To the eye Sssuri was still listening to that which his friend could
not hear.
"They come from afar. They are on the move to find new hunting
grounds."
Dalgard sat up. To each and every scout from Homeport the unusual was
a warning, a signal to alert mind and body. The runners in the
night--that furred monkey race of hunters who combed the moonless dark
of Astra when most of the higher fauna were asleep--were very
distantly related to Sssuri's species, though the gap between them was
that between highly civilized man and the jungle ape. The runners were
harmless and shy, but they were noted also for clinging stubbornly to
one particular district generation after generation. To find such a
clan on the move into new territory was to be fronted with a puzzle it
might be well to investigate.
"A snake-devil--" he suggested tentatively, forming a mind picture of
the vicious reptilian danger which the colonists tried to kill on
sight whenever and wherever encountered. His hand went to the knife at
his belt. One met with weapons only that hissing hatred motivated by a
brainless ferocity which did not know fear.
But Sssuri did not accept that explanation. He was sitting up, facing
inland where the thread of valley met the cliff wall. And seeing his
absorption, Dalgard asked no distracting questions.
"No, no snake-devil--" after long moments came the answer. He got to
his feet, shuffling through the sand in the curious little half dance
which betrayed his agitation more strongly than his thoughts had done.
"The hoppers have no news," Dalgard said.
Sssuri gestured impatiently with one outflung hand. "Do the hoppers
wander far from their own nest mounds? Somewhere there--" he pointed
to the left and north, "there is trouble, bad trouble. Tonight we
shall speak with the runners and discover what it may be."
Dalgard glanced about the camp with regret. But he made no protest as
he reached for his bow and stripped off its protective casing. With
the quiver of heavy-duty arrows slung across his shoulder he was ready
to go, following Sssuri inland.
The easy valley path ended less than a quarter of a mile from the sea,
and they were fronted by a wall of rock with no other option than to
climb. But the westering sun made plain every possible hand and foot
hold on its surface.
When they stood at last on the heights and looked ahead, it was across
a broken stretch of bare rock with the green of vegetation beckoning
from at least a mile beyond. Sssuri hesitated for only a moment or
two, his round, almost featureless head turning slowly, until he
fixed on a northeasterly course--striking out unerringly as if he
could already sight the goal. Dalgard fell in behind, looking over the
country with a wary eye. This was just the type of land to harbor
flying dragons. And while those pests were small, their
lightning-swift attack from above made them foes not to be
disregarded. But all the flying things he saw were two moth birds of
delicate hues engaging far over the sun-baked rock in one of their
graceful winged dances.
They crossed the heights and came to the inland slope, a drop toward
the central interior plains of the continent. As they plowed through
the high grasses Dalgard knew they were under observation. Hoppers
watched them. And once through a break in a line of trees he saw a
small herd of duocorns race into the shelter of a wood. The presence
of those two-horned creatures, so like the pictures he had seen of
Terran horses, was insurance that the snake-devils did not hunt in
this district, for the swift-footed duocorns were never found within a
day's journey of their archenemies.
Late afternoon faded into the long summer twilight and still Sssuri
kept on. As yet they had come across no traces of Those Others. Here
were none of the domed farm buildings, the monorail tracks, the other
relics one could find about Homeport. This wide-open land could have
been always a wilderness, left to the animals of Astra for their own.
Dalgard speculated upon that, his busy imagination supplying various
reasons for such tract. Then the voiceless communication of his
companion provided an explanation.
"This was barrier land."
"What?"
Sssuri turned his head. His round eyes which blinked so seldom stared
into Dalgard's as if by the intensity of that gaze he could drive home
deeper his point.
"What lies to the north was protected in the days before the falling
fire. Even _Those_"--the distorted mermen symbol for Those Others was
sharpened by the very hatred of all Sssuri's kind, which had not paled
during the generations since their escape from slavery to Astra's
one-time masters--"could not venture into some of their own private
places without special leave. It is perhaps true that the city we are
seeking is one of those restricted ones and that this wilderness is a
boundary for it."
Dalgard's pace slowed. To venture into a section of land which had
been used as a barrier to protect some secret of Those Others was a
highly risky affair. The first expedition sent out from Homeport after
the landing of the Terran refugee ship had been shot down by
robot-controlled guns still set against some long-dead invader. Would
this territory be so guarded? If so they had better go carefully now--
Sssuri suddenly struck off at an angle, heading not northeast now, but
directly north. The brush lands along the foot of the cliffs gave way
to open fields, bare except for the grass rippled by the wind. It was
not the type of country to attract the night runners, and Dalgard
wondered a little. They should discover water, preferably a shallow
stream, if they wanted to find what the monkey creatures liked best.
Within a quarter-hour he knew that Sssuri was not going wrong. Cradled
in a sudden dip in the land was the stream Dalgard had been looking
for. A hopper lifted a dripping muzzle from the shore ripples and
stared at them. Dalgard contacted the animal. It was its usual curious
self, nothing had alarmed or excited its interest. And he did not try
to establish more than a casual contact as they made their way down
the bank to the edge of the stream, Sssuri splashing in ankle-deep for
the sheer pleasure of feeling liquid curl about his feet and legs once
more.
Water dwellers fled from their passing and insects buzzed and hovered.
Otherwise they moved through a deserted world. The stream bed widened
and small islands of gravel, swept together in untidy piles by the
spring floods, arose dry topped, some already showing the green of
venturesome plants.
"Here--" Sssuri stopped, thrusting the butt of his spear into the
shore of one such islet. He dropped cross-legged on his choice, there
to remain patiently until those he sought would come with the dark.
Dalgard withdrew a little way downstream and took up a similar post.
The runners were shy, not easy to approach. And they would come more
readily if Sssuri were alone.
Here the murmur of the stream was loud, rising above the rustle of the
wind-driven grass. And the night was coming fast as the sun, hidden by
the cliff wall, sank into the sea. Dalgard, knowing that his night
sight was far inferior to that of the native Astran fauna, resignedly
settled himself for an all-night stay, not without a second regretful
memory of the snug camp by the shore.
Twilight and then night. How long before the runners would make their
appearance? He could pick up the sparks of thought which marked the
coming and going of hoppers, most hurrying off to their mud-plastered
nests, and sometimes a flicker from the mind of some other night
creature. Once he was sure he touched the avid, raging hunger which
marked a flying dragon, though they were not naturally hunters by
darkness.
Dalgard made no move to contact Sssuri. The merman must be left
undisturbed in his mental quest for the runners.
The scout lay back on his miniature island and stared up into the sky,
trying to sort out all the myriad impressions of life about him. It
was then that he saw it....
An arrow of fire streaking across the black bowl of Astra's night sky.
A light so vivid, so alien, that it brought him to his feet with a
chill prickle of apprehension along his spine. In all his years as a
scout and woodsman, in all the stories of his fellows and his elders
at Homeport--he had never seen, never heard of the like of that!
And through his own wonder and alert alarm, he caught Sssuri's added
puzzlement.
"Danger--" The merman's verdict fed his own unease.
Danger had crossed the night, from east to west. And to the west lay
what they had always feared. What was going to happen now?
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