Stainless Steel Visions

She didn't fall. With all her strength she hurled herself from the limb, jumping toward the certain death she preferred to his touch. For a heartbeat she seemed to hang, contorted and fear-crazed, at the apex of her leap, before gravity clutched hold and pulled her crashing down through the leaves. Then Dall was falling too, grabbing for nonexistent handholds.

The safety line he had tied held fast. In a half daze he worked his way back to the trunk and fumbled loose the knots. With quivering precision he made his way back to the ground. It took a long time, and a blanket was drawn over the deformed thing in the grass before he reached it. He didn't have to ask if she was dead.

"I tried to stop her. I did my best." There was a slight touch of shrillness to Dall's voice.

"Of course," Commander Stane told him, as he spread out the contents of the girl's waist pouch. "We were watching with the Eye. There was no way to stop her when she decided to jump."

"No need to talk Slaver to her either," Arnild said, coming out of the ship. He was going to add something, but he caught Commander Stane's direct look and shut his mouth. Dall saw too.

"I forgot!" the young man said, looking back and forth at their expressionless faces. "I just remembered she had understood Slaver. I didn't think it would frighten her. It was a mistake maybe, but anyone can make a mistake! I didn't want her to die. "

He clamped his trembling jaws shut with an effort, and turned away.

"You better get some food started," Commander Stane told him. As soon as the port had closed he pointed to the girl's body. "Bury her under the trees. I'll help you."

It was a brief meal; none of them were very hungry. Stane sat at the chart table afterward, pushing the hard green fruit around with his forefinger. "This is what she was doing in the tree, why she couldn't pull the vanishing act like the others. Picking fruit. She had nothing else in the pouch. Our landing next to the tree and trapping her was pure accident." He glanced at Dall's face, then turned quickly away.

"It's too dark to see now. Do we wait for morning?" Arnild asked. He had a handgun disassembled on the table, adjusting and oiling the parts.

Commander Stane nodded. "It can't do any harm — and it's better than stumbling around in the dark. Leave an Eye with an infrared projector and pickup over the village and make a recording. Maybe we can find out where they all went."

"I'll stay at the Eye controls," Dall said suddenly. "I'm not. sleepy. I might find something out."

The commander hesitated for a moment, then agreed.

"Wake me if you see anything. Otherwise, get us up at dawn."

The night was quiet and nothing moved in the silent village of huts. Dall watched, tired but not sleepy, dozed a little until the alarm woke them all. At first light he and Commander Stane walked down the hill, an Eye floating ahead to cover them. Arnild stayed behind in the locked ship, at the controls.

"Over this way, sir," Dall said. "Something I found during the night when I was making sweeps with the Eye."

The pit edges had been softened and rounded by the weather; large trees grew on the slopes. At the bottom, projecting from a pool of water, were the remains of rusted machinery.

"I think they're excavation machines," Dall said. "Though it's hard to tell, they've been down there so long."

The Eye dropped down to the bottom of the pit and nosed close to the wreckage. It sank below the surface and emerged after a minute, dripping with water.

"Digging machines, all right," Arnild reported. "Some of them turned over and half buried. Like they fell in, maybe thrown into the hole. All of them Slaver-built."

Commander Stane looked up intently. "Are you sure?" he asked.

"Sure as I can be when I read a label."

"Let's get on to the village," the commander said, chewing thoughtfully at the inside of his cheek.

Dall the Younger discovered where the villagers had gone. It was really no secret; they found out in the first hut they entered. The floor was made of pounded dirt, with a circle of rocks for a fireplace. All the other contents were of the simplest and crudest. Heavy, unfired clay pots, untanned furs, some eating utensils chipped out of hardwood. Dall was poking through a heap of woven mats behind the fireplace when he found the hole.

"Over here, sir!" he called.

The opening was almost a meter in diameter and sank into the ground at an easy angle. The floor of the tunnel was beaten as hard as the floor of the hut.

"They must be hiding out in there," Commander Stane said.

"Flash a light down and see how deep it is."

There was no way to tell. The hole was really a smooth-walled tunnel that turned at a sharp angle five meters inside the entrance. The Eye swooped down and hung, humming above the opening.

"I took a look in some of the other huts," Arnild said from the ship. "The Eye found a hole like this in every one of them. Want me to take a look inside?"

"Yes, but take it slowly," Commander Stane told him.