Andre Norton - Galactic Derelict

“Well, if that does come from some—some man” he used the term because he had no other— “and not from an animal, then I’d say he was living in a regular sty. And that means either a pretty low type of primitive, or a degenerate.”

“Not necessarily,” Ashe pointed out. “Bathing entails water, and we haven’t seen any store of water here.”

“Sure, there’s no water we can see. But they must have some. And I think—” Only there were few proofs he could offer to bolster his argument.

“Might be. Anyway, tonight well watch and see what does come out of the booby-trapped box over there.”

The napped during the day, Renfry in the control cabin as usual. None of them could see any reason why the ship had earthed on this sand pile, and the very barrenness of the place reinforced Renfry’s belief that this could not be their ultimate goal. It was only logic that the ship must have originally voyaged from some center of civilization—and this was not that.

The glare of the sun was gone and dusk clothed the mounds of creeping sand when they gathered again at the door in the outer skin to watch the building and the stretch of ground lying between them and that enigmatic block.

“How long do you suppose we’ll have to wait?” Ross shifted position.

“No time at all,” Ashe answered softly. “Look!” From behind the dune which marked the low doorway Travis had discovered, there showed a very faint reddish glow.

Had the flaming display of the late evening before been in progress, they could not have spotted that. And now, in the dusk, with the shapes of the dunes distorting vision, it was difficult to see. Ashe was counting slowly under his breath. As he reached “twenty” the glow vanished with a sudden completeness which suggested the slamming of a door.

Travis strained his eyes, watching the end of that masking dune. If the thing which had spied upon them the night before was coming back to the old position, the shortest route to take would cross that point. But he had seen nothing so far.

There was a very thin sound, but that came from the opposite direction, a whispering from the open country. Then a pat of arid air touched his cheek, wind rising with the coming of night. And the whispering must be the moving of sand grains under its first tentative stir.

“We could ambush one scout,” Ross observed wistfully.

“Their senses may be more acute than ours. Certainly if they are nocturnal, their night sight will be. And we can believe that they are already suspicious of us. Also, I’d like to know a little more about the nature of something or someone I’m going to lay a trap for.”

Travis only half heard Ashe. Surely he had seen a flicker of movement out there. YesI His fingers closed on the older man’s arm in swift warning pressure. A blob of shadow had slipped from the end of the dune, skidded quickly into hiding, heading straight for the hollow behind the upended block of masonry. Was the spy now setded in for a long spell of duty in that improvised observation post? Or tonight would he, she or it venture closer to the ship?

The dusk deepened and with the coming of true dark the tongues of fire danced in the sky. Though the light afforded by that display was not steady, it did illuminate the smoother ground immediately about the globe. Any attack on the part of the unknown natives could be sighted by the men on guard above. The Terrans knew, though, that with the ladder up and open port some dozen feet removed from ground level, they had little to fear from any actual attempt to force their stronghold. Unless the creatures out there possessed weapons able to cut down the distance advantage.

“Close the inner-lock door,” Ashe said suddenly. “Well shut off the ship’s light, make it hard for them to spot us here.”

With the lock shut and the blue light of the ship blanked out, they lay flat on the floor of the cramped space, trying not to hamper each other, awaiting the next move on the part of the lurker or lurkers below.

“Something there,” Ross warned softly. “To the left—right at the end of that last dune.”

The lurker was impatient. A blob of dark, which might have been a head, moved against the white sand. Wind sang around the ship, gathering up grit. The men snapped down their helmets in protection against that. But those whirls of sand devils did not appear to bother the native.

“I think there are more than one of them,” Travis said. “That last movement came too far away from the first I sighted.”

“Could they be getting ready to rush us?” Ross wondered.

Oddly enough, none of the Terrans had drawn his blasters. The perch was so high above the surface over which the attackers must advance, and the smooth rounding of the un-climbable globe was so apparent, that both gave them a sense of security.

The dark thing made a dart toward the globe. And it either ran bent almost double—or else on all fours! One of the startling jumps of the sky’s light spotlighted the form, and the watchers exclaimed.

Man or animal? The thing had four long limbs, and two more projections at mid-body. The head was round, down-held as it darted, so that they could not sight any features. But the whole body was matted with hair—dark hair, not light to match the tuft Travis had found. There was no sign of clothing, nor did the creature appear to be carrying weapons.

For a single moment that flitting shadow paused, facing the ship. Then it scurried back into hiding among the dunes once more. There was another flash of movement which the watchers could hardly detect, as this time the body of the runner merged in color with the sand about it.

“That might have been your hair shedder,” remarked Ashe. “It certainly was lighter in color than the first one.”

“They come in different colors—but all about the same size,” Ross added. “And what in the world are they?”

“Nothing in our world.” Ashe was definite about that. “We can believe, though, that they are interested in this ship and that they are trying to find some way of getting to it undetected.”

“The way they move,” Travis said, “as if they feared attack…. They must have enemies.”

“Enemies to be associated with such a ship as this?” Ashe jumped to the point with his usual speed of understanding. “Yes, that could be. Only I don’t believe that there has been a ship here for a long, long time.”

“Memories passed down—”

“Memories would mean they are men!” Travis was not aware until he voiced those words out of a sense of outrage that he abhorred association with those half-seen creatures in the dunes.

“To themselves they may be men,” Ashe returned, “and we might represent monsters. All relative, son. At any rate, I believe that they do not regard us with kindness.”

“What I wouldn’t give for a flashlight now,” Ross said wistfully. “I’d like to catch one of them in a beam for a really good look.”

They were treated to a wealth of half glimpses of the natives moving through the sand hills as the minutes crawled on, but never did they have a chance really to study one.

“I think they’re working their way around to come in behind the globe—on our blind side,” Travis offered, having traced at least two in that possible direction.

“Won’t do them any good—this is the only opening.” Ross sounded close to smug.

But the thought of the natives coming in behind the globe could not be accepted so easily by Travis. Every buried instinct of hunter and desert warrior argued that such a chance threatened his own security. Reason told him, though, that there was only this one door to the ship, and that it was easily defended. They need only close it and nothing could reach them.