Don’t Bite the Sun by Tanith Lee (little red riding hood ebook free .TXT) 📕

machine number eight down the terraces, clinging on all over it and bomping the sides with their feet; they rolled clear when it finally pitched over and smashed to bits in the sand.

Assule had, by this time, set up a background music of steady wailing. I kept trying to find out what the animals were, and he seemed to think I was awful for still wanting to know. I suppose it was too much, really.

About noon some of the wild activity quieted. They lay around the site, sleeping it off.

“I just hope they don’t spot the sand-ship,” Assule started off again, and sure enough it was the signal for furry paw pointing, “fmpf”-ing, and a general pound in our direction.

“Oh! Oh!” screamed the two females.

“Please be calm,” snapped Assule, suddenly deciding to be calm himself for a change. “We’re quite safe. I’ll activate the shock wall.”

He played around with some red dials and things marked: For purposes of defense only. Unauthorized use punishable by fine—which was a pretty obsolete injunction, since no one gets fined for anything any more, though the Committee probably wishes they would. Apparently it worked. There was a sort of shimmer in the air around the ship suddenly, and as soon as the ski-feet made furry contact, they jumped about five yards high and keeled over, looking utterly blissful.

“It won’t kill them, will it?” I implored.

Assule didn’t throttle me, surprisingly.

“No,” he said, “something smaller would be killed, yes, but they are simply stunned. I don’t believe in damaging these interesting species unnecessarily.”

I felt relieved, and really, they looked ever so happy as they reeled off the shock wall. They kept on trying for about three splits; I think some of them only did it to have an Essential Experience. You could see them inspecting their fallen comrades’ ecstatic faces first and almost weighing things up, thinking, well, it looks like fun, and then rushing into the wall, ears and fur flying. In the end, though, they went off and had a “fpmf” talk about the situation, came back and carefully toed the casualties (?) out of shock range, then picked them up over their backs and went leaping away across the sands.

The females started going swoony, saw Assule wasn’t taking any notice, and gave up.

We waited about twenty splits to be on the safe side, deactivated the wall, and wandered out to the site. According to Assule, there was no chance of their coming back. Apparently they never return to the scene of one of their raids; in fact they’ll go miles out of their way to avoid it, once their extraordinarily strong smell-powers tell them they’re getting near. It seemed to point to a sort of guilt complex, as far as I could see, but Assule more or less told me not to be a floop when I said so.

And the site was drumdik. Oh, the utter, unqualified abandoned mess of it all. For once the females and I joined forces in trying to stop Assule from going completely zaradann. It wasn’t much good, though. He went roaring around the rock turrets, dabbing at honey and chewed rugs on the machines, cradling broken robots, and screaming at intact robots to mend everything. Actually, once he stopped getting in their way, the robots from the ship made a very good job of it. Machine number eight was the only failure, and they had to scrap it.

“In order to prevent any further calamities, I’m going to get the robots to rig up a shock wall all around the site,” Assule told me, over the row of banging and repairing, “around the site and the ship. A radius of about—” And he quoted some vast area or other. I was barely listening.

“Look, Assule,” I said, “now’s our chance to prove we’re better than the machines.”

“What?”

“No, listen,” I persisted, ignoring his horrified indignation, “while they’re out of action at least let’s try to find something ourselves.”

“Certainly not,” said Assule. “I’ve told you, machinery is best.”

“Well,” I said, “they don’t seem to have found much so far.”

“Please don’t forget the pottery shard with the inscription. Of course, no doubt you think that very little in your untutored Jang fashion.”

“Look,” I said, “I’m just as interested as you are, honestly, but really that machine fell right down into your storeroom, or whatever it is. It could have smashed and buried all sorts of valuable relics, if there’d been any more than the one we found.”

“I find your attitude offensive,” Assule glowered. It was just like talking to a lump of rock.

“Talking to you is just like talking to a lump of rock,” I said.

Assule went pompous.

“You will apologize,” Assule told me.

“Oh, for goodness sake,” I snapped, “I’m not going to apologize for stating a fact. And while we’re at it, I unapologize for the other time.”

And then I really got mad at him and made that Jang sign again.

Without waiting to watch him go into automatic combustion, I turned around, leaving even my bee, and stalked off.

Right off the site.

Away from the sand-ship.

Into the desert.

7

I’d heard of people doing that, walking off in fury and not realizing where they were going. Thinta told me I once made her so angry with my stealing habits that she walked right into the pool without taking any oxygen, and nearly ended up in Limbo.

When I realized, I found I didn’t know where I was or anything. There was no sign of the site or the ship, nor a sound of all that noisy repair work that had still been going on when I left. There was just sand and more sand, glittering, and a horizon of black crags and impending sunset. I had this moment of absolute, icy panic. I was lost. Then I had this second moment of absolute, icy panic. Oxygen! I’d had my usual four tablets this morning, which would last me till tomorrow, but after that, what then? Oh, I really got in a state.

Then I had a