All I could see was a green blur in the rain. I heard the crisp, wicked
smacks of Jarin's tentacles on the tiger. It flopped over in mid-air,
buried its face in the mud and came up yowling, like your Aunt Minnie's
cat when you stepped on its tail.
It went away from there, fast, with its mate right behind it.
Jarin chuckled softly. "About the _cansins_," he hissed. "You had an
idea?"
Somewhere, quite close to us, there was the familiar sound of a plastic
shack going to pieces. I remembered hearing blasters rip occasionally.
But only Melak's hoods were armed with anything heavy enough to do any
good, and I guessed most of them had beat it to Beamish's yacht. A
_cansin_ has a hell of a tough hide, and their vitality is something
you wouldn't believe if you hadn't seen it.
The familiar whistling screech went up, and the babel of human screams
and the brute chorus from the rainy alleys. I think, right then, I
began to get scared. The fear began to seep through my dopey calm, like
pain in a new wound.