Seas of Venus(98)

Overhead—

"Do you need help?" Brainard demanded from the end of the line.

"Come on!" Wilding snarled, grabbing Caffey by one shoulder. "Help him! Move!"

Yee took Caffey's other arm. They pounded through the deadly clearing together. The torpedoman was barely able to keep his legs moving in time with those of the men supporting him, but for the moment Wilding forgot about weight and pain. Leaf, the machine-gun's sling in one hand and his multitool in the other, was on their heels.

When he reached the bamboo, Wilding looked back over his shoulder. The whole crew followed at a staggering run. There were no further problems. The moss reacted too slowly to be a serious threat to men who were prepared for it.

Wilding gasped for breath. A clearing meant danger. It was his fault. He'd been too tired to realize the obvious, and it cost—

"Caffey, how do you feel?" Ensign Brainard demanded before Wilding could remember to ask.

The torpedoman massaged his throat. "I'm okay," he wheezed. "Just gimme a minute, okay?"

The bamboo shoots were thumb-thick. The stems were yellow, and the lower leaves were yellow-brown.

The undersurface of each leaf was a hooked mat. The foliage began to tremble outward as the plants sensed human warmth.

God alone knew how thick the belt was.

Wilding bent and swung his cutting bar. Contact triggered the 20-inch blade in a petulant whine. Stems toppled, but their leaves clutched at Wilding's arm as they fell.

"Right," Brainard said. His voice was as calm as that of an accounting adding figures. "We need to get moving. Yee, take the Number Two slot and Caffey will fall in just in front of me for a while."

"Ah . . . ?" Yee said. "How about the gun?"

"Fuck you," said Caffey. Instinct, not intellect snarled in his voice. The injured man hugged his heavy weapon to him with both arms.

Wilding resumed cutting. The bamboo rustled as it fell. Sometimes the stems remained upright, gripped by the mass of their neighbors. Wilding forced them aside. His uniform was in shreds, and a sheen of blood coated his arms.

The bamboo went on forever. Wilding cut, and stepped, and cut. He lost track of time and was only conscious of dull pain.

"Hey," a voice said.

Wilding swung. The bar cut on either stroke, but the rotator muscles of his shoulder screamed with pain after ten minutes of alternate backhands.

"Sir?" said the voice. "I hear something."

Wilding swung. He couldn't see for the sweat in his eyes and the burning red haze which overlaid his mind.

Yee grabbed him by the shoulder. The bar dropped from Wilding's nerveless fingers. "Sir!" the gunner said. "I hear something."

So did Wilding, now that his body had stopped moving. His mind re-engaged. A rhythmic crunching sound, amazingly loud. He couldn't tell what direction it came from because of the scattering effect of the dense stems.

Wilding looked over his shoulder. Leaf had paused six feet behind Yee; the next man in line was hidden by the walls of the ragged trail. Nobody wanted to bunch up here. . . .

"Pass the word back to Mr Brainard," Wilding whispered to the nervous gunner. "Tell him that—"

The wall of bamboo crashed forward. Wilding shouted and grabbed for his cutting bar. The net of interlaced stems sprang down and held him as immobile as an insect in amber.

A three-ton grasshopper smashed its way across the trail. Its legs were modified to graviportal stumps. One of its clawed feet came down squarely on the net of bamboo which held Wilding.

The stems took up some of the shock, but Wilding screamed in despair as he felt tendons go in his right ankle.

* * *





November 24, 379 AS. 0211 hours.




A dozen of them sauntered down the Palm Walk together, giddy with drink and the odor of the tropical blooms among the trees. The clubs were still open, but establishments in this restricted area had no need for garish advertisement. The entrances were lighted in pastels which set off the broad corridor rather than illuminating it.

Wilding was at the front of the loose group. The woman on his arm was a short-haired blonde from a cadet branch of the McLain family. He thought her name was Glory, but he was too drunkenly cautious to risk a scene if he were wrong.

The blonde said, "I want to go—ooh!"

Wilding tried to fold her in his arms. "I want to go ooh with you too, darling," he said. "Let's—"

The blonde twisted away from him. Wilding goggled at her in amazement.

"Oh my god!" grumbled one of the men. "Is Tootles still around? He stayed in the Azure, didn't he?"

"Hal?" called a woman's half-familiar voice.

Wilding turned. The figure shambling toward him was only a blur against the arbor in which she had waited, but her eyes were well adapted to the Palm Walk. "Oh, Hal," she blurted, "thank God it's you! You've got to help me."