Planet of No Return by Poul Anderson

Author:Poul Anderson [Anderson, Poul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Sci-Fi, Science Fiction
Publisher: Tandem
Published: 1971-01-09T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER X

Miguel Fernandez was born in that province of Latin America known as Uruguay. His family was old and wealthy, and he had been one of the few who always got enough to eat. And there had been books, music, theaters, boats, horses; he had played polo for his continent in the world matches and sailed a yawl across the Atlantic. He had done good stratigraphical work on Luna and Venus, had laughed with many friends, loved many women, and gone out to the stars with a song.

He died on Troas.

It came with cruel swiftness. After two weeks of open prairie, they reached ground which rolled slowly upward, toward the dim blue forms of mountains peering over the horizon. It was a land of long coarse grasses, thick clumps of trees, coldly rushing rivers; always the wind blew, and there were many wings in the sky. Progress slowed down a bit as the Rorvan circled to find the easiest slopes, but you could still count on thirty kilometers a day or so. Avery said he’d asked how much longer the journey would take, but had not understood the answer, which seemed to be highly qualified.

The party was strung out in a long line, scrambling over tumbled boulders. There was much life around here, tetrapteri broke cover with a flurry of all four wings, smaller animals bounded off in alarm, a distant herd of horned reptiles stopped and looked at the travelers with unblinking eyes. Lorenzen was walking near the front of the line, beside Alasvu, trying to improve his Rorvanian vocabulary by pointing to new objects. He saw a small bright-colored beast lying on a rock, sunning itself — rather like an oversized lizard — and indicated it.

“Volanzu,” said the Rorvan. With practice, Lorenzen was getting so he could distinguish individual phonemes; formerly, all of them had sounded much alike to him.

“No — ” It seemed odd to the astronomer that Avery still didn’t know the words for “yes” and “no”; maybe the language didn’t include them. But — ”No,” he said in English, “I know that word, it means ‘stone.’ I mean the lizard there.” He stepped up close to the animal and pointed. It arched its back and hissed at him. The double sun made a jewel-play of its iridescent scales.

Alasvu hesitated, “Shinarran,” he said at last, after peering closer. Lorenzen jotted it down in his notebook as he walked further.

A minute later, he heard Fernandez scream.

He whirled around. The geologist was already falling, and he saw the lizard clinging to the trouser leg. “What the devil — ” He ran back, slipped on a rock, and got up in time to see Thornton grab the lizard by its neck and throw it to the ground and crush its head underfoot.

Then they were all crowding around Fernandez. He looked up at them out of tortured eyes. “Hace frio — ” Thornton had slit his pants leg and they could see the fang marks and the purpling color around them.

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