* * * * *
The people ran. They tried to break back to the river and the trees that
could be climbed to safety, but the hunters turned them. Then they fled
blindly forward, toward the hill. They ran with all their strength,
making no sound. Kieran and Webber ran with them, with Paula between
them. Webber seemed absolutely appalled.
"Where's that gun you had?" Kieran panted.
"It's not a gun, only a short-range shocker," he said. "It wouldn't stop
these things. Look at them!"
They bounded, sporting around them, howling with a sound like laughter.
They were as large as leopards and their eyes glowed in the
cluster-light. They seemed to be enjoying themselves, as though hunting
was the most delightful game in the world. One of them ran up to
within two feet of Kieran and snapped at him with its great jaws,
dodging agilely when he raised his arm. They drove the people, faster
and faster. At first the men had formed around the women and children.
But the formation began to disintegrate as the weaker ones dropped
behind, and no attempt was made to keep it. Panic was stronger than
instinct now. Kieran looked ahead. "If we can make it to that hill--"
[Illustration]
Paula screamed and he stumbled over a child, a girl about five, crawling
on her hands and knees. He picked her up. She bit and thrashed and tore
at him, her bare little body hard as whalebone and slippery with sweat.
He could not hold onto her. She kicked herself free of his hands and
rushed wildly out of reach, and one of the black hunters pounced in and
bore her away, shrieking thinly like a fledgling bird in the jaws of a
cat.
"Oh my God," said Paula, and covered her head with her arms, trying to
shut out sight and sound. He caught her and said harshly, "Don't faint,
because I can't carry you." The child's mother, whichever of the women
it might have been, did not look back.
An old woman who strayed aside was pulled down and dragged off, and then
one of the white-haired men. The hill was closer. Kieran saw now what
was wrong with it. Part of it was a building. He was too tired and too
sick to be interested, except as it offered a refuge. He spoke to
Webber, with great difficulty because he was winded. And then he
realized that Webber wasn't there.
* * * * *
Webber had stumbled and fallen. He had started to get up, but the
hunters were on him. He was on his hands and knees facing them,
screaming at them to get away from him. He had, obviously, had little or
no experience with raw violence. Kieran ran back to him, with Paula
close behind.
"Use your gun!" he yelled. He was afraid of the black hunters, but he
was full of rage and the rage outweighed the fear. He yelled at them,
cursing them. He hurled sand into their eyes, and one that was creeping
up on Webber from the side he kicked. The creature drew off a little,
not frightened but surprised. They were not used to this sort of thing
from humans. "Your gun!" Kieran roared again, and Webber pulled the
snub-nosed thing out of his pocket. He stood up and said unsteadily, "I
told you, it's not a gun. It won't kill anything. I don't think--"
"Use it," said Kieran. "And get moving again. Slowly."
They started to move, and then across the sky a great iron voice spoke
like thunder. "Lie down," it said, "please. Lie down flat."
Kieran turned his head, startled. From the direction of the building on
the hill a vehicle was speeding toward them.
"The Sakae," said Webber with what was almost a sob of relief. "Lie
down."
As he did so, Kieran saw a pale flash shoot out from the vehicle and
knock over a hunter still hanging on the flanks of the fleeing people.
He hugged the sand. Something went whining and whistling over him, there
was a thunk and a screech. It was repeated, and then the iron voice
spoke again.
"You may get up now. Please remain where you are." The vehicle was much
closer. They were bathed in sudden light. The voice said, "Mr. Webber,
you are holding a weapon. Please drop it."
"It's only a little shocker," Webber said, plaintively. He dropped it.
The vehicle had wide tracks that threw up clouds of sand. It came
clanking to a halt. Kieran, shading his eyes, thought he distinguished
two creatures inside, a driver and a passenger.
* * * * *
The passenger emerged, climbing with some difficulty over the steep step
of the track, his tail rattling down behind him like a length of thick
cable. Once on the ground he became quite agile, moving with a sort of
oddly graceful prance on his powerful legs. He approached, his attention
centered on Kieran. But he observed the amenities, placing one delicate
hand on his breast and making a slight bow.
"Doctor Ray." His muzzle, shaped something like a duck's bill,
nevertheless formed Paula's name tolerably well. "And you, I think, are
Mr. Kieran."
Kieran said, "Yes." The star-cluster blazed overhead. The dead beasts
lay behind him, the people with their flying hair had run on beyond his
sight. He had been dead for a hundred years and now he was alive again.
Now he was standing on alien soil, facing an alien form of life,
communicating with it, and he was so dog-tired and every sensory nerve
was so thoroughly flayed that he had nothing left to react with. He
simply looked at the Saka as he might have looked at a fence-post, and
said, "Yes."
The Saka made his formal little bow again. "I am Bregg." He shook his
head. "I'm glad I was able to reach you in time. You people don't seem
to have any notion of the amount of trouble you make for us--"
Paula, who had not spoken since the child was carried off, suddenly
screamed at Bregg, "Murderer!"
She sprang at him, striking him in blind hysteria.
8.
Bregg sighed. He caught Paula in those fine small hands that seemed to
have amazing strength and held her, at arm's length. "Doctor Ray," he
said. He shook her. "Doctor Ray." She stopped screaming. "I don't wish
to administer a sedative because then you will say that I drugged you.
But I will if I must."