Free Donald A. Wollheim (ed) by The Hidden Planet Page B

Greys a little
less strong than her horror for him.
    Warren was waiting at the airlock as she came
back. He grinned at her. She was almost literally sick. The worst of it was
that he was almost certainly right. She had to make the effort, as no one else
would make it. He knew that. He could afford to let her do it. And he would be
saved. She would tell them at Cefor about the ship.
He wasn't alone. There were other lives to be saved.
    Warren surveyed her and nodded. "You're
all right," he said. "Can you use a gun?"
    She nodded involuntarily. "Take
another," he said. "They won't give you time to reload." He gave
her a gun, which she slipped in her belt. She had changed into lounging pajamas
which were enveloping but so thin she shivered in the normal temperature of
the ship. Over them the plastic suit covered her loosely, completely, held
firmly by the belt that contained her weapons.
    Unwillingly she addressed
him. "Is there no way of screening thoughts from the Greys ?"
    "Only by thinking like a Grey yourself. Only about half a dozen people ever learned
to do it—and they can't keep it up for long."
    She fought a shrieking urge in her to beg him
to go instead of her. She believed all he had said—she expected to die. But
she also believed that if she stayed where she was she would die. No one else
would go.
    "Good luck," said Warren.
    Blindly, insanely she struck at him. But he
evaded her blow and helped her into the airlock.
    When she went out, the heat met her as if an
oven door had been swung open. The ship's hull was insulated against both cold
and heat. Usually it was cold it kept out, but on Venus it was damp warmth.
Virginia's suit was supposed to afford some sort of insulation, but before she
was out of sight of the ship she was wet all over with sweat.
    She took one last look at the ship as she climbed up the slope. It was
only fifty yards away. She could still turn and go back. She was beginning to
realize something that stemmed from what Warren had said. She could always find Cefor —but she couldn't find the ship again once she
lost sight of it. Going downhill might land her anywhere along the perimeter
once she had lost all sense of direction—which would be almost at once.
    She tried to think calmly of Warren. He must have known from the first
that if he wouldn't try to get through to Cefor , she
would. She wasn't the sort to sit still and wait for death.
    And the savage, inhuman
customs of the Greys ensured that only one had to go.
Hate for Warren crawled in her stomach. The worst of it was , she believed he might have got through safe. She still believed in his
competence. Somehow, if he had had to, he would have reached safety.
    But he didn't have jto risk it. There was someone
to risk it for him. A girl, but that didn't matter to a man who had lost pride.
    She walked on for what seemed hours, until
she was as wet as if she had just stepped out of a hot bath. Her watch showed
sixty-three minutes since she left the ship. She had been walking briskly. Over four miles. She had always been a good walker, and the
slighter gravity helped.
    Then she struck the forest, beginning again
on the slope. Venusian trees were like those of Earth
in that they consisted mainly of a thick trunk, but that was all the resemblance.
You could push an arm through them, and they closed round it. But they weren't
dangerous. A man could walk right through them, if he was strong.
    Virginia began to hope, despite herself, that
she wouldn't see any Greys . She fell into the rhythm
of her stride, walking like an automaton. She was tough. She could do twenty
miles without coming to the end of her strength. The only difficulty was the
eternal slope. But even that she became accustomed to.
    She had done ten miles, she reckoned, when
ahead of her, right in her path, she saw a Grey. He was facing her, only twenty
yards away. Her gun came up and she fired, but she was not surprised when he
faded into the mist and disappeared, unharmed.
    So