Read Northwest of Earth for Free Online Page B

Smith managed to articulate thickly. “Wha’s matter?”
    Then a cup-rim was thrust against his teeth and Yarol said irritably, “Drink it, you fool!”
    Smith swallowed obediently and more of the fire-hot
segir
flowed down his grateful throat. It spread a warmth through his body that awakened him from the numbness that had gripped him until now, and helped a little toward driving out the all-devouring weakness he was becoming aware of slowly. He lay still for a few minutes while the warmth of the whisky went through him, and memory sluggishly began to permeate his brain with the spread of the
segir
. Nightmare memories … sweet and terrible … memories of—
    “God!” gasped Smith suddenly, and tried to sit up. Weakness smote him like a blow, and for an instant the room wheeled as he fell back against something firm and warm—Yarol’s shoulder. The Venusian’s arm supported him while the room steadied, and after a while he twisted a little and stared into the other’s black gaze.
    Yarol was holding him with one arm and finishing the mug of
segir
himself, and the black eyes met his over the rim and crinkled into sudden laughter, half hysterical after that terror that was passed.
    “By Pharol!” gasped Yarol, choking into his mug. “By Pharol, NW! I’m never gonna let you forget this! Next time you have to drag me out of a mess I’ll say—”
    “Let it go,” said Smith. “What’s been going on? How—”
    “Shambleau,” Yarol’s laughter died. “Shambleau! What were you doing with a thing like that?”
    “What was it?” Smith asked soberly.
    “Mean to say you didn’t know? But where’d you find it? How—”
    “Suppose you tell me first what you know,” said Smith firmly. “And another swig of that
segir
, too. I need it.”
    “Can you hold the mug now? Feel better?”
    “Yeah—some. I can hold it—thanks. Now go on.”
    “Well—I don’t know just where to start. They call them Shambleau—”
    “Good God, is there more than one?”
    “It’s a—a sort of race, I think, one of the very oldest. Where they come from nobody knows. The name sounds a little French, doesn’t it? But it goes back beyond the start of history. There have always been Shambleau.”
    “I never heard of ‘em.”
    “Not many people have. And those who know don’t care to talk about it much.”
    “Well, half this town knows. I hadn’t any idea what they were talking about, then. And I still don’t understand—”
    “Yes, it happens like this, sometimes. They’ll appear, and the news will spread and the town will get together and hunt them down, and after that—well, the story doesn’t get around very far. It’s too—too unbelievable.”
    “But—my God, Yarol!—what was it? Where’d it come from? How—”
    “Nobody knows just where they come from. Another planet—maybe some undiscovered one. Some say Venus—I know there are some rather awful legends of them handed down in our family—that’s how I’ve heard about it. And the minute I opened that door, awhile back—I—I think I knew that smell …”
    “But—what
are
they?”
    “God knows. Not human, though they have the human form. Or that may be only an illusion … or maybe I’m crazy. I don’t know. They’re a species of the vampire—or maybe the vampire is a species of—of them. Their normal form must be that—that mass, and in that form they draw nourishment from the—I suppose the life-forces of men. And they take some form—usually a woman form, I think, and key you up to the highest pitch of emotion before they—begin. That’s to work the life-force up to intensity so it’ll be easier … And they give, always, that horrible, foul pleasure as they—feed. There are some men who, if they survive the first experience, take to it like a drug—can’t give it up—keep the thing with them all their lives—which isn’t long—feeding it for that ghastly satisfaction. Worse than smoking
ming
or—or “praying to