GENELLAN: PLANETFALL(18)

MacArthur verified his drift rate. With some maneuvering he could avoid falling into the herd; its ranks thinned toward the head of the valley, and the wind was bearing him away. Chastain, heavier and unguided, was falling into their midst. He should stay near Chastain, but Chastain could already be dead. Why get caught in a stampede?

But perhaps Chastain was only unconscious and needed first aid. Perhaps Chastain would suffocate in his oxygen mask. Maybe Chastain' s parafoil would catch the strong surface winds and drag him around the countryside; it was windy enough to threaten both men with that prospect. MacArthur grabbed his assault rifle from its attachment point on his turtle pack, checked the magazine, and prepared for landing.

The descent, the illusion of holding gravity at bay, had lasted almost an hour, but the inevitable reality of the looming surface became evident. The animals took individual shape, round-shouldered, big-headed and short-horned, with shaggy coats and thick legs. MacArthur watched Chastain's deadweight landing, practically on the backs of the large beasts. Like a helicopter landing in a wheat field, or a rock being thrown into a still pond, the animals, sensing Chastain' s arrival, recoiled in a pattern of expanding ripples, and the area around Chastain' s point of impact cleared rapidly. Chunks of turf and dirt flew into the air, propelled by the bucking and kicking creatures. The nearer animals surged against their neighbors, and soon a circular area within two hundred meters of the fallen man's flapping parafoil was clear of the large beasts.

Chastain' s inert form collapsed bonelessly onto the ground, face first and helmet bouncing. His parafoil dumped its load and collapsed, only to flutter erect with fitful gusts of air, tugging Chastain's large body across the dung-spotted terrain in slow jerks. MacArthur, still high in the air, maneuvered into the wind, and landed squarely in the middle of Chastain's luffing foil. Grabbing his own shrouds, MacArthur spilled air and released his quick-disconnects. He noticed absently that the ground was soft, boglike, but dry and springy. Tundra! It was tundra, or taiga plains, like the far north of Canada. Memory invoked the hiking and hunting experiences of his youth. It required effort to walk.

After bundling both foils and securing them with shroud lines, MacArthur struggled to clear Chastain from his rig. He lifted the Marine's brawny shoulders from the dung-strewn ground—and dropped him! Slugs! Black, amorphous creatures as big as his thumb exploded from the heaps of greenish-black dung upon which Chastain had come to rest. A host of squirming vermin slithered from the disturbed manure. Most of the wiggling slugs burrowed industriously into the porous undergrowth, but dozens flowed over the prostrate Marine. Fighting his repugnance, and checking the ground under his own boots, MacArthur gingerly rolled the injured man over, pulled him onto some reasonably clear ground, and gently brushed off the slimy worms with his gloved hand. The dropping slugs disappeared immediately into the tundra.

Chastain was breathing but unconscious, nothing obviously broken. MacArthur disconnected him from his harness, allowing the massive pack to fall away. He rolled the big man over on the soft ground, slid open his visor, and released his oxygen mask. Chastain shuddered; his eyes flashed open, wall-eyed with panic; his mouth gaped; he inhaled, only to exhale violently, throwing hands over his mouth and nose, jerking his head spasmodically back and forth.

"Can't breathe!" Chastain retched, exhaling words from empty lungs. "Can't bre—!" Chastain's groping hands found his mask; he pulled it over his face, wild eyes narrowing to slits. He attempted to sit up, but a stab of pain shot through his body— Chastain stiffened and fell supine, holding his mask to his face with both hands, desperately, as a drowning man with a life preserver.

MacArthur reached to remove his own mask. No sooner had he broken the face seal than was he stricken with an acrid pungency, an odor beyond description and magnitude. Tears welled, and sharp pain penetrated nostrils and sinuses. He fell to a knee, trying to expel the painful sensation from his nose and lungs. Slamming his breathing apparatus back to his face, he dared to breathe. Nausea surged through him. Fighting panic, he sucked in a lungful of oxygen.

MacArthur' s breathing passages slowly cleared, but a sour, metallic taste clung to his palate. MacArthur looked at Chastain; both men were frightened. Their only communication alternative, beside sign language, was the radio. MacArthur broke regs and activated his transmitter.

"Air's no good. Big trouble, Jocko," MacArthur gasped, looking around, checking the slowly moving herd. The buffalo had calmed and were grazing on the spongy, dung-spotted turf. A few had moved closer, although none approached closer than an hundred meters. The motley, red-brown beasts were massive, as tall at the shoulder as a man, with fur-shrouded fat humps similar to prehistory mastodons or musk oxen. Mature animals carried a stubby but sharply hooked rack of black horn.