The Aliens [сборник]

Brady frowned to himself. He was a big man, and he should have been clumsy, but he was wholly efficient. Within minutes they were on the move, eating out of opened cans as they went up the hillside.

"We start trailin' from where those rocks were dumped on us," he said heavily. "We act careful when we get under places where more rocks could be dumped. Huh?'

"That's all," said Steve, absorbed in his thoughts. "If we see him and he shows fight, you fire a shot. Not at him. The noise will do the trick."

Brady said hesitantly:

"Sound don't carry good when you get up real high. He ain't used to loud noises?"

"Not sharp loud ones," agreed Steve. He stared at Brady.

"Whistles carry better'n a yell, high up," added Brady, his forehead wrinkled. Then he said, "Gets cold up on a mountain-peak, too. But you can get a helluva sunburn when the air's so thin you have to boil a egg ten minutes to get it soft-boiled. This fella-uh-he'd be used to that kinda climate?"

"That-and worse," said Steve. He said after a moment, "He'd be used to air as thin as on top of Mount Everest. That's five miles up."

Gyp burst into frenzied barking. They had reached the spot from which rocks had been toppled on them… Brady held Gyp's leash.

"I-uh-I think I got it," he said slowly. "Y'know-uh-watchin' the stars an' all at night, I got kinda interested, once. I bought some books about stars an' planets an' such. Heavy readin', but I made out. Interestin'."

Then he shrugged.

"I guess we' both crazy the same way," he observed. "Now I kinda figure why you say poor devil. He's a long ways from home. I won't kill him if I can help it."

They went up and up. Again the trail led only up the gentlest grades. There was no place where it climbed a really steep incline. The burros followed placidly. Gyp settled down to straining, bitter pulling at the tether that held him fast. They were three thousand feet above the valley. They were four thousand feet up. A tiny stone clicked on a hillside. Pebbles rattled down a slope. Steve jerked his eyes up. He saw a tiny shape, a thousand feet higher stdl It moved with pathetic heaviness and desperate resolution. It was not a human shape. Brady followed his eyes. There was silence.

Then:

"That's our friend," said Steve without elation. "He knows we're on his trail. And he knows what he tried to do to us. He probably figures that the plane knocked him down on purpose."

"Yeah," said Brady. "It would look that way to him. Re come down, danglin'-an' somethin' cut the rope. He'd figure it was intended."

Steve said restlessly:

"I doubt he'll let us talk to him. He tried to wipe us all out, you know. Wipe out all the human race. I don't think he's managed it. But he'll expect to be killed. If there were only some way-"

Gyp let out a shrieking clamor. Most dogs are near-sighted, but something seemed to tell him that there above him was the creature whose scent he had followed so long. He barked. He growled. He yelped. He screamed his hatred.

The small thing looked down. Probably-very probably-it realized that the men saw it. But it did not hasten. It moved with enormous heaviness, with a terrible weariness, across a talus-covered slope.

"Maybe we can head him off," suggested Steve, watching.

"Safer to trail him," said Brady. "How'd he try to wipe us all out?"

"Seeds," said Steve, wryly. "Those seeds are dry-land plants. They'd be like weeds, here. We haven't anything that could compete with them for water. They were developed where there isn't any rain. Not even once in centuries. The seeds would be spread by any wind. Started in a wild place-especially a desert like they're accustomed to, only infinitely less rigorous-they'd spread everywhere. Only fifteen per cent of the United States is cultivated, anyhow. They'd get a foothold in our forests and deserts and the open range so we could never wipe them out. They grow too fast. In twelve hours that thing in the bottle is ready to bud. Once, they got started, we could never catch up with them."

They went up a steep slope. The small, weary, unhuman object was out of sight. Gyp followed its trail, snarllng ferociously. They reached the slope where they'd seen it.

"I keep thinking of him, though," said Steve irrelevantly. "Suppose your weight were suddenly doubled and you were clumped into air so thick and saturated with water that you almost strangled on it. Suppose you had the choice of staying in a place that to you was at least twice as hot as the valley down below, or of climbing mountains-with your weight doubled. Bad, eh? And then suppose you were unarmed, and were being hunted by things you figured would be merciless, and you had no hope of ever seeing another human being again-It would be bad. But that's what the chap up* yonder. is up against."

"I got that," rumbled Brady. "He's got a tough break. But what harm would weeds do? We got plenty now an' we get along…"