The only other option was to stay and fight. That didn’t hold much hope, either, because even if the crewman following me was as weaponless as I was, any one of them was twice my size.
I took a couple of steps back along my own faint track, eased into a small gap between the plants that grew beside it, and as an afterthought bent down and scooped up a double handful of wet mud. It wasn’t much of a weapon, but it was all I had.
I waited.
And heard nothing. It seemed incredible that any of the hulking crewmen, wheezing and broken-winded as they were, could be moving so silently toward me. Maybe what I had seen was no more than one of the little native animals, bustling along at the base of the plants and making their tops shake.
I stood with muscles locked, unable even to wipe the sweat from my eyes. Then, when I had to move or die of unrelieved tension, the curtain of leaves in front of me was swept aside.
“I knew it!” A familiar voice whispered, right in my ear. “You goofbrain. You’re totally lost, aren’t you?”
I dropped my handful of wet mud, though now I almost wish I had thrown it. Because peering in on me, grinning all over her bony and self-satisfied face, was Mel Fury.
She was mud-spattered and sweaty but she wasn’t nervous and breathless, as I was. Mostly, she seemed terribly pleased with herself.
“What do you mean, why did I follow you,” she said. “Don’t forget I’ve seen you blundering around out here before. You may have fooled the controller, saying you knew what you were doing, but you sure didn’t fool me.”
“You’ll be in trouble when you go back.” We were both talking in whispers.
“Of course I will. Big trouble. If I go back.”
“You can’t come! You mustn’t follow me any more.”
“Follow you!” Her voice was fiercely indignant. “You dummy. If you’re going anywhere on this world, I’ll have to lead you.”
I didn’t argue, because she was right. Paddy’s Fortune was her home ground, and in her rambles she had been over every square meter of it. She knew exactly where we were, exactly how to get to the cargo beetle with minimal exposure. I knew neither where I was, nor where I was going.
We set out, I following in her footsteps as silently as possible. In less than five minutes, she paused. With one finger she pointed up. I saw the top of a cargo beetle, and realized that we were moving through the tall purple-flowered succulent plants that I had seen on our first landing.
I moved to Mel’s side and leaned to put my mouth near her close-cropped head. “Is there anyone aboard?”
“How would I know?” Her whisper had the rising tone of irritation. “You should be able to answer that question a lot better than I can.”
She was right. But I couldn’t. It was something else I had not thought through before I left the interior. I think it was embarrassment more than anything that gave me the resolve to take the next step. I would have to learn the answer to my own question the hard way.
“Wait here. And I mean wait. Don’t move!”
I crept forward, until I could see the whole of the cargo beetle and the area in front of its entry port. There was no sign of anyone now, but plenty of evidence of earlier activity. The plants in the area around the port were trampled flat, and the ground beneath them was mashed into mud like a hog wallow.
I could guess what had happened. When the heavy rain began, the crewmen would have refused to remain unsheltered on the open surface. They would have rushed back here, and waited in the cargo beetle until the storm was over. Then they had gone off again to hunt me down.
The big question was, had anyone stayed behind, to sleep or eat or keep watch?
I couldn’t answer that. All I could do was wait, knowing that Mel Fury was becoming more and more impatient behind me. At last I couldn’t stand it any longer myself. I tiptoed forward through the disgusting squishy mud, until I could stand at the side window and see through to the interior. It was completely empty, and the rush of relief that gave me is indescribable.
I turned and nodded. It was not necessary to speak—Mel was sure to be watching my every move. Without waiting for her to appear I went to the hatch and climbed into the beetle.
As soon as I was inside I knew that I had been right. The crew had been here during the rain—there was mud and mess everywhere. But the area over by the control panel was relatively clear, and that was all I cared about. I went across to it and scanned it briefly, making sure that I knew what I had to do to take off. I didn’t want another debacle, when I stood baffled and Mel Fury snootily watched my hopeless incompetence.
In less than half a minute I knew it was going to be all right. I could fly the beetle, no doubt about it.
I turned in triumph to Mel, who was climbing in through the hatch, wiping her shoes fastidiously at the entrance and slipping off her brown leather backpack. She stared around in disgust at the mess.
“Don’t your robots take care of this for you?” she complained. “It’s revolting.”
“No robots here. But never mind that now.” She was moving too slowly for my taste. “Come on, Mel, close that door and let’s go. We can worry about cleaning up later.”
“No need for hurry, Jay,” a deeper voice said.
I went rigid with surprise and horror, and ran for the hatch.
It was too late. Danny Shaker, neat as the cabin was messy, was already stepping into the beetle. As I watched, he turned and slammed the hatch shut.
“There,” he said. “I’m sure that’s what you were proposing to do anyway. But let’s make it with me inside, shall we, and not out?”
It was absolutely typical of Danny Shaker. The other three crew members had been mad with impatience during the long rain storm, and at the end of it had insisted on dashing out to search for me. He had gone outside, too—about twenty steps. There he had made himself comfortable, and waited.
“It’s the old principle, Jay,” he said. “If you want to catch a bear, one way is to go and thrash through the woods looking. That’s what the lads insisted on doing, they can’t bear inaction. But an easier way is to set out a delicacy the bear wants more than anything else in the world, and then sit by it and wait. This cargo beetle was what you wanted most of all, to take you back to the Cuchulain and Doctor Xavier. How could you possibly have resisted it?”
He smiled at me, then nodded his head toward Mel. “But I must say, it was a real surprise for you to show up with a friend. You found a way to the interior, didn’t you? And now I have to ask myself the important question: Is the inside of this worldlet Godspeed Base, and did you find a Godspeed Drive?”
Shaker was sitting in the pilot’s chair, where I had been. Mel and I stood against the beetle wall, farthest from the port. He had told us to do that, and although I saw no sign of a weapon neither Mel nor I made any move to rush him. She didn’t know him, and I knew him too well.
“It’s not,” I said desperately. “I mean, it’s not Godspeed Base, and there’s no Godspeed Drive here.”
“Mm.” Shaker sat rocking in the swivel seat, fondling his biceps. “Nice to see you so cooperative, but you weren’t listening closely. I said, I had to ask myself that question, not you.” He pointed a finger at Mel. “What’s your name?”
“Mel—Mel… Fury.” No cockiness in her expression now.
“Well, Mel Fury, there’s an old technique I’ve used often in the past to make sure people are telling the truth.”
I gasped, and he glanced at me reprovingly.