F. Wilson - The Tery

flesh of its victim's neck until blood spouted over both of them. The victim rolled onto its side, however, and managed to wrap one of its longer tentacles around the attacker's throat.

Dalt could not bear to wait and see whether the first's blood supply could outlast the other's oxygen. He left the combatants writhing on the other side of the window and pressed on, trying not to watch the endless variety of depraved forms that skulked, leaped, crawled, shuttled, scuttled, and ran through the small area of the Hole that was visible to them. Yet he was unable to turn away.

"There's a door somewhere along here," he told Jon. "The Teratols made one entry from the corridor into the Hole. I just hope we can open it when we find it."

The tery said nothing and Dalt glanced at his companion, wondering if he could hold his own in there. Jon would have two advantages — his intelligence and his hunting club. Dalt had wanted to give him a blaster, but the tery had been too frightened of its power. He seemed more comfortable with the weapon that had protected him and helped feed him for most of his life. So a club it was.

I wouldn't go in there with two blasters, Dalt thought, glancing into the Hole again.

He estimated from the difference in light levels between the cavern and the corridor that the dwellers on the other side of the window probably didn't know the corridor existed. The light from the phosphorescent stone would reflect off the filth smeared on the window, making it look like an unusually smooth section of the wall. The Shapers had probably wanted it that way so they could watch without being seen.

Jon stopped abruptly and pointed to something on the window.

"What is that?"

Dalt saw a round, dark splotch, about the length of a man's arm in diameter, edging its way down the Hole side of the window. He tried to get a peek at what it looked like on the reverse but it must have been flat and disk-shaped. He could make out no protrusions from the other side.

A movement to the right caught his eye. Down a narrow path came five dark shapes, low to the ground, scuttling. The disk must have had an eye on the other side, too; must have seen the approaching shapes, for it reversed direction.

Then the shapes were close enough for Dalt to make out details: They had normal human heads and torsos, but all resemblance to humanity as Dalt knew it ended there. Each had dark skin and eight legs — four to a side — which were articulated spider-style. But it was the naked hunger-fury in their blank, idiotic faces as they swarmed up to the window and attacked the disk that made Dalt leap backwards and slam against the far wall of the corridor.

An instinctual response. Intellectually he knew he was safe. Emotionally…that was another matter.

Then came a further horror. After the spider gang had peeled the disk from the wall and was carrying it away to wherever it was they lived, Dalt saw its other side. He could make out only a few details, but even in the dim light a fleeting glance showed beyond a doubt the features of a human face.

Jon's eyes snapped to him. He had seen it, too.

"This is how they must live? Why was this done to them? Why must this be?"

Dalt arched himself away from the wall and approached the tery. He had developed a genuine affection for this innocent in beast form. Jon could not comprehend the corruption of spirit that could occur when one human found he had absolute control over the existence of another. Neither could Dalt, but he knew more of human history than the tery.

He put his hand on the tery's shoulder as they resumed their trek.

"Jon, my friend, none of this must be. This is a hideous fabrication, a product of the worst in us. It doesn't have to be, but it is. Nothing that can happen to us by chance is anywhere near as awful as what we somehow manage to do to each other by design."

" ‘We?’ " Jon said. "Who is ‘we?’ I would never do this."

"I was speaking of all humanity in general — and like it or not, that includes you, my friend."

"But I am not a ‘we' for this," Jon rumbled in his deep voice. "I would like to be a ‘we’ with you and Rab and Komak and Adriel, but no…I am not a ‘we’ in this. Never."

The note of finality in Jon's tone made Dalt decide not to pursue the matter any further. They walked on in silence.

The door was unmistakable when they came upon it. The windowed wall of the corridor had been one long, uninterrupted, seamless transparency. After following the curving passage along an arc of approximately forty degrees, they saw the window terminate at what appeared to be a huge steel column, perhaps three meters across, reaching from floor to ceiling. The window continued its course on the far side of the column.

Dalt he inspected the smooth metallic surface.

"This has to be it."

He found a recess large enough to admit four fingers; he inserted them and pulled.

Nothing.

He scanned the door again and found three small disks at eye level.

"The code — I forgot."

He reached into a pouch in his belt and pulled out a slip of paper. The combination was: Clear, 1-3-1-3-2-3-1-2.

"Clear? How do you clear?"

The transcript had never said. It gave the combination sequence, but never explained how to clear the circuit.

Playing a hunch, Dalt pressed all three disks at once and was rewarded by a soft glow within each. He tapped in the sequence. When he put his fingers into the notch and pulled this time, a panel swung out on silent hinges, revealing a small chamber. The ceiling began to glow as they stepped inside.

Before them was another door, a narrow one, secured by four steel bars, each as thick around as a man's thigh. Dalt noticed a wheel on the wall to his left and began to turn it. The bars moved. The first and third bars began to withdraw to the right, the second and fourth to the left.

Dalt stopped turning when the bars had moved half their distance.

"All right," he said. "We know we can get you in. Do we want to?"

Jon cocked his head questioningly.

"I mean," Dalt said, "can you make it? Is there really a decent chance of your getting to the cache and back again through that…that nightmare in there?"

He was having second thoughts about this plan. He had never thought it would be easy, but the Hole had turned out to be a more awesome obstacle than he had ever imagined. So he was offering Jon a way out, and hoping he'd take it.

For despite all Jon's strength and cunning, Dalt seriously doubted he could last very long in there.

"I must go."

"No, you mustn't anything . You…" He paused briefly as his throat tightened. "I don't want you to die, Jon."

He meant it. He sensed something in this misshapen young man that he wanted to preserve and keep near. He didn't know whether to label it innocence or nobility or a combination of both. But it was good and it was alive and he didn't want to see it torn to pieces in the Hole.

Jon tried to smile — it was a practiced grimace that did not come naturally to his face.

"I will not die."

"You may. You may very well die in there. So think hard before deciding."

"There is nothing to decide, Tlad. I am the only one who can go. A human — I mean, one who looks like a human — cannot. Only a tery has a chance of sneaking through. So I must go. There is no one else."

"No! We can find another way. Mekk won't be able to get through there, either. He'll never reach the cache. The Talents can hide in the forests and grow and maybe wait this out. You don't have to die for them!"

"I will not die. I will save them, and then they will have to recognize me as a human. They will have to accord me the honor of thinking of me as a man."

So that's it, Dalt thought.