The Garments of Caean

Looking around itself once more, the shouter pointed its square horn to the sky and gave vent to a great infrasound roar of victory. Then it stamped its feet up and down and turned about, as if affirming that the area was its own. Peder guessed that he had just witnessed a fight over territory.

Looking around itself once more, the shouter pointed its snout at a big boulder, perhaps ten feet high, some distance away. Its sound chute strained forward on its thick neck. Peder’s scope and speaker came through strong.

And the boulder exploded into dust. With that demonstration of its might, the shouter lumbered back to its lair.

As concisely as he could, Peder related what he had seen. ‘If I’m standing in the path of that sound beam,’ he concluded, ‘I’ve had it. You’ve chosen the wrong man for this caper, Mast. Send the lighter down. I want to come up!’

‘No lighter until you’ve finished the job,’ Mast answered firmly. ‘Take hold of yourself, now.’

A cold wind swept through Peder’s vitals. In the humming, clicking suit, he realized he was sweating – a cold, clammy sweat.

‘But what if the shouter sees me?’

‘You’ve got your gun, haven’t you? Just make sure you get your shot in before it opens its mouth.’

Peder’s hand moved unconsciously to the grip-hole that operated the heavy-duty energy rifle. He sighed.

A rustling sound made him turn. Shouldering its way through the ground-level shrubs came an animal about the size of a rabbit. He was fascinated to see that it reproduced on a small scale the same baffle-tube and head-trumpet arrangement of its more massive cousins. It made him realize that he had not yet made a real inspection of his surroundings at close quarters. He extended an arm and carefully pulled away some of the brush.

More small animals scurried away at his touch, some turning their heads momentarily to hurl at him beams of vibrations which were easily cancelled by his suit.

Looking overhead, he glimpsed a winged creature squatting on a branch, heavily rigged with scale-like feathers and bearing a conical trumpet in place of a beak. It peered down at Peder, then launched itself into the air and flapped clumsily away.

Peder’s gaze fastened on the bark of the tree itself; insects could be seen crawling about on it. Turning up the magnification he made out several varieties, many of them top-heavy with various devices for casting vibrations. The frequencies with which creatures of this size battled could scarcely be called infra-sound at all, of course; they would intrude into the sonic range.

He reminded himself that he had not yet exploited all the suit’s capabilities. He considered opening the direct audio link for a brief listen, but almost immediately cancelled the thought. The scene looked peaceful enough; but to let into the suit, even for a few seconds, any of the stray vibrations of infra-sound that he suspected pounded at all times through this woodland could prove fatal, or at least cause him serious internal injury.

Instead, he switched on the odour plate. Connected to a corresponding plate on the outside of the suit, it reproduced all the odours that struck that plate, automatically omitting any that could be poisonous. A resinous, fresh smell entered Peder’s nostrils. He was reminded vaguely of a pine forest, except that this was more tangy and contained many altogether foreign undertones, some sweet, some repugnant. It seemed odd that a world so lethal and alien could, at the same time, smell so natural and familiar.

He switched off the plate. The smell, he decided, would become too cloying after a time, and besides he was here for something more serious. He began to consider how to cross the territory that apparently was guarded by the shouter.

After some hesitation he decided that his best bet was to advance through the trees away from the beast’s lair, and make his way down the next step of the gorge behind the cover of some rocks. This he managed with only moderate difficulty, encountering some medium-sized animals which snarled low-frequency vibrations at him in a half-hearted manner, but desisted when he retreated. Only occasionally did he feel the protective capacity of his suit was being pressed to the limit, and he had no occasion to use the energy rifle.

It was impossible to move stealthily in the baffle suit. He crashed through brush and, once or twice as he careened down the slope, lurched into a tree. Then he broke through a screen of matted creeper-like vegetation and found himself on the lip of the gorge’s deepest crevasse.

And there it was.

The crashed Caeanic spaceship had, he guessed, first hit the farther edge of the gorge a glancing blow, and then had bounced full-length into the crevasse where it now rested, filling it almost entirely. His eyes raked over the unfamiliar, alien lines – insofar as he could ascertain them amid the damage – and discerned a domed, semi-transparent guidance section, drive section, and a long, amply curved cargo section.