SOS the Rope (4 page)

    "Maybe-because they're among the smallest mammals, and they reproduce fastest. Mammals are the most savage and versatile vertebrates on Earth. My guess is that these are carnivorous, whatever they are."

    "Mice? But how-"

    "Radiation. It affects, the babies in some way, makes them mutants. Almost always harmful-but the few good ones survive and take over, stronger than before. The books claim that's how man himself evolved."

    "But mice!"

    The outriders were at their feet. Sos felt inane, holding the club aloft against such enemies. "Shrews, I'm afraid. Insectivores, originally. If the radiation killed off everything but the insects, these would be the first to move in again." He squatted and swept one up in his glove and held it for her to see. She didn't look, but Stupid did, and he wasn't happy. "The smallest but most vicious mammal of all. Two inches long, sharp teeth, deadly nerve poison though there isn't enough of it in a shrew to kill a human being. This creature will attack anything that lives, and it eats twice its own weight in meat in a day."

    Sola was dancing about, trying to avoid the charging midgets. 'She did not seem to be foolishly afraid of them, as some women were, but certainly did not want them on her body or under her feet. "Look!" she screamed. "They're-."

    He had already seen it. A dozen of the tiny animals were scrambling into the tent, climbing over Sol, sniffing out the best places to bite.

    Sos lunged at them, smacking the ground with the club while Sola struck with the sticks, but the horde had arrived in a mass. For every one they killed with clumsy blows a score were charging past, miniature teeth searching. The 'little bodies of the casualties were quickly torn apart by others and consumed.

    The troops were small, but this was full-scale war.

    "We can't fight them all!" Sos gasped. "Into the water!" They opened the tent and hauled Sol out by his arms and splashed into the river. Sos waded to chest height, shaking off the determined tiny monsters. He discovered that his arms were bleeding from multiple scratches inflicted by the shrews. He hoped he was wrong about their poison; he, and Sola must already have sustained more than enough bites to knock them out, if the effect were cumulative.

    The little bundles of viciousness balked at the waterline, and for a moment he thought the maneuver had been successful. Then the hardier individuals plunged in and began swimming across, beady eyes fixed upon the target. More splashed in after them, until the surface of the river was covered with furry bodies.

    "We've got to get away from them!" Sos shouted. "Swim for it!" Stupid had already flown to the opposite shore, and was perched anxiously upon a bush. No mystery any more why the surface of the land was clean!

    "But the tents, the supplies-"

    She was right. They had to have a tent, or nightfall would leave them exposed to the moths. Sheer numbers would protect the army of shrews, but all larger animals were vulnerable. "I'll go back for them!" he said, hooking his forearm under Sol's chin' and striking out sidestroke for the bank. He had thrown aside the club somewhere; it was useless, anyway.

    They outdistanced the animals and stumbled onto land. Sola bent down to give the patient what attention she could while Sos plunged back into the water for one of the most unpleasant tasks of his life. He swam across, stroking more strongly now that he had no burden-but at the far side he had to cut through the living layer of carnivores. His face was at their level.

    He gulped a breath and ducked under, swimming as far as he could before coming up for air. Then he braced his feet against the bottom and launched himself upward at an angle. He broke water, spraying shrews in every direction, drew his breath through clenched teeth and dived again.

    At the shore he lurched out, stepping on squealing struggling fur, swept up the nearest pack and ripped his standing tent loose from its moorings. If only they had folded them and put the things away. . . but Sol's illness had pre-empted everything.

    The creatures were everywhere, wriggling over and inside the pack and through the folds of the bunched tent. Their pointed hairy snouts nuzzled at his face, the needle teeth seeking purchase, as he clasped the baggage to his chest. He shook the armful, not daring to stop running, but they clung tight, mocking him, and leaped for his eyes the moment he stopped.

    He dived clumsily into the water, feeling the living layer he landed upon, and kicked violently with his feet. He could not submerge, this time; the pack had been constructed to float, the tent had trapped a volume of air and both arms were encumbered. Still the tiny devils danced, upon the burden and clawed over his lips and nose, finding ready anchorage there. He screwed his eyes shut and continued kicking, hoping he was going in the right direction, while things scrambled through his hair and bit at his ears and tried 'to crawl inside earholes and nostrils. He heard Stupid's harsh cry, and knew that the bird had flown to meet him and been routed; at least he could stay clear by flying. Sos kept his teeth clenched, sucking air through them to prevent the attackers from entering there, too.

    "Sos! Here!"

    Sola was calling him. Blindly grateful, he drove for the sound-end then he was out of the lumpy soup and swimming through clear water. He had outdistanced them again!

    The water had infiltrated the pack and tent, nullifying their buoyancy, and he was able to duck his head and open his eyes underwater, while the shrews got picked off by the current.

    Her legs were before him, leading the way. He had never seen anything quite so lovely.

    Soon he was sprawled upon the bank, and she was brushing things from him and stamping them into the muck.

    "Come on!" she cried into his ear. "They're halfway across!"

    No rest, no rest, though he was abominably tired. He strove to his feet and shook himself like a great hairy dog. The scratches on his face stung and the muscles of his arms refused to loosen. Somehow he found Sol's body and picked it up and slung it over his shoulders in the fireman's carry and lumbered up the steep hillside. He was panting, although he was hardly moving.

    "Come on!" her voice was screaming thinly, over and over. "Cøme on! Comeoncomeon!" He saw her ahead of him wearing the pack,' the material of the tent jammed crudely inside and dripping onto her wet bottom. Fabulous bottom, he thought, and tried to fix his attention on that instead of the merciless weight upon his shoulders. It didn't work.

    The retreat went on forever, a nightmare of exertion and fatigue. His legs pumped meaninglessly, numb stalks, stabbing into the ground but never conquering it. He fell, only to be roused by her pitiless screaming, and stumbled another futile thousand miles and fell again. And again. Furry snouts with glistening, blood-tinted teeth sped toward his eyes, his nostrils, his tongue; warm bodies crunched and squealed in agony under his colossal feet, so many bags of blood and cartilage; and stupendous, bone-white wings swirled like snowflakes wherever he looked.

    And it was dark, and he was shivering on the soaking ground, a corpse beside him. He rolled over, wondering why death had not yet come-and there was a flutter of wings, brown wings flecked with yellow, and Stupid was sitting on his head.

    "Bless you!" he whispered, knowing the moths would not get close tonight, and sank out of sight.

    CHAPTER FOUR

Flickering light against his eyelids woke him again. Sot was lying next to him, living after all, and in the erratic glow from an outside fire he could see Sola sitting up, nude.

    Then he realized that they were all naked. Sol had had minimal clothing since the dunking in the river, and the others- "On a line by the fire," she said. "You were shaking so badly I had to get the sopping stuff off you. Mine was wet, too."

    "You were right," he said. He had been quick enough to subordinate Sol's modesty to need; the same applied to himself. He wondered how she had gotten the clothing off him; he was certainly too heavy for her to lift. There must have been a real chore, there.

    "I think they're dry now," she said. "But the moths-"

    He saw the material of the tent enclosing them. She had situated the fire so that it radiated through the light netting In front, heating the interior without flooding it with smoke. She had placed the two men prone, heads near the heat, while she kneeled between their feet at the far end, leaning over so that the sloping nylon did not touch her back. It could hardly be a comfortable position, though from this angle it showed her unsupported bosom off to advantage.

    He rebuked himself for his preoccupation with her body at such an inappropriate time. Yet it always came to this; he could not look at her without turning physical, any time. This was the other fear of his erstwhile dream: that be would covet his companion's wife and be led to dishonor. Sola had acted with eminent common sense and dispatch, even courage, and it was an insult to put a sexual meaning on it. She was naked and desirable.. . and wore another man's bracelet.

    "Maybe I can fetch the clothing," he said.

    "No. The moths are 'everywhere-much thicker than before. Stupid is gorging himself-but we can't put a hand outside."

    "I'll have to stoke up the fire pretty soon." It was cold outside, and his feet could feel it despite the greenhouse effect of the closed tent. He could see her shivering, since she was more distant from the blaze.

    "We can lie together," she said. "It will keep us all warm, if you can stand my weight."

    Again, it made sense. The tent was not wide enough for three, but if she lay on top of the two men there would be both room and a prism of warmth. Both were in urgent demand. She was being supremely businesslike about it; could he be less?

    Her thigh rubbed against his foot, a silken contact as she adjusted her weight. Intimate messages ran up his leg.

    "I think his fever is broken," she said. "If we can keep him warm tonight, he may improve tomorrow."

    "Maybe the shrew venom counteracted the moth poison," he said, glad to change the subject. "Where are we now? I don't remember getting here."

    "Over the pass, the other side of the river. I don't think they can catch up to us here. Not tonight. Do they travel at night?"

    "I wouldn't think so. Not if they travel by day. They must sleep sometime." He paused. "Straight in from the river? That means we're that much farther into the badlands."

    "But you said the radiation is gone."

    "I said it is retreating. I don't know how far or fast. We could be in it now."

    "I don't feel anything," she said' nervously.

    "You can't feel it." But it was a pointless discussion. They had no way to escape it, if they were in the fringe zone. "If the plants haven't changed, it must be all right. It kills everything." But insects were a hundred times as tolerant as man, and there were more moths than ever.

    The conversation lapsed. He knew what the problem was: though they had agreed on the necessity to conserve heat, and knew what was called for, it was awkward initiating the action. He could not boldly invite her to lay her generous breasts against his naked body, and she could not stretch upon him without some specific pretext. What was intellectually sensible remained socially awkward-the more so because the prospect of such contact excited him, practical as its purpose might be, and he war sure it would show. Perhaps it interested her as well, since they both knew that Sol would never embrace her.

    "That was the bravest thing I ever saw," she said. "Going back for the tent like that."

    "It had to be done. I don't remember much about it, except your screaming at me 'Come on! Come on!'" He realized that sounded ungracious. "You were right, of course. You kept me going. I didn't know what I was doing."

    "I only yelled once."

    So it had been in his head, along with the other phantasms. "But you guided me away from the shrews."

    "I was afraid of them. You picked up Sol and ran after me. On and on. I don't know how you did it. I thought you were done when you tripped, but you kept getting up again."

    "The books call it hysterical strength."

    "Yes, you are very strong," she agreed, not understanding him. "Maybe not so quick with your hands as he is, but much stronger."

    "Still, you carried the gear," he reminded her. "And you set all this up." He looked about the tent, knowing that she must have carved pegs to replace the ones lost when he uprooted the works amid the shrew invasion, and that she must have hammered them into the ground with a stone. The tent was not mounted evenly, and she had forgotten to dig a drainage trench around it, but the props were firm and the flaps tight. It was proof against the moths, with luck and vigilance, which was what counted, and could probably withstand rough use. The placement of the fire was a stroke of genius. "An excellent job, too. You have a lot more ability than I gave you credit for."

    "Thank you," she said, looking down. "It had to be done."

    There was silence again. The fire was sinking, and all he could see were the highlights of her face and the rounded upper contours of her breasts, all lovely. It was time to lie down together, but still they held back.

    "Sometimes we camped out, when I was with my family," she said. "That's how I knew to pitch the tent on a rise, in case it rained." So she had been aware of the necessity for drainage. "We used to sing songs around the fire, my brothers and I, trying to see how late we could stay awake."

    "So did we," he said reminiscently. "But I can only remember one song now."

    "Sing it for me."

    "I can't," he protested, embarrassed. "My notes are all off-key."

    "So are mine. What's the song?"

    "'Greensleeves.'"

    "I don't know it. Sing it."

    "I can't sing lying on my side."

    "Sit up, then. There's room."

    He floundered into an upright posture, facing her across the length of the tent, Sol's still form stretched out diagonally between them. He was glad, now, that it was dark.