“Are you afraid?” Stan asked.

“Not in the personal sense, Doctor. By fear, I meant regret that I will no longer be able to serve you as you designed me.”

“Can't you turn on your self-repair circuits?” Stan asked.

“I tried that, Doctor. They are down. And you did not equip me with self-repair units for the self-repair units.”

“In the future we'll have infinite backups for all systems,” Stan said. “Including human ones, I hope. Including mine.”

“Are you all right, Doctor?”

“I've definitely had better days,” Stan said. “My self-repair circuits aren't working right, either.” He felt something in his hand and held it up. “Look here! Mac's collar! I've got it!”

“That's fine, Doctor,” Norbert said. “I have something, too.”

“What is it?” Stan asked.

“This.” Norbert reached into the gaping wound in his shoulder and drew out a gooey mass the color of honey.

“What is it?” Stan asked.

“Royal jelly from the queen's birthing chamber,” Norbert said. “I was unable to provide a proper container. I'm afraid it's gotten some oil on it, and some blood.”

“Doesn't matter,” Stan said. He reached out and took the mass. It had a waxy consistency. He put it in his mouth, made himself chew and swallow it. He experienced no immediate effect.

“Great work!” Stan said.

Behind him he heard big objects move and slide around as something came from the interior of the hive.

“Better get going, Doctor,” Norbert said. “They're coming. I'll cover your retreat as well as I can.”

“I don't see how,” Stan grumbled.

“I improvised a weapon. I hope it will suffice.”

Stan pulled himself onto his hands and knees and worked his way toward the edge of the pit. Behind him he could hear sizzling energy beams as Norbert and the others fought off the aliens. Norbert was buying him time.

Stan tried to pull himself up the side of the pit, but the crumbling structure gave way under him and he fell to the bottom again. Pain washed over him in great uncontrollable waves, and in each one he thought he might drown, only to come back again and again, each time more feebly, to the surface of consciousness.

He felt Julie's hand in his, and then Gill's hand. He was lifted into the air. Below him he heard Norbert's battle still raging, and the shrill screaming sounds that the aliens made as they died in the violet-edged bolts that Norbert's impromptu weapon cast. But the aliens kept on coming, and as Julie and Gill pulled Stan out of the pit and beat a hasty retreat down a tunnel, they heard the sounds of Norbert being pulled down and torn apart.

63

Glint asked, “Is this the place?”

Badger checked the crude map he had drawn following Potter's instructions. Yes, there were the two fan-shaped rocks, and over there was the fissure cut like a curly S.

“We're at the spot all right.”

“Okay,” Glint said. “But where is he? Where's the rescue pod?”

They were standing on a wide flat rock shelf. It stood practically under the shadow of the hive. The wind had died down for a moment. They could look out over the nearly featureless landscape. Toward the west there was a line of lime-green haze, possibly sent up by some natural circumstance. So much about a place like AR-32 was simply incomprehensible.

Yet, even on Earth, despite his thousands of years of occupation, despite his long acquaintance with bird, fish, and fowl, things could still surprise man as well. Strange animals turned up every year. Mysteries abounded. Even the status of ghosts was still uncertain. No one had ascertained for sure whether or not the Yeti or the Jersey Devil really existed. Were there such things as werewolves and vampires?

But on AR-32, the anomalous and the unexpected happened all the time.

You tended to think of such things on a planet like AR-32. Mankind had known of the place for less than ten years. No genuinely scientific expedition had ever visited it. Only commercial vessels called, and for the sole purpose of stealing (though they called it collecting) the aliens' jelly. The men who went on such expeditions were as hard-bitten a lot as conquistadores of old Spain. Like them, they cared little for what lay below them or what it might mean in the scheme of things.

It was not unusual that Badger and his men, who were as much of the conquistador type as the crewmen on the Lancet, were surprised but not absolutely astonished when a creature raised its head from behind a rock and looked at them. “What in hell is that?” Meg asked. Badger and the others turned. The creature was sitting there looking at them. It had a large head somewhat the size and shape of a hogshead. Eight little skinny legs came down from its sides, terminating in blunt claws. Something about the creature was reminiscent of a pig, right down to the way it snuffled and oinked at the crewmen. It had a small curly tail. It was colored pink, and it had a black saddle marking in the middle of its back.

“What do you suppose that thing is?” Glint asked. Badger said, “It's some critter indigenous to this planet, I think. Boys, I'll bet we're the first ones ever to look at this thing.”

“G'wan!” Meg said. “One of the Lancet people might have seen it first.”

“No way to prove that,” Badger said. “But this thing could be rare, and never take to hanging around the places where humans live and work. Like the bobcat and the wolverine on Earth. If there's animals like that on Earth, why not here?”

“Here, fella,” Meg called. “Why'ncha come over here?”

The piglike thing lifted its little triangular ears and stared at them with bulbous blue eyes. It lifted a forepaw and pawed the ground. Then it trotted over to Meg.

“Hey, ain't that nice?” said Meg. She reached over and scratched the creature above its ears. It made a high-pitched grunting sound that had about it a tone of approval. No mistaking that sound for a cry of pain.

The others crowded around. “Cute, ain't it?” said Glint, who had raised hogs in Arkansas.

Meg said, “I wonder why it came to us?”

“Can't tell about alien life-forms,” Badger said. “I wonder if we should take this fellow along with us. Back on Earth sell him to a circus, make a lot of money off'n him. I wonder what he eats?”

“I'm sure he'd tell us if he could,” Meg said, scratching the creature's back. “Where do you come from, fellow?”

The creature cocked its head at them as if it were trying to understand. It seemed to be listening to something. Or for something. It was hard to tell which.

Badger listened, too. And after a few moments he heard a high-pitched buzzing sound, like locusts, only heavier somehow, meaner. As he listened the sound changed. It turned into a heavy thumping, as if a thousand bass drums were advancing up the ridge. Then Badger realized that the two noises were going on simultaneously. He wondered what it could be, and suddenly he didn't want to know.

“Lock and load!” he shouted to the men. “I don't like the sound of this!”

The creatures came over the top of the little hill, a couple dozen of them, though of course that was only the first wave. They were different from the creatures they had seen before. They were the size of large dogs, and their heads were big and shaped like raptor birds. They had no feathers, however, just two tails apiece, and those tails appeared to be barbed. Their mouths were filled with long sharp teeth — that seemed to be a rule here on this planet — and they were making a buzzing sound as they came.

Behind them came another group of creatures, a little smaller than the others, about the size and general shape of woodchucks, and colored a lime green with bluish features. They all had mustaches, like walruses. They made a booming sound as they walked, but Badger couldn't see how they produced it. They came on, all of them, and they didn't look friendly.