partly immersed, the going was much simpler; and after a digging squad had widened the banks up to the point nearest the Bree’s resting place the job became almost easy. Not too many hundred days passed before the long, narrow string of rafts, reloaded, was being towed once more toward the sea.
The flying machines appeared just after the ship had entered that portion of the stream where its walls were steepest, shortly before it emptied into the lake. Karondrasee saw them first; he was on board at the time, preparing food while the others pulled, and his attention was freer than theirs. His hoot of alarm roused Earthmen and Mesklinites alike, but the former as usual could not see the approaching visitors since the vision sets were not aimed high enough.
Barlennan saw all too clearly, however. There were eight of the gliders, traveling fairly close together but by no means in tight formation. They-came straight on, riding the updraft on the leeward side of the little valley until they were almost over the ship; then they changed course to pass in front of her. As each swooped overhead, it released an object, turned, and swung back to the lee side to recover its altitude.
The falling objects were distinct enough; every sailor could see that they were spears, very much hike those the river dwellers had used but with much heavier tips. For a moment the old terror of falling objects threatened to send the crew into hysteria; then they saw that the missiles would not strike them, but fall some distance in front. A few seconds later the gliders swooped again, and the sailors cowered in expectation of an improved aim; but the spears fell in about the same place. With the third pass it became evident that their aim was deliberate; and presently their purpose became apparent. Every projectile had fallen in the still narrow stream, and penetrated more than half its length into the firm clay bottom; by the end of the third run, two dozen stakes formed by the spear handles were effectually blocking the ship’s passage downstream.
As the Bree approached the barricade, the bombardment stopped. Barlennan had thought it might be continued to prevent their approaching and clearing the obstacle away, but when they reached it they found tibis to be superfluous. The spears were there to stay; they had been dropped from nearly a hundred feet with superlative aim in a field of seven gravities, and nothing short of power machinery was going to extract them. Terblannen and Hars proved that in five minutes of fruitless upward tugging.
„Can’t you cut them?” Lackland asked from his distant observation point. „Those pincers of yours are pretty powerful, as I know.”
„These are wood, not metal,” Barlennan replied. „We would need one of your hard metal saws, which you claimed would attack even our wood — unless you have some machine for pulling them out.”
„You must have tools which will cut it; how do you do repair work on your ship? The rafts certainly didn’t grow in that shape.”
„Our cutting took are Snade of animal teeth set in strong frames, and most of them are not very portable. What we have we will use, but I doubt that we’ll be given time to do much.”
„I should think you could keep attackers away by fire.”
„We can, if they come from downwind. I find it hard to imagine their being that stupid.” Lackland fell silent, while the crew fell to work on the stakes with such edged tools as they could find. Their personal knives were of hardwood and would make no impression on the spears, but as Barlennan had intimated, there were a few bone and ivory cutters, and these began to chip away at the incredibly tough wood. Digging was also attempted by some of the crew who lacked tools; they took turns in sinking to the bottom of the inches-deep brook, working the clay loose, and letting its particles wash away in the sluggish current. Dondragmer watched these workers for a time, then pointed out that it would probably be easier to dig a canal around the obstruction than to grub out two dozen sticks from a depth of some four feet. This suggestion was eagerly adopted by the members of the crew who had nothing to cut with, and work progressed at a remarkable rate.
The gliders kept circling while all this was going on; apparently they either remained overnight or were replaced by others during the minutes of darkness — no one could tell which. Barlennan kept a sharp watch on the hills to either side of the stream, expecting ground forces to appear at any moment; but for a long time his own crew and the gliders formed the only moving parts of the scenery. The crews of the gliders themselves remained invisible; no one could even tell how many or what sort of creatures rode in the machines, though both human beings and Mesklinites had come to take more or less for granted that they belonged to Barlennan’s race. They showed no evident anxiety about the sailors’ digging activities, but it became apparent finally that the excavation had not gone unnoticed. The job was about three quarters finished when they took action; another series of bombing runs left the path of the new waterway as completely staked off as the original. As before, pains were apparently taken to avoid transfixing any of the crew. The action, however, was about as discouraging as if it had been a personal assault; quite evidently the digging process was useless, since the work of days could be nullified in a matter of minutes. Some other line of procedure must be devised.
At the Earthmen’s advice, Barlennan had long since ordered his men not to gather in large groups; but now he drew them in toward the ship, establishing a loose cordon parallel to the string of rafts on each side of the creek. The men were far enough apart so there was no really tempting target from above, and close enough to support each other in case an attack actually developed. There they stayed; Barlennan wished it made evident that the next move was up to the personnel of the gliders. They failed to make it, however, for several more days.
Then a dozen more of the flimsy craft appeared in the distance, swooped overhead, split into two groups, and landed on the hilltops to either side of the imprisoned ship. The landings were made as the Flyers had foretold, into the wind; the machines skidded to a stop in a few feet from their point of touchdown. Four beings emerged from each, leaped to the wings, and hastily tied the gliders down, using the local bushes as anchors. What had been assumed all along now proved to be a fact; they were identical in form, size, and coloring with the sailors of the Bree.
Once the gliders were secured, their crews proceeded to set up a collapsible structure upwind from them, and attach cords equipped with hooks to this. They appeared to be measuring quite carefully the distance from this device to the nearest glider. Only when this task was completed did they pay any attention to the Bree or her crew. A single prolonged wail that sounded from one hilltop to the other apparently served as a signal that the work was complete.
Then the glider crews on the leeward hill began to descend the slope. They did not leap, as they had during the action subsequent to landing, but crawled in the caterpillarlike fashion which was the only means of locomotion Barlennan’s people had known prior to his exploration of the Rim. In spite of this they made good speed and were within reasonable throwing distance — as several of the more pessimistic sailors regarded it — by sundown. They stopped at that point and waited for the night to pass; there was just enough light from the moons for each party to see that the other did nothing suspicious. With the coming of sunlight the advance was resumed, and eventually terminated with one of the newcomers only a yard or so from the nearest sailor, while his companions hung a few feet farther back. None of the party seemed to be armed, and Barlennan went to meet them, first ordering two sailors to swing one of the vision sets so that it pointed directly at the place of meeting.