any more distrust than could be helped. In the circumstances he did the only thing that was left. Dar, rolling an eye back toward the human being, saw him start to follow and proceeded on his way assured that there was no real danger. He increased his speed, so far as the undergrowth rendered that possible. In a few minutes the vegetation cleared enough so that real walking could take the place of the laborious pushing aside of branches and vines. To Dar, this was a help; to Kruger, a confirmation of a fact that the increasing sound had already proved.
“Dar! Stop!” The native obeyed, wondering what had happened to change the situation; then he watched in surprise while Kruger forged past him and took up the lead. With his own equivalent of a shrug, he followed. The human being was going more slowly than he would have liked but perhaps there was a reason for it.
There was. In another hundred yards the undergrowth vanished, and at almost the same point the trees stopped. In front of them lay a bare, smooth-surfaced clearing nearly fifty yards across.
To Dar, this was simply a spot in which travel was easy; he would almost certainly have plunged on into the open, eager to get across and resume his journey toward the source of the mysterious sound. However, he was stopped. For the first time in their relationship Kruger not only touched him but blocked his path firmly with an arm more than strong enough to do the job. Dar looked at his companion in surprise, then his eyes traveled on about the clearing. His efforts to force his way past his big companion ceased and both eyes focused on the center of the open space.
The source of the sound was there. The clearing, for the most part, seemed to be floored with some smooth, hard material, but the center was in a constant state of motion — a great cauldron of liquid, sticky mud, heaving upward every few seconds to give birth to a great bubble which burst with the “plop” they had been hearing and released a cloud of vapor that drifted lazily away.
Kruger let his companion look for a minute or two; then, repeating his word to “Stop!” he went back on their trail a few paces. Rocks are not ordinarily easy to find on a jungle floor, but they were still close enough to the big flow for occasional outcrops of lava to be present. He found one of these, with a good deal of effort knocked off a fair-sized corner, brought it back, and tossed it out onto the apparently hard surface. The crust of dried mud gave, and the lava boulder vanished with a splash.
“I don’t like these places,” Kruger said firmly, indifferent to the fact that Dar could not understand him. “I went through one myself a few months ago and when I got out by working back up the tree root that had stopped my sinking — and incidentally knocked me out for quite a while — I found my name carved on the tree with several remarks about what a nice young fellow I’d been. I don’t blame them for leaving me; they have every reason to suppose I’m still sinking. Living through it once, though, doesn’t mean I’m going to try it again; my space suit is a long, long walk from here!”
Dar said nothing but promised himself to heed the advice of his friend as long as they were anywhere near the big fellow’s native volcanic region. This was certainly something for the book!
III. PEDAGOGY
THE MUD GEYSER, and several others, had been left miles behind, but an occasional lava outcrop still kept Dar following Kruger’s lead. The direction of travel was still to the northeast — the boy had made no attempt to change that — but in some subtle fashion the relationship between the two had changed.
For one thing the inevitable mistrust that they had felt at the beginning was just as inevitably fading. Another change, less logical in origin, was due to the almost comical misunderstanding which had resulted in Dar’s firm conviction that Kruger was a native of the little-known volcanic areas of Abyormen, while Kruger himself was just as sure that Dar Lang Ahn did not belong on the planet at all. As a result Dar was constantly looking to Kruger for advice. If he shot a new type of animal — new, that is, to him — he would wait for the boy’s verdict before eating it. Naturally quite a lot of perfectly good meat was wasted, since Kruger was in no hurry to risk his health and life testing new types of food.
At last, however, Dar killed a creature of the same type as the one the human being had tried when they first entered the jungle. The pilot did not even ask questions about this one; he borrowed the knife and set to work. Kruger looked at his portion with some distaste when it finally came.
He did not like raw meat, though it had certainly not harmed him the other time. On that occasion he had not suggested stopping to make a fire, since Dar was the moral leader of the association and his idea of a meal was apparently to eat on the spot whatever could not be carried and nibble at the rest as he went along. Now, however, with matters waiting on Kruger’s advice and opinions, he chose to cook his meal.
He had salvaged all the material from his space suit which seemed likely to be of use and which was not too awkward to carry. While a fire-lighter is in no sense normal space-suit equipment, he had improvised one from the tiny sun-battery and a coil and condenser from the radio. He used it now, to the utter fascination of Dar Lang Ahn. Satisfied that its spark was still good he went looking for dry fuel.
This is not too common in a rain forest, but Kruger had had plenty of practice locating it before he had reached the lava field. Dar, utterly ignorant of what he wanted, simply followed and watched, munching his own share of the meat as he did so. He was interested in a detached sort of way, feeling that possibly whatever was going on might be worth recording but that he wouldn’t bet on it.
The detached attitude vanished as he felt the first wave of heat from Kruger’s fire. He dropped his meat and sprang to the place where his crossbow was lying, snatching up the weapon as though his life depended on his speed. He made no sound, and Kruger, whose attention was focused on building up his fire, did not see what was going on. A struggle that quite literally involved his own life went on behind his back completely without his knowledge.
Dar had actually started to cock his bow when he stopped, one eye on his work and one on the preoccupied human being. For long moments he thought, wavering from one viewpoint to its opposite. Fire was the prime horror of Dar Lang Ahn’s life; he had grown up with a terror of it. His people never used it, but lightning or accidental concentration of Arren’s rays sometimes caused a blaze. The Teachers and the books had agreed in their endless admonitions to avoid it. It was the end of all life — was the end that would be taken by his own life, naturally, but that was not due for several years yet. Since reaching the edge of the lava field and thereby coming once more within reach of ample food and water, Dar had put his expectation of premature death out of his mind and it was quite a shock to have it brought back so suddenly.