Pale Country Pursuit Read online

  I steered the car on a continuing zigzag course or made sharp turns when necessary around the gaunt trees, the weird rocks and the conical earth formations, all the while keeping a wary eye on every part of the scenery. Finally I adjusted the feed valves and came to a stop.

  “I’m not driving any farther!” I announced grimly. “You surprise me, lad!” said Fratulon.

  “As far as I’m concerned I’ll bet you there’s a deep pitfall somewhere out there in the direction we’re heading. If we keep going this way we’ll fall right into it.”

  Fratulon stopped trying to polish his armour. “I’m getting out,” was all he said.

  He yanked the hatch open, paused in the circular opening for a moment and then jumped down into the snow. As I slowly moved the car forward he ran ahead and found a tree from which he cut a straight length of branch. As I followed him he probed the ground ahead with his staff and beckoned me onward. We progressed at a walk like that for some length of time while he searched for a pitfall under the innocent-looking white snow. Farnathia and Ice Claw leaned forward and watched him through the front windshield.

  “Do you really believe they’ve made a trap for us?” the girl whispered to me.

  “Yes, I feel it so strongly that I almost know it’s there,” I answered.

  I kept the car edging forward. Sawbones ran through the deep snow heading North. He kept on raising his stick and jabbing it downward at the ground. But finally he stopped and shrugged. He turned and made a sign that he was at a loss. The ground was as solid and hard as ever.

  I opened a window and yelled out to him. “Up ahead! About 100 paces—I can see it plainly!”

  “I’ll watch my step! Keep behind me!”

  “OK!” I shouted back.

  The minutes dragged as though stretched out by an invisible agency. The wheels and tractor treads shoved us slowly onward between the trees and the rocks. Fratulon kept leading the way, still on smooth and apparently solid ground.

  My tension increased. Instinct told me that in this region lay a trap of some kind. I didn’t know in what form it might appear or even what it would look like or function. Just an instinct, nothing more. But also nothing less. I broke out into a clammy sweat as my nerves tightened under the rising suspense. Nothing happened. We kept driving slowly onward and straight ahead.

  Suddenly Fratulon raised his hand. “Stop!” he yelled out loudly.

  Still drifting toward him, I smiled. So it was true! My intuition hadn’t deceived me. The tree branch sank deeply into the snow. Fratulon turned and signalled for me to stop.

  I slowed down still more as I leaned out the side window and called to him.

  “Did you really find it? A pitfall?”

  He shouted back: “No—something worse, Atlan: an earth crevasse!”

  My brows shot up as I hit the brakes. A crevasse was worse than a pitfall. We had no equipment or means to get across such an obstacle. It looked as if our flight had come to an end at this point. I opened the door and jumped out. In about 20 strides I was at Fratulon’s side.

  A canyon-like split in the earth lay before us. There was a bottom to it but who could say what that layer of snow and ice down there might yet conceal—a bottomless drop?

  I met Sawbones’ yellow-eyed gaze as he pointed to it. “It looks bad,” he said.

  “So how do we get around this one?” I asked in some desperation.

  And his answer astounded me. “I don’t know. I see snow and ice down there but no ground. The snow buggy could drop through. Presumably we have to go around this.”

  This is what we had been daily expecting without realizing it or consciously daring to take it into account. Before us lay a possible abyss which made further progress impossible.

  And the Kralasenes were somewhere behind us

  5/ THROUGH THE VALLEY OF STEAM

  How deep was the earth-rift actually? Was it conceivable that it could somehow be crossed?

  “What can we do, Fratulon? So far you’ve managed to get us through every obstacle we’ve encountered.”

  “I’ll do it this time also,” he answered, “but I have to think a little bit first.”

  “There are only two alternatives: either we cross this thing or we find a way around it.”

  “Need I say more?”

  So there we stood in the desolate land and cogitated. The fate of four separate beings depended on our solution to the problem. When our eyes met we both knew we were in a high state of tension. Perhaps Farnathia and Ice Claw didn’t comprehend the magnitude of the situation, which was just as well. As for Fratulon and myself, the danger grew with every passing minute. We could already fancy seeing the Kralasenes as they raced onward, picking up our trail.

  Finally Fratulon gave me one of his challenging grins. “Do we dare?” he asked cryptically. “You know-the danger route but the shortest one as usual?”

  I looked again at the earth-gap before us. “I can give it a try. But whether or not our old cooker will make it is something else again!”

  We stared at one another like two conspirators. “That ‘cooker’ has taken us this far,” suggested Fratulon with a new spurt of optimism. “One more exertion isn’t going to kill it.”

  Thinking of one last alternative I asked him: “How far is it to the Valley of Steam?”

  He grinned. “Five days, Atlan—unless you are walking. Then, as you say, that’s something else again!”

  I was on the horns of a dilemma, torn between wisdom and scepticism on one side and foolhardy gallantry on the other. Suddenly I told him: “If you take the wheel, Sawbones—old friend and teacher—then maybe we’ll do it!”

  He merely nodded. “It’s a deal.”

  We went back to the snowmobile and took a few minutes’ break. We fortified ourselves with hot tea and steaming alcohol. Then Sawbones opened the valves and moved us forward. A three-dimensional nightmare began.

  At first we went straight ahead. Then the pointed prow of the vehicle sank downward. The heavy treads of the fires and the steel hooks of the tractor chains still gripped the snow and ice and the unseen ground beneath. Then our ungainly craft canted at a perilously steep angle and rattled its way down the cliff-like slope.

  “There are some things even I can’t see through,” commented Fratulon as he jabbed the various controls.

  “Meaning this slope, no doubt, and this canyon or deathtrap, whichever it is!”

  “You might put it that way.”

  Entranced by the insane situation, we became silent. The car seemed to hang downward at an utterly crazy angle as it crept down into the fissure. Then, while all of us grabbed onto any protrusion we could find and while the motors and bearings sang and howled their terrifying cacophony of complaint, the snout of our beast began to straighten out once more. We were out on a thick layer of snow and ice but what abyss might lie beneath us we did not know. Nobody said a word or even moved. Slowly, inch by inch, the prow gradually levelled.

  “I think we’re going to do it again!” muttered Fratulon and though he held down our speed he still gave more power to the 6 motors in the hubs of the giant wheels.

  Somehow we were across the danger gap before we realized it because soon we were lifting our prow again and were progressing up the other wall in a process of scrabbling upward and slipping back. Each of us probably had separate impressions. I began to believe that we might be traversing a canyon that in ancient times may have carried water to some marshy wilderness area.

  The wheels lost their grip and slipped again. With a scraping and banging sound the tractor hooks gripped in and shoved us up the opposite slope. All of us there inside that cabin had a sensation of being intoxicated or out of our senses. Through the front windshield all we could see was a gyrating combination of snow and beckoning pale grey sky.

  “I think we’re doing it!” yelled Fratulon.

  The burner chamber puffed and sparked as though possessed. The steam pressure from the boiler pushed the turbine into a pitche
d howl. The wheels and chains scrabbled and chewed away at the uncertain ground. As though in a slow-motion fantasy the steamobile reared up and then slammed down at last on the

  horizontal plain.

  “We made it!” exclaimed Fratulon.

  “With all the sweat this cost us,” put in Ice Claw, “we could have melted our way half the distance to Warm Spot. Meanwhile we have to find a camp for the night, Fratulon.”

  Sawbones gradually increased the car’s speed and to grin at the Chretkor. “I’m for keeping on even speed now—slower but surer. The more miles we can squeeze out of this crate the better it is for us.”

  But the speed crept up, nevertheless. This day we had left some very obvious tracks behind us which could hardly be missed. There was neither the threat of a storm nor even a snowfall, so the Kralasenes would be able to pursue us through the weird area of the bare trees and strange rock formations. If it came to a showdown, Fratulon and I could defend ourselves. In fact we could probably handle a superior force if we had to. But if Blind Sofgart’s cut-throats caught up to us it would not only come to that—undoubtedly Farnathia and Ice Claw would die at their hands in spite of what we could do.

  The snowmobile’s speed was now up to its old rate. We held steadily to the North and would reach the Valley of Steam and Adjover on our way. But when and after what unexpected events along the route? None of us knew. Did Fratulon truly believe he could reach his secret stronghold ahead of those hired murderers?

  I turned to him. “My good friend and mentor…”

  I said it loud enough for Farnathia and Ice Claw to hear me.

  “I’m listening,” he answered.

  “Where and how will we spend the night?”

  “Somewhere. I don’t know yet. Still a few hours yet till nightfall.”

  “Right. But there are 3 persons here in the cab who have never crossed the Pale Land.”

  Fratulon laughed gruffly. “In this area there aren’t many hiding places. Fortunately, the same thing goes for the snow ghosts.”

  Once again I seemed to be remembering something vaguely similar to this. I was in a vehicle of some kind that glided forward as though on soundless wings—quite in contrast to this rattling smoke trap of ours. I flew over the ground as though cushioned on a force-field. A mellow sun shone down on the level of landscape. In the distance rose the outlines of great cone-shaped buildings and I recalled I was

  steering toward one of these man-made mountains.

  “But I think I’ve made such a journey as this before…” I began.

  Fratulon shot me a worried look. “Atlan, are you daydreaming again?” he asked sternly.

  “I don’t know—I seem to remember…” As I murmured these words the alien buildings appeared to fade out of my mind.

  “That’s explainable,” he chuckled and he slapped his metal cuirass so heavily that it gave off a dull booming sound. “Memories of fantasy! The immature dreams of an adolescent!”

  We were way out again in a desolate expanse of wilderness which was so typical of the Pale Land. Nearby a vague giant shadow seemed to keep pace with us,

  racing over the snow. It was our own shadow as the. last rays of the sun fell horizontally through our windows. The strangely penetrating golden light seemed to be casting everything under a spell of enchantment.

  Fratulon, doctor and warrior, looked like the patriarch hero of some ancient Arkon legend.

  “We’ll be spending the night right out here in the middle of nowhere,” I said in a slight tone of complaint. “Like sitting ducks on the open snow of the tundra.”

  Fratulon laughed, shaking his head to correct me. “Wrong! Tonight we’re going to push on farther. Using the headlights.”

  “I don’t think I’m going to like that!” commented Ice Claw from the rear. He was helping Farnathia to prepare our supper.

  “You’ll like it a lot less,” retorted Fratulon, “if the Kralasenes slice that transparent head of yours from your body! Atlan and I will spell each other off every 2 hours. We’ve got to increase our headstart on the enemy.

  The snow car kept rattling northward. All of us, even including Fratulon, began to be concerned about the night to come. But until we got to the base there would be many more nights like this and a lot more reasons for being concerned.

  * * * *

  Six days

  Six days including three nights of forced travel. The only thing wonderful about it was that our vehicle hadn’t simply collapsed under us. The complaining noises of the worn and battered machinery continued to increase as we progressed. Finally one of the motors gave out. We drove onward with only 5 of our 6 wheels under power.

  Ice Claw alternately suffered and slept. Our last attempts at normal conversation slowly ceased. When we reached the Valley of Steam it was Fratulon’s turn again to take over the wheel.

  He guided the clanking and yowling snow car through clouds of steam that gushed upwards out of sudden earth-rifts and we were often enveloped by them. Our wide-treaded wheels churned and slipped through slimy mud holes and sloughs where varicoloured mud bubbles continuously rose and collapsed with a blubbering sound while producing a smelly pall of vapours. We crossed this valley in silence while we coughed and our eyes streamed with tears from the irritation, though we pressed furs to our mouths an& noses. It became unbearably warm and of course Ice Claw was the first to be heard from as he insisted that he was going to melt to pieces and die.

  Trailing a pitch black smoke cloud behind it, the snowmobile clattered and slithered up the step-like slaggy terraces of the terrain, which were slippery because of streams of hot water. The tractor chains gripped into the slimy layers of lime and clay with their worn but sharply polished cleat hooks, chopping and gouging the earth.

  “In this area…” Fratulon was interrupted by a spell of coughing. “…you won’t find any snow ghosts.”

  “Small consolation!” I answered, chokingly.

  The crater-like edges of bubbling pools made loud crumpling sounds as they burst away under our plunging impact. Water and slime flowed on all sides of our clay-packed tires. There was no wind at all so that the vapour and steam and clouds of heavy gases hung over the valley like a dome, enclosing us in a weird world where even the sounds were dampened.

  Once more we had cut down our time. Our headstart must have been at least several hours by now because otherwise we should have seen the pursuing vehicle of the Kralasenes before this.

  Our car broke through the wall of mist. Fratulon advanced the throttle after we had gotten out of the valley basin and now we slid and slithered down a slope that was covered with loose layers of ashes, rough gravel and broken pumice-stone. The car picked up a racing momentum as we drove down onto the plain again.

  In spite of the penetrating cold outside, we threw open the windows. The white-hot colour of the exhaust returned to its normal dark red hue.

  “There ahead on the horizon… do you see it?” asked Fratulon.

  He defrosted the windshield with a jet of steam. We observed a plain that stretched out in all directions. However, precisely toward the North the terrain rose gradually. On the horizon, perhaps two days away, we saw a towering pillar of smoke and vapour that must have been 10 km wide. Behind the lingering mists the sun of Gortavor was swollen and pale. It made a melancholy impression.

  “I see it. Is that Adjover?”

  Sawbones nodded slowly. “We have a lot of snow country ahead of us. But there near that volcanic smoke—the sign of Warm Spot—that’s where Adjover lies.”

  We could make out the area vaguely. The wheels and tractor treads were digging through deeper snow. There would be snow and ice until close to Adjover, where the ice-free zone around Warm Spot began. The position of the crater was plainly marked by the rising cloud of steam and smoke. There was little wind there to the North and it seemed to stand motionlessly above the horizon.

  “When will we get to that place?” asked Farnathia wearily. Her face expressed what all of us
felt: isolation, melancholy and the expectation of terror and violence

  in the settlement which we could not avoid.

  A warning light flashed at me on the instrument panel.

  “Fratulon—quick! Cut the power!”

  It was too late. With a dying screech another bearing froze. The second motor broke down. Another source of driving power was gone, this time on the right side. Fratulon had switched off quickly but the clicking of the control was only psychologically reassuring. It didn’t change the facts.

  “If we had to,” he said, “we could make it with the caterpillar drive alone. We still have enough reserve action to get us there.”

  He steered onward after that, with undiminished speed.

  * * * *

  The whole operation of this steamer was teetering at the limits of its capacity. Our wheel power was cut down and no doubt other hub motors would go out before long. Fortunately the tractor drive was functioning unimpaired. The hills and valleys of the last mountain range before the Pole emerged out of the mists before us as we gained altitude and approached the crater.

  It was a bright sunshiny morning when we reached the edge of the snow and ice.

  “We have to approach Adjover with extreme caution,” advised Fratulon. “Too many men have died here because they didn’t watch their signals.”

  “I don’t see any settlement,” said Ice Claw.

  “Beyond the fringe here is a small valley by the crater rim. The settlement is there because it’s fairly well-protected from the storms. You’ll only get to see it after we’ve passed through the gates.”

  “I see.”

  Farnathia had become slightly emaciated, which had taken some of her beauty from her. But a few nights of sleep and good food would restore her to her radiant self, just as I had always known and loved her. Ice Claw’s spirits had sunk to their lowest ebb and all his fears and anxieties were coming out.

  I myself felt tired and washed out. The lack of sleep, the monotonous diet and the continued nerve tension connected with the expectation of attack and pursuit, all these factors had served to leave us in a state of exhaustion. I could see it in the hard lines around Sawbones' mouth and when I looked at myself in the rearview mirror I knew I didn’t look any better.