The gully walls were literally channeling the sound. I heard the same call louder but less clearly, from somewhere in the forest but the direction was lost in the tree trunks. It seemed to come vaguely from the left of where I stood now.

  I started down into the ravine. A line of trees grew along its axis, a rounded trough into which seeds bounced and rolled down the raw steeper sides. There was probably a little more light there than within the forest to either side. I couldn’t tell the difference, but the central trees showed by their growth that they could.

  I saw a reddish blotch lying on the fan of roots at the base of one of the trees. I thought it was a fungus and squatted close to it. I got out a collecting box and a spatula, but when I pried at the lump I found that it wasn’t attached to either the roots or the dirt.

  Now that I was staring at it, I realized that I’d seen similar blotches on the roots of other trees. Those had been darker, deep purple shading to black. That was probably the way the substance aged rather than a different material.

  I prodded my spatula deeper, planning to cut a section out to put in my collecting box. Something crunched faintly. I resisted my first impulse, to stick my finger into the mass and start pulling it apart; instead I got out a second spatula and picked the blob apart between them.

  What I’d found was the chitinous internal support structure of one of the worm-shaped creatures which bored into tree roots. They didn’t get much larger than a man’s clenched fist, and this one must’ve been nearly fully grown.

  Was the blotch I’d been looking at the excrement of a predator which had voided the skeleton? I took a small sample and recorded the data with my camera. The material didn’t seem to be dried feces. It had a structure of parallel filaments which under magnification might tell me more.

  The higher, thinner cry sounded again. This time it was very close, just a little farther down the central line of trees. I stood and pointed my gun in the direction of the sound. After an additional heartbeat of thought, I opened the breech and replaced the bird shot with one of the two solids which I carried in the loops on the upper left side of my vest.

  I made the exchange quickly and smoothly, aware of how—briefly—embarrassing it would be if a predator attacked me while I was reloading. There wasn’t anything about dangerous predators in the records of the fauna of Medlum, but the records were cursory and almost entirely limited to the south side of the island near St. Martins.

  I whipped around the tree bole, presenting the shotgun. At the bottom of the third tree over was a creature that looked like an olive-drab mushroom, moving on a slender stalk. It was about the height of my leg at the knee. There were eyes and wormlike cilia around the circumference of the spreading top.

  The thing gave another plaintive cry. There was a bright red blob of material on its top. I could see as a quivering in the air that a wire-thin cord ran from the blob to a branch over a hundred feet in the air.

  A louder version of the same cry rang from the top of the ravine. I looked up sharply but saw only a quivering of brush as the creature that had called slipped back out of sight.

  There was movement on the branch from which the trap had dropped. At first I thought the limb itself was sagging, but a black shadow had detached itself from the tree and begun sliding slowly down the line from which the sticky blob hung.

  Magnification didn’t help me see the black creature much better because the surface of the body drank light rather than reflecting it. There were many legs, both above and below the sack-like body, gripping the line. The trapped animal called out again.

  I wondered what the physiology of the mushroom-looking thing was. The narrow base slid across the ground, but because of the sticky blob holding it, the trapped animal couldn’t go far. A fang like a twenty-inch hypodermic thrust from the descending blackness, then withdrew again.

  A larger version of the mushroom creature appeared at the edge of the brush and slid down the slope of the ravine. It left a track like that of a harrow through a plowed field. It called out again.

  The cub answered its mother, straining against the sticky blob that held it. The mother’s cilia extended and closed on her offspring.

  I raised the shotgun to my shoulder and fired. There was a splash of yellow ichor. My slug swept the black predator away from the line that was both its net and its support.

  Holding her offspring, the mother slid up the side of the ravine as swiftly as she had come down. The cub was held in a writhing mass of cilia. The cilia gave a concerted twitch and the sticky blob detached from the younger creature and flopped to the ground.

  Before the creatures vanished into the brush again, the mother paused at the top of the ravine and called again; to me, I was sure.

  I reloaded with my remaining solid shot and took a deep breath. After a moment, I walked over to the predator I had shot. I would prod it with my gun muzzle to make sure the specimen was dead before I touched it.

  * * *

  Rick turned when Rachel shouted. He was just in time to see her pitch forward into the crater.

  He swore, which was useless. He ran up the steps without skidding as he’d done when he climbed more carefully when they arrived. That was probably useless also, but he had to do something.

  His knife was still stuck in the lichen on the crater rim. What the hell happened?

  He bent over the edge, wondering if he’d be able to see the girl’s body. It would probably require an aircar to recover it and that would be tricky if even possible. He was pretty sure that Captain Bolton would refuse to risk any of the Far Traveller’s vehicles to bring back a dead civilian. Harry might agree to bend the rules if he were in St. Martins—but he wouldn’t be back for a week.

  Rachel was sprawled on the ledge fifteen feet down. She was limp. There was a bloody scrape where her forehead had hit the wall on the way down, but she might well be alive.

  The RCN trained its officers to react well in crises. This wasn’t the sort of situation that had been an example in the Academy, but quick logical thinking was the same in any crisis.

  Rick couldn’t climb down the rock wall unaided.

  He couldn’t get help or climbing equipment in the time available before Rachel rolled off the ledge half conscious, or simply suffocated in the sulfurous atmosphere.

  So.

  Rick pulled the knife out of the lichen and dropped it closed into his pocket. No point in jumping around with an open knife in his hand. He ran back down the steps to the trike and unfolded the first of the stacked tarps. He began cutting it into strips.

  The fabric was tough and ripstopped every half inch in either direction. He nicked an edge and stressed the cloth with the weight of his foot, lengthening the cut by cutting each ripstop cord when he came to it.

  He had two blades. They were short but of good steel, and he had working edges on both of them. It took time, but there were no short cuts that would increase his chance of success.

  When Rick had finished tearing the first tarp, he took a break by knotting the twelve strips together. His right hand had been cramping from his grip on the knife.

  He got to work on the second tarp, using the knife’s shorter blade. He wished he’d brought a large knife; but if he were going to wish things, it was a pity he hadn’t thrown a coil of half-inch line in the trike’s trunk. Or brought Kent along; this job would be a lot simpler if there were two of them.

  When he finished with the second tarp, he attached the crude rope to one end of the first—and then tied the other end of the first rope around the trike’s triple clamps. Carrying the free end of the double length, he hauled it as high up the cone as it would stretch. By running the trike closer he could gain another ten feet, but this should work out. He needed not only enough rope to reach Rachel, he’d have to tie her to the line in order to lift her.

  Switching back to the longer blade, Rick cut up the third tarp. He wasn’t sure how strong the fabric was, but he figured strong enough. He could’ve cut these strips a little wider since he’d have sufficient length, but the combined line would be only as strong as the thinnest part of it.

  Rick tied them together, then climbed up the steps again and tied the third length onto the end of the first two. He dribbled the makeshift rope over the edge and let it fall past Rachel’s sprawled body. He gave a black chuckle. The way his luck was going, Rachel might wake up enough to grab the line herself—and inevitably lose her grip if she tried to climb on her own and go plunging into the crater before he could get to her.

  He slid over the lip of the crater and let himself down hand over hand. When he got down as far as he wanted, he found that he was about to set his boots on Rachel’s body. He kicked himself to the side enough to get to the ledge beyond her head. Supporting himself by the rope, Rick managed to stand firmly on the rock.

  He was breathing hard from exertion but the sulfur fumes had gotten worse and deep breaths didn’t clear his head. He lifted Rachel’s body enough to feed the loose end of the rope under her, then tied it beneath her arms. There was enough length to knot the tail around her right thigh. Rick had first-aid training, but this exercise was a new one for him.

  Rachel was definitely breathing, but she showed no signs of alertness. The fumes wouldn’t be helpful, but one thing at a time.

  Leaving Rachel on the ledge, Rick started up the rope with the strength of his arms alone. His attempts to grip the line with his boots were useless. Maybe he should’ve tied loops for his toes, but he wouldn’t have been able to find them by feel alone. He crawled up, one agonizing lift after the previous one. He wasn’t completely aware that he was back at the top until he realized he had to change the angle at which he reached for the next handhold.

  He flopped over the lip. For a moment he lay on his back with his eyes closed, euphoric with the lack of strain on his arms. The job wasn’t done yet.

  The pause had allowed Rick’s problem-solving mind to slip back into gear. If he’d been in normal condition, he’d have begun pulling Rachel up hand over hand as soon as he reached the top. His arms were trembling with fatigue and he was sure he couldn’t get her up that way.

  Instead he brought her enough up off the ledge to take a turn of the rope around his body. Continuing to use his body to belay the line, he repeated the process. He paused each turn to recruit his strength. After enough lifting—he’d stopped trying to count—Rick saw Rachel’s head and torso appear at the crater edge. He gave a final heave and brought her over the rim. He lost his footing on the slope and rolled halfway down, tugging Rachel after him.

  For what was probably a minute or two he lay chest down on the ash cone, breathing hard with his eyes closed. When he got up he managed to lift Rachel’s torso and stagger with her to one of the tables where he laid her down again. He thought he saw her eyelids flutter, but that wasn’t a concern at the moment.

  The tabletop put Rachel at a height Rick could work on the ropes without having to bend over. His back had taken a lot of the strain of getting her out of the crater. Not as much as his arms had, but a lot.

  If he hadn’t dulled both blades of his knife already, he might have tried to cut the rope off Rachel. As it was, he used the larger blade like a marlinspike, forcing it between the strands of the knot on her thigh. When he’d opened that, he moved up to the loop around her torso. When he had that free, he left Rachel where she lay and freed his trike from the other end of the rope.

  Rachel’s eyes were open and she turned her head slightly to follow what he was doing. Her attempt to speak resulted only in a croak. He knew he couldn’t have done any better himself. He turned and nodded to her with a broad smile.

  The trunk of the vehicle was open. He gathered the makeshift rope into armfuls and dumped them into the trunk, gathering up the tag ends hand over hand. He’d have liked to arrange it neatly, but it would make as good a cushion this way.

  Rachel sat up and started to get off the table. Rick shook his head and croaked, “No!”

  He was feeling a lot better now than he had when he rolled down the side of the cone. He hoped that he was enough better. Standing beside the table, he put his right arm around Rachel’s upper chest and slid the left one under her thighs. She was alert enough to grip his neck.

  Rick straightened slightly to make sure he could handle the weight—so far, so good—he turned and shuffled back to the vehicle and set her as gently as he could in the trunk. He set one of the commo helmets on Rachel’s head and put the other one on himself. They were too valuable to abandon, but if he’d thought that the woman might chatter while he was driving, he’d have switched them off.

  He’d planned to leave the picnic gear where it lay, but the two bottles of wine caught his eye. He swilled a slug from the opened white around his mouth and spat it out, then handed the bottle to Rachel.

  “Careful how you drink it,” he said as he kicked the trike’s diesel to clattering life. “Don’t let it knock your teeth out on a bump.”

  He hauled the front wheel around, then drove off the edge of the parking area and headed straight for St. Martins instead of following the switchback road. He didn’t need the throttle and kept off the brakes as well, letting the diesel’s compression keep their speed manageable.

  He took each road cut at a downward angle, then whipped the trike off the road again after he’d stabilized it. He didn’t know what Rachel thought about what he was doing. Hunched in the trunk she might not even be aware. Regardless, Rick was doing the driving.

  When they reached the extension of the road through St. Martins, Rick swung onto it and even opened the throttle a little because the reduced slope meant gravity no longer drove them as fast as he wanted to go. For the first time since they started down, he said, “Rachel, I can find the front of the mission building. Will there be somebody there to get you home? Because I don’t think you can make it alone.”

  “Rick, take me to my apartment,” she said. “It’s the next cross street from the mission going toward the harbor. To the left and in the middle of the block. I’ll tell you where to stop.”

  Then she said, “I just want to get home.”

  Rick wondered how much she’d drunk on the way down. Maybe none; he felt pretty much the same way and he was as dry as the air of the crater.

  They got into traffic as they started seeing houses. Rick was too wrung out to get angry, even when a cyclo with a woman and three children aboard crawled down the left side of the street ahead of them and even turned into the cross street Rachel had indicated.

  “Yeah, it’s this one,” she said. “A hundred feet more and we’re home.”

  Rick parked with all but the right-side wheel out of the travel lane. There was still six feet of clear road for other traffic to use and he hadn’t seen any local vehicles which were that wide.

  Rachel stood up when Rick swung out of the saddle, but she would’ve fallen again without him grabbing her. “Here,” he said. “I’ll lift your legs out, and then I’ll help you walk to the door. And I’ll go away then, don’t worry.”

  It took all his strength to set her down but he continued smiling. “Here we go,” he said. “Just guide me.”

  “Straight ahead,” she said. “I’m the back apartment on the ground floor.”

  Then she said, “Rick, how did you get me out of the volcano? I was really down inside, wasn’t I?”

  “You were inside,” he said, “but not very far down. And as for how, it was a bloody near thing. Don’t do that again, all right?”

  He reached for the latch plate but saw that Rachel was holding out a metal key. He took it and guided it into the keyhole, then shuffled to the end of the narrow hallway with Rachel holding onto his shoulder. The street door must have swung shut by itself, or maybe Rachel had pulled it as she stepped in.

  Rick stopped by the end door and inserted the same key. He pushed it open and paused.

  “Go in,” Rachel said. “Please get me to the couch.”

  He could see the couch across the room in the dim light from the hallway. He walked Rachel to it and set her down. Instead of a table lamp there was a wall sconce directly above the couch. Rachel turned it on and said, “Do you want something to drink? Coffee, maybe?”

  “Dear,” he said, truthful from fatigue, “all I really want now is a hot shower, and I’ll have that as soon as I get back to the ship. I ache places that I didn’t know I had any muscles.”

  “The door to the left,” she said. “I’ve got a shower. Go on.”

  “You’re serious?”

  “Yes,” she said, looking down at her hands. “Take a shower.”

  “Right,” he said. She’d been banged around even worse than he had and was probably planning to shower as soon as he left.

  The shower room sloped to the back, where there was a three-inch gap between the floor and the tile wall. The toilet was against the interior wall. There were soaps and lotions on a wall niche beside the toilet.

  Rick stripped and adjusted the water from the dual taps so that it was hot but not too hot, then increased the flow and got under it. He didn’t have a cloth and rubbed himself with the soap directly. It felt very good on aching muscles but the soap bit on places where he’d scraped the skin.

  The door opened and Rachel came in naked. “I’ve decided to join you,” she said.

  “I, ah…,” Rick said. “I’d be glad of that, but you don’t have to.”

  “I see that you’re glad,” Rachel said with a giggle. She kissed him. Then in a serious tone she said, “Rick, you saved my life.”

  “And I’m even happier about that now than I was at the time,” he said, embracing her.

  * * *

  I walked to the Mediation Mission from the Far Traveller. I could’ve gotten Kent to fly me to the uphill side in the truck, but I didn’t mind the hike. Besides, I hadn’t seen Rachel since I returned from Orontse last night and learned from Rick about their trip up the mountainside.

  The guards knew my uniform—and possibly me—and waved me through. Mistress Blakeley was out as usual. I went straight to Rachel’s little cubby and knocked on the doorjamb. She jumped at the sound but smiled as she turned and saw that it was me. “Hi, Harry,” she said. “I’d heard you were coming back.”