He hovered above the shelf and Noonan caught him around the waist and pulled him down to safety. The line swung out over the valley and flapped back against the side of the cliff.
Dawes caught his breath and looked downward from the ledge. 'We're still at least forty feet from the ground.
What now?'
'I'm going to try to yank the line loose,' Noonan said.
'All of you hold on to me. If I can pull it down, we tie it on here and climb down to the ground.'
'And if we can't pull it down?' Dawes asked.
Noonan glared for a moment. 'You still haven't lost your old habits. You ask too many damfool questions.
Come on - anchor me.'
They held him, while he tugged at the line, grunting bitterly. Muscles corded and bunched along Noonan's back and shoulders, and tendons stood out sharply in the hollow of his elbow. The line was tied too securely at the top, though. It would not come. Noonan pulled harder—
The rope snapped loose with an impact that nearly threw the four of them off the ledge. Noonan looked at the dangling end he held in his hands, then up at the dangling line still fastened at the cavemouth. The rope had snapped in half.
Noonan cursed eloquently. 'I hadn't figured on that.
But it could have been worse, I guess.'
'How much rope do we have?' Dawes asked.
'Look for yourself.'
Noonan let the line out over the side of the ledge. It stopped short nearly fifteen feet from the ground. And, Dawes thought, a fifteen-foot jump was an invitation for broken ankles or worse - and they still had a trek of perhaps ten miles back to the colony.
He looked quizzically at Noonan. The big man said, 'We can still manage it. But it's going to take teamwork.
Real teamwork. I'll go down the rope. Dawes, you follow, go right on down me and hang to my ankles. The girls will do the same, and jump when they reach your ankles.
It can't be more than a six or seven-foot drop from there.'
Somehow, it worked. Noonan scrambled down the truncated rope as far as he could go, and hung there, waiting. Dawes went next, descending the rope until his feet touched Noonan's shoulders, then carefully clambering down Noonan's body until he grasped the big man's feet.
'Okay, come on!' Noonan shouted. "We can't hang this way forever!'
Dawes strained to hold on. His toes were about eight feet above the ground. Carol came down the rope; he could feel every impact as she descended. Looking up, he saw her coming down past Noonan's shoulders, then reaching his own shoulders. Her face was white with tension. She clung for an instant to Dawes' hips, slid down his legs, and let go. He glanced down; she had landed in a crumpled heap, but she was getting up.
Cherry came next. Dawes' arms ached mercilessly. He tightened his grip on Noonan's ankles. But it was no use; he could not hold on. As Cherry's foot grazed his shoulder, he let go and dropped to the ground. He folded up as he hit, but was able to rise without difficulty. Cherry still dangled from Noonan.
'Go ahead,' Dawes called to her. 'Let go and I'll catch you.'
She released her hold. Dawes braced himself and broke her fall, but the weight of her dropping on him knocked him over again. A moment later, Noonan landed on top of them.
After some instants of confusion, they struggled to their feet and began to laugh. Cherry was the first to start, and then Noonan and Dawes and Carol took it up, and they laughed for nearly a minute at the ridiculous spectacle they must have made, solemnly clambering down each other and landing in a heap.
'Damnedest silly way to get down a mountainside I ever saw,' Noonan said, still laughing.
'Maybe so,' Dawes said. 'But it worked, didn't it? It worked I'
They huddled together at the base of the cliff. Above them, two lengths of rope dangled in the wind.
Cherry said, 'And there isn't an alien in sight. Not anywhere.'
Dawes looked rapidly around, as if expecting to see the thick-bodied ape-like beings clustered behind trees observing them. Perhaps they were. But certainly they were keeping well out of sight.
'You see?' Dawes said triumphantly. 'They aren't interested in us anymore. We don't have anything to offer them, now that we've stopped fighting with each other.
They don't care what we do now.'
'I'm cold,' Carol said suddenly.
'We all are,' said Cherry. 'We better get a move on.
Back to the colony, before the aliens decide they don't want to let us go after all.'
Dawes nodded. He pointed toward the forest. 'Standing with our backs to the cliff, the colony ought to be straight out that way. What do you think, Noonan?'
The big man frowned and said, 'That's about right.
We ought to find our way back there through the forest without much trouble. If we start out now.'
"Right. We want to get there before nightfall,' Dawes said. 'We've still got a few hours left. We'd better start out now.'
They set out, in single file - Noonan leading, followed by Carol, then Cherry and Dawes. Even though the sun was bright in the sky, the day was cold; the temperature was barely above fifty, Dawes estimated.
He was thankful that they had kept their shoes, even if their stockings all had gone to reinforce the rope. The forest floor was covered with the dried prickly cast-off needles of the conifer trees that abounded there. The wind whipped through the forest, but the trees served as shielding for them against the coldest blasts.
It had taken about two hours to go through the forest the first time, in the hands of the aliens. By Dawes' reckoning, nightfall was not due for at least three hours more. With luck, if they followed a true path, they would make it back to the colony before dark. Once night fell, of course, they would simply have to squat down and wait for morning before proceeding.
But Noonan led the way with such a confident air that Dawes did not worry. The big man strode along with springing step, looking back every few moments to make sure no one had fallen behind.
Dawes realized that a few months ago this whole sequence of events would have been inconceivable.
After an hour of walking, they stopped; Carol was exhausted. Noonan eyed the angle of the sun, wrinkled up his face, and announced that they had at least two and a half hours before sunset. 'Plenty of time to make it,' the big man added. 'If we don't waste any time en route.'
'I'm cold,' Carol said. 'Hungry. Tired. I can't keep walking like this.'
Dawes looked at her pityingly. She looked drawn and exhausted. Carol had taken the days in the cave worse than any of them. Noonan hardly showed a trace of his captivity; Cherry looked unkempt but healthy, with a sleek leanness that she had not had before. Dawes ached all over, but he felt splendid.
'Come on,' he said gently to Carol. 'We're almost there.
Another hour's walk, that's all.'
Noonan lifted her to her feet and pointed her in the right direction. They resumed their hike.
They were following a path, well-worn through the thick forest. Looking back, Dawes could see the black bulk of the cliffs - and, he thought, the two strands of rope, red and yellow and brown and green. As the sun dropped, the forest became colder. Birds hooted in the trees; small shiny-skinned animals that looked like lizards sprang up on rocks, chittered derisively at the group for an instant, and went hustling off into the safety of the woods.
They plodded on. Dawes was beginning to feel the effects of his hunger - only one meal a day for the last five, and that not very nourishing. He longed to stop and try to shy a rock at one of the curious little forest beasts, but he told himself that if they ever stopped they might not get started again. He forced himself to drag one foot in front of the other. His legs ached. His feet, bare inside his shoes, were slowly being rubbed raw by the leather scraping his heel. But Noonan strutted jauntily along in the lead.