Chapter VII

The shot reverberated in the chamber of horrors like a clap of thunder. The lone Anolyn slumped forward, half its head shot away.

With drawn sword, Reiloc leaped past Jupiter. He ran for the glowing idol, began to hack at one of ten tentacles with his sword. Tabak and Jupiter were right behind him. They grabbed Lete by either arm, hauled the bemused cave girl to her feet.

Some of the shock of the Anolyn's sudden death had been transmitted to the humans under its control. They stared at the profaners of the temple with pained uncomprehending eyes.

Reiloc snatched up the severed radioactive tentacle, dashed after Jupiter and Tabak who were half carrying Lete between them.

"This way!" Tabak cried. "This way!"

They burst out of the sanctum into a broad corridor, almost ran over another Anolyn. Jupiter shot it in its tracks.

No signs of pursuit had developed by the time they reached the ramp. Lete was recovering from her shock. She struggled wildly, cried:

"What's happening? What are you doing with me?"

"We're escaping," Jupiter grunted.

"But you can't. The first Anolyn we meet will stop us. I don't understand--"

"Be silent, foolish one," growled Reiloc, "he's the Wanderer!"

"But you're Edir!"

"We're Edir no longer. He's broken our bonds."

Lete seized Jupiter's hand. "Then you _are_ the Wanderer. You weren't laughing at me back there in the cages. But why--"

"No time now," Jupiter said and plunged onto the ramp.

They ran down it wildly, crazily, reached the canal at the bottom.

"We'll have to--" Jupiter began, when Lete screamed.

"I can feel them!" the cave girl cried. "They're trying to pull me back! Jupiter--"

She bit her lips, her cheeks suddenly bloodless. "They're gone," she said in a shaken voice. "They mustn't have guessed who I was."

Jupiter stared at her. Lete's yellow eyes were wide, frightened. She swallowed miserably.

"We'll have to get that Anolyn off your neck at the first opportunity," he said, turned to Tabak. "This canal leads to the _Dra Dur_. Is that right?"

"Yes," said Tabak in a queer voice; "but Jupiter--"

"What are our chances of getting through now?" he interrupted.

She shrugged slim white shoulders. "Every second we waste here lessens them."

Without another word, he started along the ledge paralleling the canal.

At regular intervals of about a block ramps led down to the aquaduct from the surface above. They crossed the mouths of other canals on narrow bridges. A perfect labyrinth of underground waterways stretched beneath the city.

At the fifth ramp, Jupiter heard a twang. Something whistled past his head. He almost lost his footing as he glanced up and saw a dozen Nehogans on the ramp leading up to the street.

Lete spun around and tried to run, knocking Reiloc into the water with a splash. Tabak caught her, held the cave girl in spite of her terrified efforts to escape.

Jupiter dropped to one knee, changing the carbine to automatic, sent a burst of shots into the warriors above.

They didn't retreat, but with fierce yells charged straight into his gun. They were possessed, like Moros running amok. The last one was less than a yard away before he brought him down with a shot through the chest.

That had been close. He felt weak as he pulled Reiloc from the water.

"They know where we are," the giant Nehogan growled ominously, "our chances to--"

"Look out!" Tabak screamed.

Jupiter whirled around. He was just in time to see Lete run at him with Reiloc's sword. The cave girl had snatched it from the Nehogan's scabbard. Holding it like a lance, she flung herself on Jupiter, her face contorted with hate!

* * * * *

Jupiter jumped convulsively into the canal. His instinctive reaction was the only thing that saved him.

He broke water, saw that Reiloc had wrenched his sword away from the cave girl. He was holding her as she fought furiously to tear herself away, kicking, clawing at the Nehogan's face with her nails. She had gone utterly berserk. Jupiter was stunned.

Then he heard Tabak screaming: "Jupiter! Quick! It's the Anolyn! They've possession of her mind. Hurry!"

He scrambled desperately back on to the ledge.

"You've got to take that Anolyn from her neck! They know everything we do through her," Tabak cried wildly. "They've been in possession of her mind ever since we reached the canal. That's how they knew where to ambush us. Anywhere we go they'll be able to send men to intercept us."

Jupiter nodded grimly. As he prepared the hypodermic of exsrocain, the Caligan girl pitched in and helped Reiloc pin Lete face-down on the ledge.

Jupiter's fingers were shaking as he located a spot on Lete's naked back, plunged the needle between two of her vertebrae.

"One--two--three--four," he counted. Without bothering to test for consciousness he wrenched the little plum-colored shell from the cave girl's neck, smashed it against the wall of the aquaduct.

"Carry her!" he ordered Reiloc, and threw his instruments back into the pack, slipped a fresh drum of cartridges into the carbine. He could hear the thud of running feet on the ramp leading to the surface.

"Back!" he said tersely. "We'll have to try another way!"

For an hour they followed Tabak through the network of aquaducts, twisting, cutting down bisecting canals until Jupiter was exhausted. He and the big Nehogan had been carrying the unconscious wild girl by turns. Twice they saw Anolyn floating down to the sea like big purple squids, Jupiter shot them before they could telepath an alarm.

Tabak was in the lead when she stopped abruptly, put her hand to her mouth.

"What is it?" Jupiter hissed.

"The canal! Look!"

He raised his eyes. The tunnel came to a blind end just ahead. Then he saw that actually the roof dipped down beneath the surface.

"We've reached the seawall," Tabak said in a stricken voice. "I've never tried to leave the city by the canals, but I've heard that it was impossible. I'd forgotten--"

Jupiter seized her shoulders. "What do you mean?"

"They--they run entirely underwater for ever so far and come out beneath the _Dra Dur_. The Anolyn built them that way in order to keep the humans from escaping through them."

Jupiter swore in Lingua Galactica. "Suppose we go back to the streets. Can we reach the top of the wall? Does the sea come right up to its base?"

"Yes," Tabak said with a shiver.

Reiloc had stretched Lete out on the shelf. She was returning to consciousness, Jupiter saw; and he stooped, splashing water from the canal into the cave girl's face. Her eyes opened groggily. She pushed herself to her elbows, stared about her with the quick, terrified look of a wild thing.

"You all right?" Jupiter asked.

She let her head drop. "Yes. I couldn't help it, Jupiter. I--"

"You'll do now," he said, not unkindly, and helped her to her feet. "Come on. We haven't any time to waste."

When they reached the surface, Jupiter saw that night had fallen, and with it a thick fog had rolled in from the _Dra Dur_, choking the streets solid. It was like wet lamb's wool pressing against his eyeballs.

They held hands to keep from becoming separated. Voices reached them out of the fog. Footsteps passed and faded away. At length they found a stair leading to the top of the sea wall, felt their way upward.

* * * * *

It seemed like hours to Jupiter before they reached the top. He lay flat on his belly, felt for the edge. He could see nothing below, but a faint lap-lap of wavelets against the base of the wall came up to him.

"How deep is the water here?"

"D-deep enough," Tabak whispered in a frightened voice.

"All right, we'll jump."

Lete gasped. There was a startled, protesting growl from Reiloc.

"Jump blind, from here--from the top of the wall into the sea?" the Nehogan said. "Are you mad, Jupiter?"

"Can you think of any other way to escape?"

Tabak said in a queer, strained voice: "I'll jump. I'm not afraid--not too afraid."

Jupiter heard her move toward the edge of the wall. "No! Wait! I'll go first--"

But the Caligan girl had already leaped outward into the thick wet darkness.

Jupiter felt suddenly cold all over. He knew that he would never smell salt water again without recalling the horrible expectancy of that moment. Time stood still. Then far below they heard a splash!

"Tabak!" he called softly. He gave her time to rise to the surface. "Tabak!" He didn't dare lift his voice.

There was no answer. Just the monotonous lap of the water against the sea wall.

"God!" he thought. "She's hurt herself!" And he sprang outward into the encompassing blackness.

He seemed to fall for an eternity before he struck. It was like hitting a plank. The jar ran up his legs. He went down, down, half-dazed. Then he was clawing frantically to the surface.

He broke water. He could see nothing. It was like the bottom of a well.

"Tabak! Tabak! Where are you?"

His fingers touched something. It was the girl's shoulder. She was moving feebly, half-conscious. Treading water, he seized her, slid his arm across her chest, began to tow her away from the wall.

"Jump!" he called to Reiloc. "I've Tabak."

"By the Radiant God!" came the Nehogan's hoarse voice; "here I come!"

There was a splash, followed almost immediately by another, as the cave girl leaped also. The pair of them came up, blowing, unhurt.

"Which way?" Reiloc gasped.

"Follow the wall." Jupiter was trying to recall Tabak's memory patterns. "We're near the edge of the city, I think. There should be a beach just ahead."

They swam on, guiding themselves by the lap of water against the base of the wall. Jupiter, with his arm across Tabak's shoulder and breast, felt the girl shudder.

"Jupiter," she said weakly. "Jupiter, is that you?"

"Yes. Are you all right?"

"I--I think so. I can swim now."

All at once, he realized that the lapping of the water had changed to a faint, shushing sound.

"The beach!" he said.

Reiloc grunted. Lete didn't say anything. The wild girl swam like an otter, silent and alert. Jupiter touched bottom, helped Tabak up the beach, where they all flung themselves down in the warm sand.

A breeze had started up and was ripping the fog into wisps. A few stars glittered from the torn sky. The wall of the city loomed above them dark and threatening.

Tabak's fingers closed convulsively over Jupiter's hand.

"I'm afraid," she whispered. "It's so big and so empty out here. And there's no place where we can hide from them. They'll be after us in the morning with Nehogans and web-birds. They'll never let you go, Jupiter, never! They're afraid that you'll be able to unite the wild Kagans--"

"If we can only reach the ship," he muttered, and felt around in his pack for the metal tentacle that Reiloc had hacked from the Radiant God.

It was safe, thank the Lord, though it was only a fraction of the fuel he would need. The whole idol, that was what he must have. His eyes narrowed in the darkness.

The cave girl said in a nervous voice, "We must reach the jungle before daybreak."

He pulled himself to his feet. Lete took the lead, striking out for the invisible hills. She seemed to possess an instinct as unerring as a homing pigeon's. Every step, Jupiter realized, was taking him further and further from the source of his fuel.

* * * * *

During the next twelve days they dodged about the hills. Time after time they escaped discovery by the narrowest margin. Parties of Nehogans combed the jungle, while the web-birds wheeled back and forth in the sky like observation planes. Nothing but Lete's junglecraft saved them.

On the thirteenth day they ran into a party of hunters from Lete's colony. The cave men were strongly thewed brutes, armed with spears and clubs, dressed in the skins of animals.

They were suspicious at first. But when Lete explained that Jupiter was the Wanderer-from-Beyond, they grew excited as children.

Jupiter had to demonstrate his lightning stick. That night they had a feast, and the cave men left at dawn to spread the word that the Wanderer-from-Beyond had actually appeared.

Two days later they reached the ship.

As Jupiter parted the last screen of leaves and saw the familiar hull of the Mizar, he had to bottle up his emotions to keep from yelling and dancing a jig. He ran his hand fondly along the cool metal, caught Tabak watching him with a twinkle in her blue eyes. He took his hand away guiltily, started for the port.

It was then that Lete balked. The cave girl refused absolutely to enter the belly of the monster, as she put it. Nor did Reiloc look overjoyed at the prospect.

Jupiter was determined to drop like a fiery comet out of the night sky before the startled cave men. At length he consented to let Reiloc and Lete go ahead on foot to prepare the wild Kagans for his coming.

He and Tabak watched the pair disappear into the jungle, then he touched the button activating the lock.

Even as he did so there was a sudden swish overhead, and a shadow raced across the clearing. The Caligan girl screamed. From the corner of his eye, Jupiter saw a web-bird dropping out of the sky like a hawk!

He picked up Tabak, tossed her bodily through the port, tumbled in after her. He kicked the massive door shut not a second too soon. Racing up the ladder, he searched the sky through the transparent thermoplas blister.

It was an empty, hot blue bowl cupping the ship, the jungles and mountains. Then he saw the web-bird rise in sweeping spirals like an enormous buzzard.

A black speck appeared above the crest of a ridge. It was another of the ungainly creatures. It joined the first and the pair began to circle high in the sky above the ship. Three more flapped into his range of vision. They kept coming until at least fifty of the giant web-birds hung wheeling and dipping monotonously above the Mizar, but so far away they were little more than black specks.