Darkover: First Contact by Marion Zimmer Bradley Read Free Book Online Page B

again; he lay in an uneasy doze, hearing around him the noises of the waking forest. Birds called from tree to tree, some harsh and raucous, some soft and chirping. There were small croakings and stirrings in the underbrush, and somewhere a distant sound not unlike the barking of a dog.
    And then the silence was shattered by a horrible yell—a shriek of unquestionably human agony, a harsh scream of anguish, repeated twice and breaking off in a ghastly babbling moan, and silence.
    MacAran was out of his sleeping bag and out of the tent, half dressed, Ewen less than half a step behind him, and all the others crowding after, sleepy, bewildered, frightened. He ran up the slope toward the sound, hearing Camilla cry out for help.
    She had set her equipment in a clearing near the summit, but now it was knocked over; nearby Marco Zabal lay on the ground, writhing and moaning incoherently. He was swollen and his face had a hideous congested look; Camilla was brushing frantically with her gloved hands. Ewen dropped by the writhing man, with a quick demand to Camilla:
    “Quick—what happened!”
    “Things—like insects,” she said, shaking as she held out her hands. On the gloved palm lay a small crushed thing, less than two inches long, with a curved tail like a scorpion and a wicked fang at the front; it was bright orange and green in color. “He stepped on that mound there, and I heard him scream, and then he fell down—”
    Ewen had his medical kit out, and was quickly moving his hands over Zabal’s heart. He gave quick directions to Heather, who had dropped beside him, to cut away the man’s clothes; the wounded man’s face was congested and blackening, and his arm swollen immensely. Zabal was unconscious now, moaning deliriously.
    A powerful nerve poison, Ewen thought; his heart is slowing down and his breathing depressed. All he could do now was to give the man a powerful stimulant and stand by in case he needed artificial respiration. He didn’t even dare give him anything to ease the agony—almost all narcotics were respiratory depressants. He waited, hardly breathing himself, his stethoscope on Zabal’s chest, while the man’s faltering heart began to beat a little more regularly; he raised his head to look briefly at the mound, to ask Camilla if she had been bitten—she hadn’t, although two of the hideous insects had begun to crawl up her arm—and to demand that everybody stay a good long distance from the mound, or anthill, or whatever it was. Just dumb luck we didn’t camp on top of it in the dark! MacAran and Camilla might have stumbled right into it—or maybe they’re dormant in snow!
    Time dragged. Zabal began to breathe again more regularly and to moan a little but he did not recover consciousness. The great red sun, dripping fog, slowly lifted itself up over the foothills surrounding them.
    Ewen sent Heather back to the tent for the rest of his medical equipment; Judy and MacLeod began to fix some breakfast. Camilla stoically calculated the few astronomical readings she had been able to take before the attack of the scorpionants—MacLeod, after examining the dead one, had temporarily christened them that. MacAran came and stood beside the unconscious man and the young doctor who knelt beside him.
    “Will he live?”
    “I don’t know. Probably. I never saw anything like it since I treated my one and only case of rattlesnake bite. But one thing’s certain—he won’t be going anywhere today, probably not tomorrow either.”
    MacAran asked, “Shouldn’t we carry him down to the tent? Could there be more of those things crawling around?”
    “I’d rather not move him now. Maybe in a couple of hours.”
    MacAran stood, looking down in dismay, at the unconscious man. They shouldn’t delay—and yet, their party had been rigidly calculated for size and there was no one to spare to send back to the ship for help. Finally he said, “We’ve got to go on. Suppose we move Marco back to the tent,