The Aliens [сборник]

"Rockslides don't often start at night. Mostly it's daytime, when rocks get heat up an' slide."

"Something besides heat started that one," said Steve.

"There'll be a break in the trail, I'm guessing. I think we'd better camp. And I think we'd better put Gyp on a leash."

It was all crazy, of course, but Brady turned aside. Here was as good a place as any for a dry camp. He began to' unload the burros.

"Nothin' to make a fire with," he grunted.

"No fire," said Steve. "No light. Nothing. And we tie up Gyp, and if he starts to raise Cain we get up fast."

"You got something in your head," said Brady. "What?'

"Bats," said Steve. "Craziness. Insanity. Where'd plants come from that were so crazy for water they'd start as a bone-dry seed and go down a foot and a half to where it was moist? It'd take some evolution to produce a dryland plant like that! Who ever heard of a seed in a man's pocket boring through his clothes to sweat during an afternoon's walk?

These seeds work fast! They were developed where it's really dry and water has to be grabbed quick!

Where'd you say it was?"

Brady rumbled. He got out their blankets.

"What was that wrecked thing?" he demanded.

"Call it a gizmo or a blurp or a dohinkus," said Steve. "One name's as near as another. I doubt there's any name we'd know, for it. What's your guess?"

"It hung down from that rope," said Brady, with an odd air of stubbornness. "It could ha' been somethin' danglin' from an airship. But why?"

"I'd hate to say what I think," Steve told him.

"Would it've been plantin' seeds?' asked Brady sardonically.

Nothing could be more unlikely or more unreasonable than to plant seeds in Seco Valley. But Steve jumped.

"That," he said, troubled, "that's an idea. It may be true. If it is, it's bad!"

Brady tied up Gyp. Steve lay down in his blankets. His body was exhausted, but his mind would not rest. The only possible explanation was too preposterous. He lay wide-eyed, staring at the stars while all the weariness of the day pounded at his body. Gyp slept. Brady lay still. The burros dozed patiently.

Steve didn't know when he went to sleep, but he was wakened by a crash which sounded like an impact, and then the hysterical screaming and barking of Gyp, who flung himself around frantically at the end of his tether, trying to get loose to go after something up above. Brady was fumbling around.

"Mmmmmh.!" he grunted. "Somethin' dropped a rock, Missed."

Another stone fell. And another. They were close.

"Me an' Gyp go up an' settle with that fella-"

"No!" said Steve, swallowing. "There's an overhang here.

We move back under it. That's all. Just shift camp. I-I've got an idea. If we-caught up to our friend we might have to kill him, in the dark."

"He's tryin' to kill us!" growled Brady.

"I think," said Steve unsteadily, "that a revolver-shot would scare him away. Just the noise. Try it."

There was a pause. Brady frowned heavily in the darkness. Then his gun bellowed. A .45 shot is incredibly loud in the silence of the mountains. Echoes rang. But it seemed to Steve that he heard a shrill high note that might have been a scream, save that it was so shrill that it was up at the very limit of audibility. Then Gyp went into a fresh frenzy, more terrible than before.

"He'll have run away," said Steve, as if unhappy. "I would, in his place. I-know more than I did before. He hasn't a gun or anything like it, or he'd have used them. He didn't expect to need one when he came. -Reasonable, at that. And he knows we're after him." Then Steve said shakenly, "Poor devil!"

"What is it?" demanded Brady, suspicious. "A crazy guy? It'd have to be a crazy midget by the size of the tracks an' the marks where he laid down!"

Steve said slowly:

"Look, Brady! I-I made a guess down by that wreckage.

By all the rules of common sense it was sheer lunacy. Everything that's happened so far fits into it, but it's still crazy. When I see that poor devil I'll tell you what I guessed, and you can laugh at me. But you'd be sure I was out of my head if I told you now."

There was a small noise in the air. It was a faint, wavering, far-away mutter that increased in volume. It became a hum, and then a growl, and then a roaring noise. It was high overhead. Steve jerked his head to stare skyward. The Chicago-to-Los-Angeles plane swam across a skyful of stars. It was invisible, but its red and green wing lights moved among the other lights that seemed so much akin to them.

It moved with steady deliberation across the constellations. It went across the mountains on the far side of he valley. It Went out of sight. Steve drew a deep breath.

"I was on that plane two nights ago," he said slowly. "Just about this time-and it must have been just about here-there was a funny sort of bump and one of the motors checked for an instant. Then the stewardess came through, smiling, to explain that the ship had probably run into some night-flying bird, but everything was all tight."