The Paradox of the Sets Read online

  I wasn’t getting through. He wanted to fight. I realized that suddenly, with a start of surprise, and then felt a fool for not having seen it earlier. His finger was itching to start blazing away again. The first time they had come at him he hadn’t been quite ready—or so he was telling himself now. This time he could get them. That was what he believed, as sincerely as it was possible to believe it. He was set on course, like a clockwork toy that was all wound up. Anything that got in his way was only going to hold him up while he whirred and buzzed and tried to force his way through.

  I handed over the gun.

  “Don’t start smashing things with the butt,” I advised him calmly. “The thing will blow up in your face. If you want to use it as a club, unload it first.”

  He saw the wisdom of the advice. I could practically watch the thoughts ticking over in his mind. Gun in one hand, lamp in the other, rope-and-crampon on the floor. He weighed it all up. Then he put down the lamp and picked up the crampon, putting one shoulder through the loop of the rope and leaving himself just enough slack to swing the crampon.

  “Bring the light,” he said.

  “No,” I replied.

  He didn’t bother to get angry again.

  “Then keep the beam steady,” he said.

  That I was prepared to do. I held the flashlight firmly, focused on the black shadow and the tiny blinking eyes. Gley moved out of the line of the beam, so as not to interrupt it. He took four quick steps, and then brought down one of the hooks of the crampon squarely on the monster’s skull.

  It didn’t move an inch, but even as he struck there was another shadow hurtling past me out of the darkness behind. Where the one came, the others led.

  Gley let go the crampon, whose point was still embedded in the head of the bat-thing, and brought up the gun. As I was practically dead in the line of fire I dived flat. I left the flashlight behind, dropping it without bothering to wonder where it would fall. The lamp was already on the floor.

  The shotgun discharged once, then twice. There was no appreciable pause. I didn’t want to know what the score was—I just got up on one knee in order to get sufficient leverage to take a long, flat dive into the water. I still had my pack on but there was no time for worrying about it now. In point of fact, the water wasn’t really deep enough for it to get wet. I made a colossal splash as I belly-flopped into the water, but it was only a few inches deep. I turned, crab-fashion, so as to face the place where it was all happening.

  Gley was on one knee, the side of him that was toward me illuminated by the lamplight, the blue sheen of the sterile suit seeming to glow. There were cartridges on the ground—he’d spilled them from the box that he kept them in. The box must have been in one of the side pockets of the packsack where he could reach it in a hurry, but he’d been in too much of a hurry and fumbled it.

  When I first looked there were no black shadows clinging to his body—just a flock of shadows whirling around him like some aerial maelstrom. There was no way I could guess how many he had felled with his first two shots. While he was still getting the gun reloaded one thudded into his pack, and then another. I saw him bend slightly before the impacts, but he didn’t do anything to get the things off his back. Their claws sank into the material of the packsack, and that was probably all right by him.

  When he stood erect again it was as though he had sprouted wings of his own—he looked like a hunchbacked giant trying desperately to take off...an early experiment in human flight.

  He brought the gun up to his shoulder and sighted along the barrel, following the circling creatures as they fluttered around him. He fired once, and something was catapulted out of the maelstrom, crashing to the pebbled ground with a clatter. He fired again, and again he scored at least one hit. But killing your enemies two at a time is no big deal when you’re using scattershot, and there were still far too many in the air.

  Down on one knee again he went, but this time there was no chance to reload. The two on his back were moving, clawing themselves around to the vulnerable area beneath his arms, where they could wreak havoc with the circulation systems in his suit. And now there was a third which dived in—and got a grip on his helmet, right before his eyes. Everywhere else the suit clung so closely to his skin that the claws would go clean through into his clothing or his flesh, but the helmet left clearance. He reached up with one hand to rip the beast away, but found it too strong for him. He couldn’t move it.

  Realizing the danger of the ones on his back he threw himself flat and tried to roll, hoping to dislodge them. But they were tough enough to stand that. They flattened their wings across his suit as if they were giant moths hugging the trunk of a tree, and they clung hard. He had no chance of getting them off that way.

  Now that he was down, the others no longer formed a circle as they whirled about him. They gathered above him, flapping grotesquely as they tried to hover. Two or three actually dropped to the ground, and moved in on him in a horribly ungainly fashion, thrusting forward with their wings as if they were using the tips to walk on.

  There was no time left for innocent bystanders. He had made his play and it had failed. He was as good as dead unless someone went to help, and the only someone around was me. I could have rationalized it by the thought that after they’d finished with Gley I was next on the menu, but I didn’t bother. I just hauled myself up and staggered out of the water. I ran toward him, already reaching out with my hand to pick up the crampon.

  If their tiny minds had been able to contain more than one thought at a time they’d have heard me coming and sent a detachment to meet me, but they had a simpleminded hierarchy of instincts and they weren’t exactly used to counterattacks. The whole flock was desperate to get their claws into Gley, and they didn’t pay the least attention to me until I was on the scene and had the crampon in my hand.

  Immediately I found problems. All the slack I had on the rope was the slack Gley had allowed himself. The rest was still looped around his body. I couldn’t actually whirl the thing around my head like a battle-axe. I could get it up to shoulder height and then deliver a short, sharp thrust and that was all.

  I hit out at the one that was on Gley’s helmet, hoping to deal it some mortal injury without actually damaging Gley. I managed to hit it, but the point of the crampon wasn’t sharp enough to tear into it. There was a flapping at my feet as one of the grounded beasts tried to get its teeth into my boot, but that was no trouble. I stamped once and forgot about that one. I hacked at one of the ones on Gley’s back, but was still to half-hearted about it. I hit again, harder, hoping the pack would absorb the force of the blow. This time I must have hurt the creature, but it didn’t let go. Once they had their claws in there was nothing that would make them let go except water.

  It was a long way to the water, but Gley knew by now that he was beat and was ready enough to be hauled to his feet. I waved the crampon about as best I could, trying desperately to clear the air. I found, almost to my surprise, that one was on my pack now, climbing over the flap to get at the back of my head. Suddenly there was another at my shoulder, though I managed to strike that one with the crampon before it dug in deep. By now, though, there were four or five clinging to Gley, and they were reaching vulnerable spots. There were five or six still fluttering around us.

  It was still a long way to the water.

  Too far.

  I tripped over a rock and fell forward, heavily. I lost my grip on Gley’s arm, but not on the crampon. It might have been better if I had let go of the weapon, because as it was I fell on it, and although the prongs were slanted back one of them drove painfully into my shoulder just below the end of the collarbone. If I hadn’t had the suit on it would have dug into my flesh and might have broken the bone, but the flexible plastic of the suit contained the point, and all I got was a terrible pain and the seed of a nasty bruise.

  The fall didn’t knock the wind out of me but it was by no means easy to rise. It seemed that the ground was shaking and shuddering
beneath me, and that the tremor was communicated to my body so that every bone and fiber was vibrating, stopping me from coordinating my movements or even from moving at all.

  The lamp was just ahead of me and as I looked up to see how far I was from the water I saw the lamp dancing on the rock, and then I realized that it wasn’t an illusion. The ground really was shaking.

  It was another mini-earthquake.

  Only way down here it wasn’t so weak and trivial.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  For a few moments I thought I was dead for sure. Seconds before there had been half a dozen bat-things zooming overhead, ready to drop on me as I tried to rise, to bite their way into my back and my thighs, my shoulders and my head. But with the first vibrations they were gone, diving for the safety of the rock. They couldn’t fly in air that was vibrating like the air in an organ pipe, and they couldn’t use their echo-location equipment. The peril overhead was gone, and all we had to contend with were the ones that had already got their grip.

  There was only one clinging to me—I’d managed to discourage the one that had settled on my shoulder and it had flown off with its friends. Even the one I did have to deal with was only dug into the packsack. I rolled onto my side, away from the crampon. The shaking of the ground was nauseating me, and filled me with a sensation like vertigo, as if at any moment the ground might disappear altogether and leave me to fall forever and ever. Had there not been such immediate danger to my person the quake would have terrified me half to death, but with things as they were I grit my teeth hard and took control just enough to release my right arm from the pack. Then it was only a matter of rolling free, bringing my left arm out with me. The pack and the predator stayed where they were and I rolled free.

  I couldn’t reach the lamp but I reached the flashlight. As a weapon it was no great shakes, but it was something. My feet were practically touching Gley—I’d been able to fall no farther away from him than the rope to which the crampon was attached had let me. He was on his side, curled up almost into a fetal position.

  I brought the flashlight down like a club on to the beast that was clinging to his helmet. I was able to knock it off this time, and killed it with one more blow. The flashlight didn’t go out, though its rim was badly dented. I couldn’t hit at the others without hurting Gley. I started to wrench at them with my hands, and tore one away, crushing its wing bones in my fists. I didn’t bother to kill it, but simply hurled it away. Where it had clung to the suit on the arm there was blood, but it wasn’t much of a wound. In the meantime, though, the other three that were still on him had played merry hell with the suit’s equipment, and they were still there. One had burrowed right into his armpit, another was at his waist. The third was ripping away with its teeth at the plastic protecting his groin. I went for that one first, clawing at its head. It bit through the plastic of my gauntlet and into my hand, sending daggers of pain up my arm. Somehow I got my hand around its head and wrenched backwards, trying to break its neck. It was too tough. I was so desperate by now I’d have bitten it to death if it hadn’t been for my helmet, but now I got help from Gley, who started tearing at its wing with his own hand. Between the two of us we got it off and away.

  The two that were left were the first two that had landed on him, and they were really dug in. Both had managed to create great rents in the suit with teeth and claws, and they were well into his flesh by now. Gley was moaning, and when I tore one away he screamed in agony. He was bleeding very badly from the wound that that particular one left behind. The pain left him helpless and he sagged back again to the rock floor, which was still shaking, though not so violently. I tried desperately to pull the last one off.

  I grasped both the wings of the last predator, and got enough leverage with my right foot to thrust myself backwards. The thing came away, and again Gley screamed. The monster twisted in my hands and tried to bite my chest, but I simply hauled outward on both its wings, stretching the delicate bones and breaking them. It writhed in agony, and I hurled it away as far as I could.

  Gley was curled up again now, bleeding copiously. He was gasping desperately, and not simply with the pain. He had been breathing with the aid of an oxy-bottle and the system taking care of his air was ripped to shreds. I fumbled at the filters in the lower part of his helmet, trying to get them open so he could suck air in there.

  But there was so little time to do anything, because the earthquake was dying now.

  The moment he was breathing again I threw myself over him, crawling hand over hand to the place where he’d made his stand. The gun was still there, and there were cartridges scattered all over the rocks.

  The ground was steady now, though the nausea went on. I grabbed the gun and cursed the plastic sheath around my fingers as I tried to pick up cartridges. It seemed to take an eternity before I got the thing loaded and snapped the barrel back into place. But when I whirled, ready to fire from the hip, there was nothing there.

  For a moment, everything was still and silent. While four seconds ticked by I was rigid in my position of readiness, my finger wound about the trigger, ready to fire but with nothing to fire at. My mind seemed paralyzed, unable to think. For a time interval I couldn’t estimate, I had been moving on pure reflex, moving from one action to the next without ever making a conscious choice. The whole situation had flowed with a desperate pace. Now, suddenly, there was nothing. The tremor was dead, but the bat-things weren’t yet ready far the final assault.

  Four seconds gave me just long enough for the bile to rise into my throat and for the fear to take a solid, ice-like grip on my belly.

  Then they came, shadows flapping into the circle of lamplight. No more than half a dozen—perhaps only five.

  I let go the first barrel purely on reflex, and missed the lot. I don’t know how the scattershot spread out without snatching a single one out of the air, but somehow it did. That struck at me like a knife. There was real, physical pain as the realization hit me that they were still there, still fluttering, and that the one last shot in the second barrel might be all I’d ever have time for.

  If they’d come at me then, it would have been the end. If even two had managed to get a grip on me it would have killed my chances, second shot or no second shot. But they were betrayed by their instincts. They followed the scent of blood—all of them. They went for Gley, with an eagerness that had them getting in one another’s way. Moved by the strength of a single, insistent, instinctive thought they all fluttered into the same confined space, each one looking to stall in the air directly above Gley’s body, preparatory to dropping on to him and burying their snakelike snouts in his blood.

  It was almost absurd, for their coordination was perfect, their timing absolute. For one single moment they were clustered together in a volume of space no bigger than a storage cupboard.

  I brought the shotgun up to my shoulder, sighted, and fired. And this time the shot ripped right through them, blowing them away as if they were dead leaves caught in a breath of winter wind.

  I swallowed hard, and the bile returned to my stomach. The stabbing pain eased, and was gone as if by magic. Even the cold fingers of fear down below seemed suddenly to relax their grip.

  I found that I was shaking. It wasn’t an earth-tremor...not this time.

  I got slowly to my feet, and took two steps forward, then knelt beside Gley. The first thing I felt was a terrible wave of anger and disappointment, as I realized now that I finally had the time to realize it that he wasn’t going to make it. He was alive, but he was losing a lot of blood. Too much of his skin had been stripped away. His suit was in tatters, and already the poison gases were getting at his wounds. No amount of tape was going to patch him up well enough for me to get him back to the surface. He was going to die within the hour, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.

  I went to my own pack, intending to get the tape to patch up my own suit and a shot to kill Gley’s pain and ease his departure. The last remaining predator flapped up i
nto my face from where I’d left it, clinging to my packsack. It was a lousy takeoff—the beast was too heavy to haul itself up from a flat start without a lot more time to work on the problem. I stamped it down on the ground and brought my boot heel crashing down on its skull. I killed it with that one blow, but I stamped on it again, and then again, venting my frustration.

  There seemed to be bloody bat corpses everywhere. A lot of the creatures were still alive, but helpless because their wings were torn and crushed. One or two could still move a little, but they were only jiggling up and down—they couldn’t actually make headway. All in all, it was a thoroughly sickening sight. I deliberately shut it out of my mind while I gave Gley a heavy shot of pain-killer. He was still conscious, and he blinked at me when I slid the needle into his arm, but he couldn’t get his mouth open because of a pain-rictus that had clamped his jaw.

  I got the tape out, and sat down on a rock to seal up the few small punctures I’d contracted during the battle. It didn’t take long.

  Gley watched me do it. His gaze flicked down to try to indicate that I should tape up his gashes. I nodded, but signaled that first I had to clean out the wounds. There was no point in trying, from a medical point of view, but for the sake of putting up a show I thought I might as well do it.

  While I was working at it the pain-killer worked its trick. The pain-rictus eased, and freed his jaw so that he could speak. His voice was a little weak.

  “We got them all,” he said.

  “Every last one,” I confirmed. “Unless there are more incubating their eggs. Even if one or two got away, the flock is finished. Maybe the whole species. There can’t be many other environments on Geb like this one. I think they were some kind of freak...living down here, breathing foul air, with earthquakes twice a week and floods twice a year and volcanic eruptions maybe once a millennium in the good old days. Life is sure as hell tenacious.”