To Besan Wur this backward planet of stampeding
monstrosities and stinking humanoids was
Sanctuary. Here he could be free—until
they discovered he gave off no odor....
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Winter 1947.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
A vast dark flood spread across the matted green of the broad Saaaranplain. It rolled westward relentlessly, its outer flanks washingaround and over the lower hills and lapping deep into the fringes ofthe jungle. A rolling endless thunder of countless pounding feet wentbefore its tossing crest.
Past the ruins of a score of ancient cities the stampeding herdof green-crested saurians thundered. It seemed a world devoid ofintelligent life that they traversed in their unreasoning terror. Onlythe jungle-grown walls and splintered streets showed that man had oncebeen here....
The great salmon-hued sun was directly overhead as the maddeneddenars poured through a five-mile gap between twin ranges of lowhills. Twelve miles further their thundering progress was checked.
And along the line of the northern cluster of hills a giant tubeof unrusting metal mesh was laid. Lianas and other vegetationhalf-swallowed its forty-foot diameter, but inside there was a smoothhard-surfaced roadway where thirty-foot wheels, with cabins forpassengers between their twin tires, raced swiftly.
Even as a group of twenty wheels spun eastward through the tube thestampeding denars crashed through the stout metal mesh guarding thehighway....
Besan Wur shouted, terror-stricken, as an avalanche of hugegreen-crested saurians surged toward them through the disintegratingsides of the tubeway. He tasted the salt of bitten lips.
The giant double tires smoked as Nard Rost, the gray-haired Garro atthe controls, spun the wheel tightly about and sent it hurtling backalong the way they had come.
"That was—close!" Besan's voice was shrill. His fingers were bitinginto the back of his seat as he peered backward at the hissing horde ofdenars.
"Ras Thib—Walof Jemar—all the others!"
Nard Rost nodded grave assent. At least twelve of the wheels had beenswallowed up by that churning death from the open plains.
"There isn't any chance they could have survived," Besan said numbly."The wheels are flattened and broken already."
Besan gasped and his hand went to his throat. For by now the acridmusty scent of the older Garro pervaded the narrow drum of a cabin.That scent was the natural protection of the men of Saaar; only amindless stampeding herd of denars, or other men, would brave contactwith his kind.
Besan Wur's eyes leaked moisture. He nudged the valve that released thecountering fumes of the tank under his left armpit. Unlike the olderman he was not immune to the product of Garro scent glands.
He was an Earthman, one of a hundred-odd Terrans living secretly amongthe Garros on forbidden Saaar. His dark hair was artfully dyed blondealong the central stripe, and his oversize ears and the flaring tip ofhis nose were the result of surgery in his youth. Even his red bloodwas rendered purple by regular injections of an innocuous fluid.
"I know, Besan Wur," said the older man quietly. "All dead. All ourfriends and fellow students." He paused. "And soon, perhaps, we shalljoin them."
His hand indicated the slight bulge of the hill beside which thevehicular tube ran. It was a low hill, less than a hundred feet longand half as wide, covered with the coarse grass of the plains of Saaar.Only a thin be