Read Online Hard-Luck Diggings: The Early Jack Vance, Volume One by Jack Vance - Free Book Online Page B

smoke out in gusts between his teeth. In a way he was responsible for Barbara’s safety. He had taken her from a sheltered life on Earth. He shook his head, put down his pipe, went to the drawer where he kept his gun. It was gone.
    Root looked vacantly across the room. Landry had it. No telling how long since he’d taken it. Root went to the kitchen, found a meat-axe, tucked it inside his jumper, set out across the desert.
    He made a wide circle in order to approach the pyramid from behind. The air was quiet and dark and cool as water in an old well. The crisp sand sounded faintly under his feet. Above him spread the sky and the sprinkle of the thousand stars. Somewhere up there was the Sun and old Earth.
    The pyramid loomed suddenly large and now he saw a glow, heard the muffled clinking of tools. He approached quietly, halted several hundred feet out in the darkness, stood watching, alert to all sounds.
    Landry’s atomite torch ate at the granite. As he cut, Barbara hooked the detached chunks out into the sand. From time to time Landry stood back, sweating and gasping from radiated heat.
    A foot he cut into the granite, two feet, three feet, and Root heard the excited murmur of voices. They were through, into empty space. Careless of watching behind them they sidled through the hole they had cut. Root, more wary, listened, strove to pierce the darkness…Nothing.
    He sprang forward, hastened to the hole, peered within. The yellow gleam of Landry’s torch swept past his eyes. He crept into the hole, pushed his head out into emptiness. The air was cold, smelled of dust and damp rock.
    Landry and Barbara stood fifty feet away. In the desultory flash of the lamp Root saw stone walls and a stone floor. The pyramid appeared to be an empty shell. Why then were the natives so particular? He heard Landry’s voice, edged with bitterness.
    “Not a damn thing, not even a mummy for your husband to gloat over.”
    Root could sense Barbara shuddering. “Let’s go. It gives me the shivers. It’s like a dungeon.”
    “Just a minute, we might as well make sure…Hm.” He was playing the light on the walls. “That’s peculiar.”
    “What’s peculiar?”
    “It looks like the stone was sliced with a torch. Notice how it’s fused here on the inside…”
    Root squinted, trying to see. “Strange,” he heard Landry mutter. “Outside it’s chipped, inside it’s cut by a torch. It doesn’t look so very old here inside, either.”
    “The air would preserve it,” suggested Barbara dubiously.
    “I suppose so—still, old places look old. There’s dust and a kind of dullness. This looks raw.”
    “I don’t understand how that could be.”
    “I don’t either. There’s something funny somewhere.”
    Root stiffened. Sound from without? Shuffle of splay feet in the sand—he started to back out. Something pushed him, he sprawled forward, fell. The bright eye of Landry’s torch stared in his direction. “What’s that?” came a hard voice. “Who’s there?”
    Root looked over his shoulder. The light passed over him, struck a dozen gray bony forms. They stood quietly just inside the hole, their eyes like balls of black plush.
    Root gained his feet. “Hah!” cried Landry. “So you’re here too.”
    “Not because I want to be,” returned Root grimly.
    Landry edged slowly forward, keeping his light on the Dicantrops. He asked Root sharply, “Are these lads dangerous?”
    Root appraised the natives. “I don’t know.”
    “Stay still,” said one of these in the front rank. “Stay still.” His voice was a deep croak.
    “Stay still, hell!” exclaimed Landry. “We’re leaving. There’s nothing here I want. Get out of the way.” He stepped forward.
    “Stay still…We kill…”
    Landry paused.
    “What’s the trouble now?” interposed Root anxiously. “Surely there’s no harm in looking. There’s nothing here.”
    “That is why we kill. Nothing here, now you know. Now you look other place. When you think