Chapter IV

Caine moved, trying to find some hate to use on himself for letting the sight of the rifle in the man's hands frighten him the way it did. But there was only a dull craziness within him, where the strength and nerve used to be. It was as though his steel had been melted and drained out of him by the drug.

I'm like a fish, he thought, pushing through the foliage, a fish with a broken fin. Do cats like fish with broken fins? he wondered. And the three of them were moving in a slow silent line through the Venusian wilds.

The sounds were in Caine's brain like a dozen records being played in a large echoing room. Teewh birds pointed their yellow beaks and came screaming at his head. The kiitz birds fluttered wildly out of the thickets, their frightened sound like the rake of giant fingernails across smooth slate.

But there were other things in this part of the jungle. Soft, gelatinous phules, the size of a man's hand, hung to the vine-trees, and when Caine passed them they shifted off the trees to his skin and began their search for juices out of his own body. He swept them away, one at a time, and more found him.

"I have nothing left in my veins for you," he said to one of them sticking to his waist. "Maybe warm tea?"

Fairchild touched the rifle against his back, and Caine pushed the phule away.

A snake-like trill wriggled in front of him, its purple and black skin glistening as though it had been drawn through oil. It was about four feet long and as thick as a heavy rope. Its never-closing eyes stared at Caine. "Hello, friend," Caine said, reaching out his good arm. The trill slid away.

That's what I really am like, he decided, wondering when the pain would come shattering into him again. I am like the trill. I ought to lie down on the ground and start wriggling, instead of walking.

The pain found him then, and his brain was cleared briefly of the veil of the drug. The pain lasted longer this time. Drug wearing off, he thought, only now I don't want it to. And then he thought of the cats; the terrible cats, the horrible cats....

His brain spun and the veil dropped. What was I thinking about? he said to himself. Cats? Was it the cats? Why? Cats are pretty, especially grith cats. They are black, like the spots on a leopard. And what makes me think of a leopard? I'll ask the man behind me, he thought, and stopped.

"Go on, Caine," Fairchild whispered. "Go on, damn you."

Leopards? Leopards? Caine asked himself, and he pushed on through the growth, feeling the ground rising more steeply.

Razor plants licked at his skin, until his flesh was slit finely in a dozen places. The gauze around his arm became a fuzzy mass, like rags. If I see a cat, Caine promised himself, I'll take a splint off my arm and hit him over the head with it.

The mist hung around them like a hungry shroud, eager to cloak everything on the planet with its muggy wetness. Then the growth lessened a bit, and Caine saw bare rock here and there. It was easier to move and he did not jar his arm as much, but somewhere in his brain an old knowledge told him that this would be certain grith territory, and every step now was a step closer to the black face with the orange eyes and sharp teeth.

Caine felt himself growing weaker, and each motion was a building effort. The heat had risen, but there was no sweat on his face now, only a burning dryness. His head seemed to start its floating again, and he thought for a moment that it might drift up over the trees, like a balloon.

The idea was very funny to him, and laughter grew inside of him. He grinned, feeling his stomach move with it, until suddenly he was freezing his movement, laughing into the mist-filled air, staring straight into the orange eyes of a grith cat.

The laughter stopped in his mouth. He blinked once. The cat didn't move. Fairchild and the woman, Caine knew, had halted behind him. The cat's eyes shown through the mist like fiery globes. I'll pet him, Caine thought with great detachment, right on his black head, and then he'll go away.

The cat was motionless.

Caine knelt slowly, looking straight into the cat's eyes. It was about ten yards away.

Caine turned to look at Fairchild. The man was on one knee, the rifle pointing at the cat's head. The woman waited behind him, half-crouched, holding her rifle tight against her side.

Caine looked back to the cat, moving his head slowly. He could see the great swishing tail, moving back and forth, back and forth.

Why doesn't the man shoot? Caine asked himself. Why is he waiting this way?

Time halted.

Caine edged his look back to Fairchild. You crazy fool, he thought. You have the rifle in your hands, you....

And then he saw the sweat dripping from the man's face, the staring eyes, drained of their focus by fear. The man's body was trembling, and Caine thought: he's going to drop the rifle out of his hands, he's....

* * * * *

The woman screamed. "Kill him! Kill him--" The rifle exploded in her hands and bullets whined through the air. Caine felt a hot sting in his shoulder. And the cat was a roaring, crazed thing that swept through the air, a flash of shining blackness.

The air came apart with the sound of the rifle and the screams of the woman and the roaring of the cat. Caine waited, as though this were a dream he was watching. The cat had leaped straight for the woman, and she was tangled with the black and white claws now, so that Caine saw only a rolling, screaming mass.

Then there was no more sound from the woman, just a broken, bleeding body, and the cat was crouching again, the black coat stippled with red, the orange eyes wild.

Caine blinked, realizing that Fairchild was sprawled beside him, a bullet through his head, his hands just touching his unfired rifle.

I can't do it, Caine thought, looking at the rifle. Too slow. I'll have those claws in me before I can even touch it.

The cat hugged closer to the ground, its muscles bunching.

I'll try, Caine thought, and his hand was moving toward the rifle, slowly, like a floating feather, it seemed. Jump, he said silently to the cat. I can't do it.

"Grith?" sounded a flute-like voice.

The cat was motionless.

"Grith?"

The cat rose slowly and backed, tail swishing. Green hands slapped together, and the cat turned and disappeared.

Caine placed his palms flat against the ground, propping himself, and watched the approaching figures. The mist seemed to be disappearing, and he could see more clearly the green skin and the large, unblinking eyes that looked out solemnly from beneath the hoods of the gray capes.

_Priests?_ Caine wondered. _From the temple?_ I didn't know there were Venusians here, he said to himself, and although it was a very slight disclosure, as though he had suddenly learned that there were more men on Venus than women, he was astounded and impressed with it. "Well," he said, grinning up at them as they stopped beside him. "Well, well."

He got to his knees and, still smiling, looked at his arm where the gauze had come loose. He shook his head in wonderment. He narrowed his eyes and examined the blood trickling from the surface wound in his shoulder. "Well, well," he repeated, and stood up.

The woman was a mangled shape on the wet ground, and the man lay very still. Caine looked from one to the other. "Yes, yes," he said, aloud.

He turned to the gray-caped Venusians and found the somber eyes watching him, in their kindly way. One of them reached out and touched Caine's shoulder above the broken arm. Others moved to the bodies of the man and woman and bent over them, making floating motions with their delicate green hands.

_Praying?_ Caine wondered, watching these motions. He shrugged. He couldn't hold a thought very long.

The mist was evaporating quickly. Caine, looking up, thought he could see a pointed outline. Then suddenly--high above--there was the golden temple, a shimmer of towering spires of yellow beauty, splashed over by brilliant sunshine.

Caine turned his face up to a strange sun, a blinding sun that sent its bright life down through the leaves. And Caine was aware that the caped figures were kneeling all around, praying in a jumble of voices, their hands stretching up to the infrequent visitor of light.

What are they saying? Caine asked, smiling queerly. What is it they're saying? Screece? The Sun? The most valuable gem on Venus? Is that what they worship in the golden temple? Caine looked at the man and then at the woman. Is that what they had come from Earth and from Mars to find? The Sun? He felt the laughter starting in him again, as though it were someone else laughing. But his mouth widened and his teeth glistened in the sunlight, and he laughed long pealing laughter.

"Here it is," he said, staggering to the side of the man's body. "Here's your gem. Do you see it, Fairchild?" He pointed to the sky. "Give it to her," he said, laughing through his words. "No? I'll give it to her for you then. How's that?" He turned and moved slowly to the woman, stumbling. "Here," he said to the woman's staring eyes. "Here it is, you see?"

He looked at her face, shadowed by a large leaf of a vine-tree. He reached up and jerked the leaf away so that the sunlight fell full on her white face. "There! Take it! From Charles, to you, through me. Isn't it beautiful, so big, so brilliant, so...." The laughter was getting in the way of his words and he could feel tears going down his face.

Pale green hands were holding him so that he wouldn't fall. And they were moving him away toward the temple. Caine looked at the large kindly eyes around him, feeling the hands guiding him. He couldn't stop laughing, only he wished to God he could, because it made the pain worse. And he couldn't take much more pain.

The lips of one of the green faces moved. "Wress?" said the voice, the word pronounced with difficulty.

"Rest?" Caine said, between spasms of laughter that he was quite certain now was crying, instead. "Yes, yes," he said, trying to wipe at his tears. "Oh, yes. Rest...."

* * * * *

_Pale green hands extend again, palms down, and make sweeping downward motions, destroying evil. They are cupped then and raised, slowly, as though lifting purity to the top of the golden spires and beyond, where a bright sun burns. Feet step soundlessly and figures kneel, circling about a fist-sized orb. "Screece," says a flute-like voice. "Screece," says another. "Screece," say a dozen voices. Hands motion and the silver globe is no longer dull and cloudy, but filled with pure shining sunlight, so that it glitters like a thousand diamonds. Lips move silently. A cat whimpers somewhere, then sleeps. Silence._