I crouched on a steel beam athwart the cylinder, opposite the six dials. The first four dials were motionless. The last two were still in motion. Each dial had a single sweep. Each dial was divided into twelve divisions. The sweeps in the first four dials were vertical. I could not read the numerals on the dials.
I surmised the vertical position was equivalent to twelve or zero. It was the position, at any rate, it seemed clear, in which the devices stopped. The movement of the sweeps was counterclockwise.
The Kur was climbing toward me.
The first dial, I surmised, registered something equivalent to months, the second to weeks, the third to days, the fourth to hours. I did not know the rate of revolution of the Kurii’s original planet, nor the rate of its rotation. I had little doubt that these measurements, however, were calibrated on the movements of a world, presumably vanished, destroyed in their wars. They had destroyed one world; they now desired another.
With my teeth I tore the insulation from a part of the wire I had taken from the pile of debris and wire, coiled and, in my teeth, carried with me in my climb.
I looped the noose where the wire was naked. As the Kur climbed near me, his back to me I caught its great shaggy bead in the loop and drew it tight. It tore at the fine wire with its thick digits but they could not slip beneath it. I flung myself backward off the beam and the wire pulled the Kur from the side of the ship until it hung, struggling, I hanging a few feet below it. It flung out its paws but could grasp on nothing. It tried to hold the wire, and climb on it, or relieve the pressure on its throat, but its great paws slipped on the slender strand; then its weight began to pull me upward; I, hands knotted in the insulated portion of the wire, kicked the Kur back as it reached for me; then I was above it, being drawn by its weight to the height of the beam; the shoulders of the Kur were mantled in red; blood ran heavily from its throat, in throbbing, gigantic glots; I braced, myself, head down, feet pressed up against the beam, to hold the Kur in place; then, without warning, the wire parted; when the wire parted I was almost horizontal to the beam, trying to keep from being pulled over it, trying to hold the Kur; the force of my legs, relieved suddenly of the counter tension of the Kur’s weight, flung me back, almost to the other side of the ship, and I slid down a few feet and caught some piping. The Kur, striking four times, fell some sixty or seventy feet, to the lowest level of the ship, past the door, well below the level of the sand outside.
I looked to the dials. The fifth sweep, on the fifth dial, was almost vertical.
Outside I knew it was night. The storm still raged.
There was heavy glass over the faces of the dials. I climbed to the beam from whence I had snared the Kur. I could not reach the dials.
I cast about wildly. I could not stop them.
Below me, to my horror, I saw the Kur, a mass of blood, struggle to its feet. It was still bleeding, heavily, from the throat. I had little doubt that the great vessel of its throat had been opened, if not severed.
The beast seemed indomitable. Its strength was almost inconceivable.
It climbed slowly. I saw its uplifted face, its terrible eyes, the fangs, the ears laid back against its head. Hand over hand, not swiftly now, not easily, but foot by torturous foot, it climbed.
I seized a narrow pipe over my head, jerking at it. It contained wire. In a frenzy I tried to free it of the side of the ship. I could not loosen it.
The beast was nearer now, and still climbing. I saw its eyes. It moved another six inches toward me.
I tore loose the pipe. The sweep on the fifth dial, suddenly, stopped. The sweep on the sixth dial began to move toward the vertical, swiftly, counterclockwise.
I did not think its journey would take more than a few seconds. I struck at the sixth dial with the pipe, again and again, shattering the glass. I saw the Kur not a foot below me. It tried to lift its hand, to seize me. Blood no longer ran from its throat. It was dead. It tumbled back from the piping on the side of the ship, and fell to the lower level.
I jammed the thin pipe, like a spear from the beam, into the face of the dial.
The sixth sweep, a moment later, struck against this obstacle, stopping short of the vertical mark.
I lay on-the beam and wept, and feared that I would fall.
When I dared to move, I left the ship. Outside the storm had abated. I found the Kur in the sand, with whom I had trekked.
“The task is accomplished,” I told him. “It is done.”
But he was already dead.
His lips were drawn back from his teeth, which, in the Kur, as I understand it, is analogous to a smile. I think he died not unhappily.
I returned to the ship, in which I found much food and water. In the next days, carefully, as I could, disconnecting them, I dismantled and destroyed components within the ship. In time, Priest-Kings would find the ship and more adequately disarm it. I buried the men who had died near the ship. Though I removed the one Kur from the ship, I did not bury either of them. I exposed them for the scavengers of the desert, for they were only beasts.
22 I Obtain Kaiila
I crouched between thrust chambers, some seventy feet from the ground, on the height of the tall ship, half buried in the Tahari sand. The chambers, facing the sky, were filled with sand. Between them I had rigged a shelter from the sun. I reached the height of the ship’s stern by a rope. I sipped water, watching the two riders approach. From the vantage of the ship’s height I could see several pasangs on all sides. The desert was clear.
As I had surmised, there was contact between the ship and the nearest agents of Kurii, the men of Abdul, Ibn Saran, the Salt Ubar. The food and water, the provisions, must have been brought in by kaiila. Presumably there would be routine provisionings, or communications, with Kurii agents, though not by radio or any similar device which might attract the attention of listening stations in the Sardar. The suppliers would have their schedules prepared weeks in advance.
The schedules would have been designed to carry through and beyond the date set for the planet’s destruction, in order not to arouse curiosity or suspicion among the Kurii’s human agents. The men approaching, leading four pack kaiila, were ignorant. They approached slowly, in the leisurely fashion of the Tahari.
There was nothing unusual, as far as they knew, concerning their delivery or the date on which it was occurring. I smiled. The planet could have blown apart beneath their feet. Yet they came in placid caravan.
I was satisfied to see them. I had considered walking out of the desert. There was ample food and water at the ship. I could have rigged a flat travois, with shoulder harness, to slip over the sand, loaded with water and food, and could have traveled at night, but I had decided against this. I did not know the distances nor directions to oases. I might have wandered in the desert for weeks, until even such large stores were exhausted. I might have encountered unfriendly riders. I would be afoot. I did not know how long the energy of the ring would last. I assumed it could generate its field for only a finite period.
If I met several riders I might, with the ring, escape, but I might, too, lose the stores. I needed a kaiila; I needed direction. In a day on a kaiila, if it was well watered and strong, I might cover the ground which, afoot, might take weeks. Too, the kaiila, given its head, is excellent in locating water.
It seemed not improbable to me that there might be a recognition signal, to be given by the approaching riders in the vicinity of the ship, to be answered by a countersignal, before they would bring the kaiila in. Not receiving it I had little doubt that they would investigate most warily, or, possibly, simply withdraw. I did not know what their standing orders might be. I was not prepared to risk the second alternative. I threw the shelter, which I had rigged down to the sand, behind the ship. I tossed the steel flask of water down, too. Then, on the rope, too behind the ship, I climbed down, slowly, handhold by handhold. I did not know how observant might be the riders. Even though I might stand, unseen, in the shelter of the ring’s field, the sand, disturbed, might reveal my movements, my presence. If I attacked one rider, invisible, the other, alarmed, might simply flee, panic-stricken and terrified. At the level, where the sand ringed the fuselage of the ship, I drank deeply, then I threw aside the flask. I then went into the desert.