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.He found one and started poking at the muzzle and there was another flash of motion.He twisted around.Not more than twenty feet away, a screamer sat easily on its haunches.Its tongue was lolling out and it had what looked like a grin upon its face.And there was another, just at the edge of the clump of brush where he had caught the motion first.There were others as well, he knew.He could hear them sliding through the tangle of fallen trees, could sense the soft padding of their feet.The executioners, he thought.The Cytha certainly had not wasted any time.He raised the rifle and rapped the barrel smartly on the fallen tree, trying to dislodge the obstruction in the bore.But it didn't budge; the barrel still was packed with sand.But no matter--he'd have to fire anyhow and take whatever chance there was.He shoved the control to automatic, and tilted up the muzzle.There were six of them now, sitting in a ragged row, grinning at him, not in any hurry.They were sure of him and there was no hurry.He'd still be there when they decided to move in.And there were others--on all sides of him.Once it started, he wouldn't have a chance."It'll be expensive, gents," he told them.And he was astonished at how calm, how coldly objective he could be, now that the chips were down.But that was the way it was, he realized.He'd thought, a while ago, how a man might suddenly find himself face to face with an aroused and cooperating planet.Maybe this was it in miniature.The Cytha had obviously passed the word along: Man back there needs killing.Go and get him.Just like that, for a Cytha would be the power here.A life force, the giver of life, the decider of life, the repository of all animal life on the entire planet.There was more than one of them, of course.Probably they had home districts, spheres of influence and responsibility mapped out.And each one would be a power supreme in its own district.Momism, he thought with a sour grin.Momism at its absolute peak.Nevertheless, he told himself, it wasn't too bad a system if you wanted to consider it objectively.But he was in a poor position to be objective about that or anything else.* * * * *The screamers were inching closer, hitching themselves forward slowly on their bottoms."I'm going to set up a deadline for you critters," Duncan called out."Just two feet farther, up to that rock, and I let you have it."He'd get all six of them, of course, but the shots would be the signal for the general rush by all those other animals slinking in the brush.If he were free, if he were on his feet, possibly he could beat them off.But pinned as he was, he didn't have a chance.It would be all over less than a minute after he opened fire.He might, he figured, last as long as that.The six inched closer and he raised the rifle.But they stopped and moved no farther.Their ears lifted just a little, as if they might be listening, and the grins dropped from their faces.They squirmed uneasily and assumed a look of guilt and, like shadows, they were gone, melting away so swiftly that he scarcely saw them go.Duncan sat quietly, listening, but he could hear no sound.Reprieve, he thought.But for how long? Something had scared them off, but in a while they might be back.He had to get out of here and he had to make it fast.If he could find a longer lever, he could move the tree.There was a branch slanting up from the topside of the fallen tree.It was almost four inches at the butt and it carried its diameter well.He slid the knife from his belt and looked at it.Too small, too thin, he thought, to chisel through a four-inch branch, but it was all he had.When a man was desperate enough, though, when his very life depended on it, he would do anything.He hitched himself along, sliding toward the point where the branch protruded from the tree.His pinned leg protested with stabs of pain as his body wrenched it around.He gritted his teeth and pushed himself closer.Pain slashed through his leg again and he was still long inches from the branch.He tried once more, then gave up.He lay panting on the ground.There was just one thing left.He'd have to try to hack out a notch in the trunk just above his leg.No, that would be next to impossible, for he'd be cutting into the whorled and twisted grain at the base of the supporting fork.Either that or cut off his foot, and that was even more impossible.A man would faint before he got the job done.It was useless, he knew.He could do neither one.There was nothing he could do.* * * * *For the first time, he admitted to himself: He would stay here and die.Shotwell, back at the farm, in a day or two might set out hunting for him.But Shotwell would never find him.And anyhow, by nightfall, if not sooner, the screamers would be back.He laughed gruffly in his throat--laughing at himself.The Cytha had won the hunt hands down.It had used a human weakness to win and then had used that same human weakness to achieve a viciously poetic vengeance.After all, what could one expect? One could not equate human ethics with the ethics of the Cytha [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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