She returned to the glade. "Later," Carson told her, looking at his watch. "We'll get a better look later."
Overhead, the swaying, sun-filled branches that blocked off the sky looked as if they had been there forever.
They passed beyond the valley, moving at a leisurely pace, and came to a dome. Janet scanned it and announced that it was a sphere, and that it was probably a storage tank. "It was painted at one time," she added. "God knows what color."
Carson looked at the sun in the trees. "Time to start back."
George opened a channel to call the shuttle. After a moment, he frowned at his commlink. "I'm not getting an answer," he said.
Carson switched on his own unit. "Jake, answer up, please."
They looked at one another.
"Jake?" George went to status mode. The lamp blinked yellow. "We're not getting a signal. He's off the air."
Hutch tried calling the shuttle directly. "Still nothing," she said.
"Damn it," Carson muttered, irritated that his pilot would simply ignore his instructions. He missed his military days, when you could count on people to do what they were told.
"Okay, we'll try again in a few minutes." The daylight had reddened.
They took a group picture in front of the dome. Then they began to retrace their steps.
"Mechanical problem," George suggested. But they were uneasy.
Janet moved with her usual strong gait. Alone among her comrades, she was confident everything was okay at the shuttle. Her mind was too crowded with the triumph of the moment to allow any temporary uncertainty to spoil things. She was accustomed to being present at major discoveries (major discoveries were so common during this era), but she knew nevertheless that when she looked back on her career, this would be the defining moment. First-down in the city by the harbor. It was a glorious feeling.
Fifteen minutes later, they had re-entered the valley of the wall, and were headed uphill in single file. Janet had drifted to the rear. She was thinking that she would not live long enough to see this place yield all its secrets, when she noticed movement out of the corner of her eye, just beyond the beaten grass. She looked, saw nothing, and dismissed it.
Her thoughts switched back to the ruin underfoot—
Almost simultaneously, Hutch shouted Look outl and a hot, sharp needle drove into her ankle. She screamed with pain and went down. Something clung to, scratched at, her boot. She thought she glimpsed a spider and rolled over and tried to get at it. The thing was grass-colored and now it looked like a crab. Maggie ran toward her. Pulsers flared. Around her, the rest of the party were struggling. The agony filled the world.
Carson's reflexes were still good. Janet's scream had scarcely begun before he'd sighted and killed one of their attackers: it was a brachyid, a crablike creature not unlike the one they'd seen earlier in the day. But pandemonium was breaking out around him.
Janet was on the ground. Maggie bent over her, hammering at the thick grass with a rock.
Carson's left ankle exploded with pain. He crashed into a tree and went down.
Hutch dropped to a kneeling position beside him, pulser in hand.
Crabs.
He heard shouts and cries for help.
Maggie reached back and called Pulser! and Hutch slapped one into her hand. The brachyid was clamped to Janet's boot. Carson watched it rock madly back and forth in a sawing motion. Blood ran off into the grass. Maggie shoved the weapon against the shell and pulled the trigger. The thing shrieked.
"Stay out of the grass!" cried George. "They're in the deep grass!"
A black spot appeared on the carapace, and began to smoke. Short legs thrust out from under the shell and scratched furiously against Janet's boot. Then it spasmed, shuddered, and let go. Maggie drew it out.
Hutch spotted another brachyid. It was in front of them, watching with stalked eyes. A thin, curved claw scissored rhythmically. She bathed it in the hot white light from her pulser. Legs and eyes blackened and shriveled, and it wheeled off to one side, and set the grass afire. Hutch, taking no chances, sprayed the entire area, burning trees, rocks, bushes, whatever was nearby.
It occurred to her that they might be venomous.
"More coming," said George. "Ahead of us."
Hutch moved out in front, saw several of them ranged across the path. More moved in the grass to either side. "Maybe we should go back," she said.
"No," said Carson. "That might be the whole point of the maneuver."
"Maneuver?" George said anxiously. "You don't think they're trying to box us in?"
The brachyids charged, churning forward with a frantic sidewise motion that was simultaneously comic and revolting. Their shells reminded Hutch of old-time army helmets. Something like a scalpel flashed and quivered from an organ in the carapace situated near the mouth. Claws twitched as they approached, and the scalpels came erect.
Hutch and Maggie burned them. They hissed, crustacean legs scrabbled wildly, and they turned black and died.
Suddenly they stopped coming and the forest went quiet. They were left with the smell of smoldering meat and burning leaves. Maggie helped Janet up and placed her arm around her shoulder. George lifted Carson. "This way," he said.
Hutch played her lamplight across the path ahead. Nothing moved.
They limped uphill. When they felt it was reasonably safe, they stopped, and Hutch got out the medikit and dispensed painkillers. Then she cut Janet's boot away. The wound was just above the anklebone. It was jagged, bleeding freely, and it had begun to swell. "You'll need stitches," she said. "Be grateful for the boot." She gave her an analgesic, applied a local antiseptic, and dressed it with plastex foam. "How do you feel?"
"Okay. It hurts."
"Yeah. It will. Stay off it." She turned to Carson. "Your turn."
"I hope the thing didn't have rabies," he said. This time, Hutch had a little more trouble: part of his boot had been driven into the ankle. She cut it out, while Carson paled and tried to make light conversation. "It'll be fine," she said.
He nodded. "Thanks," he said.
When she'd finished, Maggie held up her left hand. "Me too," she said.
Hutch was horrified to discover she'd lost the little finger of her right hand. "How'd that happen?"
"Not sure," she said. "I think it got me when I pulled it loose from Janet."
She closed off the wound as best she could. Son of a bitch. If they'd been able to recover it, it could have been grafted back by the ship's surgeons. But they weren't going to go back looking.
"Finished?" asked George nervously. "I think they're still around." Hutch could hear them out there, tiny legs scratching against stone, claws clicking. But they seemed to be in the rear now.
Neither Carson nor Janet would be able to walk without help. "We need to make a travois," said Hutch, looking around for suitable dead limbs.
George frowned. "We don't have time for construction work." He found a couple of dead branches and fashioned walking sticks. "Best we can do," he said, distributing them. "Let's go." He directed Maggie to help Janet. And provided a shoulder for Carson. "Hutch, you bring up the rear," he said. "Be careful."
They moved out.
It was slow going. Frank was no lightweight, and George was too tall. He had to bend to support Carson's weight, and Hutch knew they would not make it all the way back to the shuttle. Not like this. Maybe they could find an open spot somewhere. Get Jake to come for them. Use the shuttle to crash through the trees and get them out. If they provided a signal for him to home in on—
George fired his weapon. They heard the familiar crab-shriek. "Damned things are almost invisible," he said. "That one was ahead of us."
Where the hell was Jake? Hutch tried again to raise him. But there was still no response. That silence now suggested an ominous possibility.