When Shadows Fall by L. Ron Hubbard

Author:L. Ron Hubbard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fiction, adventure, Science Fiction
Publisher: Galaxy Press

CHAPTER FOUR

Live Targets

MOFFAT sniffed at the wind in vain. He could not discover the least odor of wood smoke. Just breathing this air was enough to sear the lungs and burn scars on the throat without trying to smell anything in the bargain. He looked wonderingly at the old constable.

“They’ll be boiling some fresh meat they got back at the mine,” said Old Keno. “It wouldn’t keep long down here and they probably haven’t any galley in their spacecan. I figured I’d smell wood smoke when I got here, the second I noticed that a haunch of baysteer had been ripped from the drying racks outside the guard’s shack at the mine.”

Trained arduously, given the highest grades in detection, the young constable felt insensibly lessened again. He was failing every test. He had missed an important clue. Hurriedly he changed the subject. “How’d they cross this gap?” he asked.

“Oh, they’re on this side of it all right,” said Old Keno. “I saw their last tracks back there about a quarter of a mile. They turned off to the left and we’re like to find them about a quarter of a mile up the way. You’d better shed those boots. They’ll make an awful racket if we hit hard rock.”

Again he felt like a small boy being told to do the most simple and obvious things. He shed the boots and was instantly aware of new difficulty. His feet were in ribbons from the terrible climb down and were chilblained by the shift in temperature as well. And now they had to contact sand which could have roasted eggs.

With the first steps he felt his feet beginning to blister and tears shot into his eyes from the pain. But Old Keno had also shed his boots and was striding easily forward, oblivious of this new agony. The old man, thought Moffat, would have walked through walls of fire with only an impatient backward glance to see if Moffat was coming.

“Are we close?” said Moffat at last and the words came out like rough pebbles, so achingly dry had his mouth become. Each gasp of air was like swallowing the plume on a blowtorch.

“No need to talk low,” said Old Keno. “The wind’s from them to us. They’re camped by a running stream anyway and they can’t hear above it. It’ll be thirty degrees cooler where they are. This valley is like that. Hear it?”

Moffat couldn’t but Old Keno was talking again, pointing to a tiny pinpoint, which was their fire, and the gleam, which was the spacecan, beside it.

“Cover all three from this side with your rifle. Don’t shoot unless you have to. I’ll circle and approach from the water side and challenge them. Don’t plug me by mistake now!”

The disrespect in this made Constable Moffat wince. But he took station as requested. Lying across a frying hot rock with the night air broiling him, he laid the searing stock of the rifle against his cheek.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.