“Lura—ahead—” In spite of the blow which had rocked him he caught the cat’s message. “There the way lies clear—”
Arskane did not seem disposed to leave cover but Fors tore free and wriggled through an opening in the churned earth and broken machines. It seemed to last hours, that crawling, twisting race with death. But in the end they came out on the edge of that queer scar in the earth which they had sighted from the tower. And there Lura crouched, her lips lifted in a snarl, her tail sweeping steadily to signify her rage.
“Down that gully—quick—” Arskane was into the notch before he had finished speaking.
The strange earth crunched under Fors’ boots. He took the only way left to freedom. And Lura, still giving low voice to her dismay, swept by him.
Here there was not even moss and the rocky outcrops had a glassy glaze. Fors shrank from touching anything with his bare flesh. The sounds of pursuit were gone though. It was too quiet here. He realized suddenly that what his ears missed was the ever-present sound of insects which had been with them in the vegetation of the healthy world.
This country they had entered blindly was alien, with no familiar green and brown to meet the eye, no homely sounds for the reassurance of the ear. Arskane had paused and as Fors caught up he asked the question which was on his tongue tip.
“What is this place?”
But the southerner countered with a question of his own. “What have you been told of the Blow-Up Lands?”
“Blow-Up Lands?” Fors tried to remember the few scanty references to such in the records of the Eyrie. Blow-Up Lands—where atom bombs had struck to bite into the earth’s crust, where death had entered so deeply that generations must pass before man could go that way again—
His mouth opened and then shut quickly. He did not have to ask his question again. He knew—and the chill horror of that knowing was worse than a Beast Thing dart striking into his flesh. No wonder there had been no pursuit. Even the mutant Beast Things knew better than to venture here!