Limits Larry Niven (audio ebook reader TXT) 📖

She flipped on the headlights and the searchlight too. The rock demons throve in flare time, but even they might fear too much flare sunlight. It was worth a try.

The mountain’s rock face grew steeper and steeper. No place to land, unless she could reach the crest. The fans howled.

Here was the ridge, coming level. Rachel cursed venomously. The crest was carpeted in pink, sticky cotton candy. Its proprietors had withdrawn into huge snail shells.

The howl of the fans dropped from contralto toward bass.

Pale six-legged monsters, searching for meat on bare rock, turned big heads to squint as Rachel sank low. They blurred into motion.

The crawler coasted just above the pink froth, riding the ground effect now, not really flying. Strange corpses and strange skeletons were marooned in that sea. The wind from the fans was full of pink froth.

Then she had crossed and was coasting downhill, and it was already too late to land. The howler rode centimeters above the rock, too fast and gaining speed. Here the slope was shallower, and she was still in the pass chosen long ago by Medeans monitoring a tractor probe. But the howler rode too low. If she opened a slot to brake, the skirt would scrape rock, the howler would flip over. Find a level spot—

A quick glance back told her she didn’t want to stop anyway. A dozen of the rock demons had crossed the cotton candy. Probably used their siblings for stepping stones after they got stuck! Rachel held hard to her sanity and concentrated on staying right side up. The things were holding their own in the race. Maybe they were even catching up.

Bronze Legs squeezed between the crates and the roof to reach the crawler’s observation bubble. It was big enough for his head and shoulders. He found one of the rock demons with its forelegs wrapped around the bubble, blocking part of his view while it gnawed at the glass.

Rock demons swarmed on the ground. The fuxes couldn’t be seen, but a few rock demons lay unnaturally quiet where the fuxholes were, and Bronze Legs saw a spear thrust through the melee. He called down, “Try the searchlights.”

“Won’t work,” Grace answered. She tried it anyway. Other searchlights joined hers, and the thrashing rock demons blazed painfully bright even through goggles. They turned, squinted at the situation, then came all in a quick rush. The bronze spearhead on Harvester’s tail stabbed deep into a straggler. The rock demon’s blood jetted an incredible distance. It died almost instantly.

If there were live fuxes under the somewhat tattered silver parasols, they were safe now. All the rock demons were swarming round the vehicle’s searchlights. They liked the light.

Grace chortled. “Tell me you expected that!”

“I wouldn’t dare. I feel a lot safer now.” The monsters weren’t tearing at the lights; they fought each other for a place in the glare. “What do they think they’re doing?”

“We’ve seen this kind of reaction before,” Grace answered. “Medean life either loves flares or hates them. All the flare-loving forms act like they’re programmed to stay out of shadows during flares. Like, in the shadow of a mountain they’d be in just the conditions they aren’t designed for. Most of ’em have high blood pressure, too, and terrific reserves of energy. They have to accomplish a lot in the little time a flare lasts. Be born, eat, grow, mate, give birth—”

“Grace, get on the intercom and find out if everyone’s still alive. And see if anyone knows which sun flared.”

“Why? What possible difference could it make?”

“Phrixus flares last up to three quarters of an hour. Helle flares don’t last as long. We’re going to have to wait it out. And see if Rachel called anyone.”

“Right.”

Bronze Legs half-listened to the intercom conversation. Along the heatward slopes of the mountains the black flags flew in triumph, growing longer almost as Bronze Legs watched, making sugar while the sun flared. The rock demons milling in the searchlight beams were now hungry enough to be attacking each other in earnest. A vastly larger number of rock demons had deserted the mountainsides entirely, had swarmed straight down to the shoreline. The waves were awash with sea monsters of all sizes; the rock demons were wading out to get them.

Grace called up to him. “Rachel didn’t call anyone. Lightning says she made it over the crest.”

“Good.”

“What do you think she’ll do?”

“Nobody knows her very well. Hmm…She won’t land in the cotton candy. She probably could, because those snails are probably hiding in their shells. Right?”

“But she won’t. It’d be too messy. She’ll stop on the coldward slope, or beyond, anywhere it’s safe to wait it out. If there is anywhere. Do you think she’ll find anywhere safe?”

“She won’t know what’s safe. She won’t find anyplace that isn’t swarming with something, not this far to heatward. The further you look to heatward, the more ferocious the competition gets.”

“Then she’ll keep going. If she doesn’t wreck herself, she’ll go straight back to Touchdown City. Let’s see, Morven’s on the other side of the planet now. Say it’ll be up in an hour, and we’ll let them know what’s happening. That way we’ll know she’s safe almost as soon as she does. Grace, you don’t think she’d try to rejoin us?”

“She can’t get lost, and she can’t stop, and Touchdown’s visible from fifty miles away. She’ll just head home. Okay…” There was a funny edge of doubt in Grace’s voice. She stabbed at an intercom button. “Lightning? Me. You watched Rachel go over the crest, right? Did she have her headlights on?”

Bronze Legs was wondering just how teed off the rammers would be if Rachel was dead. It took him a moment to see the implications of what Grace was saying.

“The searchlight too? All right, Lightning. The long-range sender is on your roof. I want it ready to send a message to Morven by the time Morven rises, which will be to south of coldward in about an