Andre Norton - Galactic Derelict

“And I have a way to get around that. Come on.”

Ross’s way of passing the secured door was simple enough. One of the natives flew to a second-story window equipped with a coil of climbing cord from the ship. He was fronted by a shutter across the window. But prying with his spear point forced the latch on that, and a few moments later the rope dangled down the side of the building in open invitation to climb.

The gallery into which they so forced a way gave many indications it had been hurriedly stripped. Some ragged tatters of flimsy web, which fell to powder at the touch of an investigating finger, still hung on the walls. And there were pieces of oddly shaped furniture shrouded in dust. But the dust on the floor was marked in places by tracks and, seeing those, their native companion fingered his spear. Then, his eyes on the Terrans holding their attention, he drove it point down into the pattern of that trail with the vigor or one making a determined attack upon an enemy.

Another lair of the weasel things? Travis, studying those tracks in the half gloom beyond the light from the opened window, believed not. In fact, the marks were disturbingly like a human footprint. And the teasing picture provided by his imagination of some one of the old lords of this place lingering on to haunt its solitude, grew disturbingly in the back of his mind.

Here for the first time they found a stairway, though its treads were so narrow and steep as to make the Terrans believe that it had been made to accommodate bodies unlike their own. Ross, taking the lead, went down, his explorer’s zeal well tempered with caution, in search of the crowded hall they had seen from without.

Travis sniffed. There was a faint fetid odor, not just the accumulation of the dust of centuries, the decay of leaves borne in by the wind, the taint of some small animal lair. This was not only strong enough to be of recent origin, but also the stench was vaguely familiar.

Warning of a weasel den? He did not think so. This was not quite so rank and compelling as that which had burdened the air in the red-walled structure those beasts had taken for their own. And it was not the alien but inoffensive odor which clung to the winged people’s quarters.

He noted that the nose flap of their native companion expanded, and the deep-set eyes in that lavender face shone as they turned alertly from side to side. Not for the first time the Apache regretted the absence of a quick common form of communication. It had proved impossible for the Terrans to approximate the humming sounds which made up the natives’ speech. And none of them in return appeared able to utter any recognizable word, in spite of all the coaxing and patient repetition of common nouns or action verbs.

The interior of the building was a grayish gloom, though the hall into which they had descended had a greater measure of light from the door. Ross stepped out, skirting a pile of boxes. He laid his hand on the top one, his other hovering over the grip of his blaster.

Travis remained where he was. That smell—it tugged at his memory. They stood still, the winged youth freezing with them. Then a sudden gust of wind puffing in the latticed doorway brought with it a warm, fresh reek and Travis knew—

“The sand people!” His words were a hiss of whisper but they carried the authority of a shout. What were the nocturnal creatures of the shrouded desert world doing here?

“You are sure?” To his surprise Ross questioned his identification no further than that.

“You don’t forget a stink like that in a hurry.” Travis’ eyes were busy, surveying the pools of shadow about the crates and boxes piled in the hallway. Had anything moved out there? Were they being watched now by eyes which could see farther than their own in this dusk?

The hand of the native touched his arm, an appeal for attention. Travis’ head swung slowly as he saw the other ready a spear. He fitted a dart in his blowgun.

“There is something—to the left.” Ross’s whisper was the thinnest trickle of sound. His blaster was pointed at that shadowy comer.

Then the hall came alive, a boiling up of forms from every likely and concealing cover. The things which beat toward them in attack shambled swiftly on four limbs like animals. Their silent advance carried with it an added horror in the fact that those slavering beasts had once been—or their remote ancestors had been—men!

The last of blaster fire crackled, brought down three of the clumsy runners. A tentacle licked out and then a fourth attacker went down, a dart dancing in its hairy throat. Behind Travis the native ran back a few steps up stairs, launched out into the air with a beat of his wings. Wheeling over the enemy, he stabbed down at the boneless middle limbs raised to drag him down with a concentration which hinted at a long enmity between the two species.

Ross cried out. A tentacle flicked from the shadows, coiled about his ankle and pulled, as he fought to keep his balance. He turned the blaster beam on that rope of living flesh. He was answered by a roar as the loop fell away. Then Travis’ dart caught the thing which arose to its hind legs clawing for Ross’s shoulders. The Apache shot as fast as he could insert darts into the pipe. He had backed to the stairs and now he flailed out with his weapon as a club, clearing a space to drag Ross with him.

The native’s spear had been jerked from his hold by a tentacle. He perched on one of the piles of boxes, and now he rocked back and forth on his refuge, beating his wings to hasten the tumble of the stack. He rose into the air just as the bulky containers crashed down across the foot of the stairway to provide the beginnings of a barrier.

“Blaster charge—exhausted,” Ross panted. He gripped the barrel of the weapon now useless as a gun, smashed the butt down on the round skull of a creature scrambling over the wreckage.

They retreated up the stairway. Travis kicked out, catching another coarsely haired head under the chin, slamming its owner back and down to tangle with another eager attacker. The native sent a second pile of boxes crashing. Now he was flying back and forth over the ruck of the enemy main body, bombing them with smaller packages he snatched up from the heaps.

For a moment the Terrans were free. They took advantage of that lull to win back to the gallery where they had entered what might have proved a trap. The native shot up, over their heads. He stood on the sill of the open window to beckon them on. uttering excited hums which rose in the scale until their volume approached squeaks.

Travis shouldered Ross behind him toward the exit. “I’ve only two more darts—get out quick!”

For a moment the other resisted, then his common sense took command and he ran for the window. Travis aimed a dart at a hunched shoulder and head just appearing above the stairs. But that missile only nicked a furred upper arm, and fangs showed in a gap which was no longer a man’s mouth. Eyes, small, red with fury, and yet alight—horribly so—with a spark of intelligence, were on him.

He backed to the window. A lavender-skinned arm reached over his shoulder, a hand fastened on the blowgun, twisted at it, trying to pull the tube from his grasp. The native still kept his post on the sill; now he wanted the weapon.

And Travis, knowing that the other had a means of escape he himself did not possess, surrendered the blowgun, then boosted his body over and out on the rope. He watched the lavender back of their rear guard. Wings projected outside the frame of the window and they were raised, ready….

Then the native threw himself backward and out in a wild display of aerial gymnastics. His wings flapped wide, broke his fall and he roared again, spiraling upward as the first shaggy head protruded from the window. Hairy fists pawed at eyes which were apparendy blinded by the sun. Ross had reached the ground, Travis was not far behind him. The rope swung vigorously, scraping him along the building, and he realized that those above were trying to draw him up.