"Don't bother," he said. At this moment he hoped the Sakae, whoever and
whatever they were, would come along and clap these two into some
suitable place for the rest of their lives.
Webber began to "talk".
Kieran stared at him, fascinated. He had expected words--primitive
words, perhaps resembling the click-speech of Earth's stone-age
survivals, but words of some sort. Webber hooted. It was a soft
reassuring sound, repeated over and over, but it was not a word. The
rattle of stones diminished, then stopped. Webber continued to make his
hooting call. Presently it was answered. Webber turned and nodded at
Paula, smiling. He reached into the plastic container and drew forth a
handful of brownish objects that smelled to Kieran like dried fruit.
Webber tossed these out onto the sand. Now he made a different sound, a
grunting and whuffling. There was a silence. Webber made the sound
again.
On the third try the people came out of the woods.
In all there were perhaps twenty-five of them. They came slowly and
furtively, moving a step or two at a time, then halting and peering,
prepared to run. The able-bodied men came first, with one in the lead, a
fine-looking chap in early middle age who was apparently the chief. The
women, the old men, and the children followed, trickling gradually out
of the shadow of the trees but remaining where they could disappear in a
flash if alarmed. They were all perfectly naked, tall and slender and
large-eyed, their muscles strung for speed and agility rather than
massive strength. Their bodies gleamed a light bronze color in the sun,
and Kieran noticed that the men were beardless and smooth-skinned. Both
men and women had long hair, ranging in color from black to tawny, and
very clean and glistening. They were a beautiful people, as deer are a
beautiful people, graceful, innocent, and wild. The men came to the
dried fruits which had been scattered for them. They picked them up and
sniffed them, bit them, then began to eat, repeating the
grunt-and-whuffle call. The women and children and old men decided
everything was safe and joined them. Webber tossed out more fruit, and
then got out himself, carrying the plastic box.
* * * * *
"What does he do next?" whispered Kieran to Paula. "Scratch their ears?
I used to tame squirrels this way when I was a kid."
"Shut up," she warned him. Webber beckoned and she nudged him to move
out of the flitter. "Slow and careful."
Kieran slid out of the flitter. Big glistening eyes swung to watch him.
The eating stopped. Some of the little ones scuttled for the trees.
Kieran froze. Webber hooted and whuffled some more and the tension
relaxed. Kieran approached the group with Paula. There was suddenly no
truth in what he was doing. He was an actor in a bad scene, mingling
with impossible characters in an improbable setting. Webber making
ridiculous noises and tossing his dried fruit around like a caricature
of somebody sowing, Paula with her brisk professionalism all dissolved
in misty-eyed fondness, himself an alien in this time and place, and
these perfectly normal-appearing people behaving like orang-utans with
their fur shaved off. He started to laugh and then thought better of it.
Once started, he might not be able to stop.
"Let them get used to you," said Webber softly.
Paula obviously had been here before. She had begun to make noises too,
a modified hooting more like a pigeon's call. Kieran just stood still.
The people moved in around them, sniffing, touching. There was no
conversation, no laughing or giggling even among the little girls. A
particularly beautiful young woman stood just behind the chief, watching
the strangers with big yellow cat-eyes. Kieran took her to be the man's
daughter. He smiled at her. She continued to stare, deadpan and
blank-eyed, with no answering flicker of a smile. It was as though she
had never seen one before. Kieran shivered. All this silence and
unresponsiveness became eerie.
"I'm happy to tell you," he murmured to Paula, "that I don't think much
of your little pets?"
She could not allow herself to be sharply angry. She only said, in a
whisper, "They are not pets, they are not animals. They--"
She broke off. Something had come over the naked people. Every head had
lifted, every eye had turned away from the strangers. They were
listening. Even the littlest ones were still.
Kieran could not hear anything except the wind in the trees.
"What--?" he started to ask.
Webber made an imperative gesture for silence. The tableau held for a
brief second longer. Then the brown-haired man who seemed to be the
leader made a short harsh noise. The people turned and vanished into the
trees.
"The Sakae," Webber said. "Get out of sight." He ran toward the flitter.
Paula grabbed Kieran's sleeve and pushed him toward the trees.
"What's going on?" he demanded as he ran.
"Their ears are better than ours. There's a patrol ship coming, I
think."
* * * * *
The shadows took them in, orange-and-gold-splashed shadows under strange
trees. Kieran looked back. Webber had been inside the flitter. Now he
tumbled out of the hatch and ran toward them. Behind him the hatch
closed and the flitter stirred and then took off all by itself, humming.
"They'll follow it for a while," Webber panted. "It may give us a chance
to get away." He and Paula started after the running people.