The girl's eyes opened listlessly. They were dark-blue, opaque. But
faint interest stirred them as she scanned the view ahead.
The flaming dust cloud had climbed to the very zenith; the smell of it
was in the terrapin, its feel between the teeth. Miles ahead across the
desert, a dim encarmined shimmer marked the waters of the Salt Sea.
Nearer, but still far ahead, a black stream was moving across the
rippled plain at right angles to the terrapin's course. It was without
beginning or end, pouring steadily from north to south. A distant
vibration seemed to shake the earth beneath the sway and swoop of the
moving vehicle.
"The trailer herd," said Torcred. "Thousands on thousands of them,
moving south with the sun that feeds them. The fall migration is
farther west this year, and they are coming in greater numbers than any
of our troop can remember."
The girl said nothing. He added irritably, "You understand--there will
be good hunting."
She shocked him by laughing. "Is that all you think of?" she inquired
mockingly. "Good hunting--a full stomach and a full fuel tank. You
crawlers lead poor, empty lives."
"We don't crawl," said Torcred shortly, eyes fixed on the speedometer
that registered a hundred miles an hour.
The bird-girl laughed again. "You know so little, you earthbound
creatures," she taunted. "You've never known the joy of flight--to
climb up and into the clear bright stratosphere, and see the Earth with
all its secrets unroll below you.... _You_ creep from place to place
and cower in your camps, but we range farther than you dream, and know
the world and all its peoples that fly and swim and crawl and burrow.
And we are the highest race of all."
"Higher than the buzzards?" asked Torcred.
She hesitated, then said defiantly, "Of course! Those evil things are
huge and powerful, but we'll defeat them in the end, never doubt it.
And then--we will have the rule of the sky, which is the rule of the
Earth."
She sounded very certain, and Torcred could think of no adequate
counter-argument. He said brutally, "We? Who do you mean? _Your_ wings
are clipped, bird!"
Then unexpected remorse stung him as he saw how the girl shrank into
herself, how the brief glow of enthusiasm left her face. She made no
answer, and Torcred too fell sullenly silent.
* * * * *
In silence he closed the throttle and the hurtling terrapin slowed.
Close ahead, now, the trailer herd was an amorphous black river in the
gathering dusk. Earth and air shook to its thunder, the rumbling of
countless wheels and engines and couplings and the strident bleating of
thousands of horns as the vast herd jostled and protested.
Closer and closer to the flank of the moving mass rolled the little
terrapin, darting over the crests of the dunes and stealing along under
their cover. The girl's eyes grew wide at the glimpses they had of that
dark dangerous-looking stream; she seemed to flinch from its pounding
clamor.
Torcred smiled grimly as he brought the terrapin to a poised halt
half-sheltered by a low swell. A scant hundred yards away the migrating
trailers rolled obliviously past, one close behind the other, huge
box-like monsters on wheels behind a tiny cab. Torcred knew their ways
of old; the trailer sections housed women and children, who tended
the apparatus that made food, fuel, and ammunition from sunlight and
water and air and the minerals extracted from the sterile soil. The
trailer-men were drivers and gunners; but the great machines were
clumsy and ill-armed, finding safety against the fierce mechanical
predators chiefly in their numbers.
The Terrapin waited only for moments; then he opened his throttle wide
and sent the little combat car swerving into the heart of the herd.
All around rolled rumbling iron giants; the clank of couplings, the
roaring of unmuffled engines were deafening. A hooting of furious horns
arose as the terrapin darted and zigzagged between the moving units of
the herd. But there was no blaze of gunfire.
"So we hunt them," Torcred flung over his shoulder at the breathless
girl. "They can't shoot when we're in among them; we disable one and
shelter behind it until the herd passes on...."
The terrapin dashed through narrowing gaps, slowed and spurted again,
as Torcred threaded his way skilfully on an oblique course across the
roaring stream. At last he saw open ground ahead; he grinned exultantly
and put on a final burst of speed that carried him into the clear. The
little car swooped with a sickening rush into a shallow valley, and
behind it thundering flashes leaped along the flank of the trailer herd
and bullets exploded around or ricocheted screaming overhead.
As he slowed to a more moderate pace under cover of the farther dunes,
Torcred turned, still grinning, to the bird-girl. "That," he commented,
"was the dangerous part."
She shivered slightly. "I was afraid," she admitted candidly.
"That's hardly as simple as attacking a mere crawling terrapin from the
air, eh?"
The girl turned her face away. "That was necessary, terrapin ... I
passed my fledgling examination only two days ago; it was my second
flight beyond the safety zone. The novice must defeat some machine of
prey in single combat, before he is accepted."
"And if he fails?" Torcred's eyes were fixed ahead, where a pale light
was reflected by the ground that was flat now and gleamed whitely,
encrusted with salt.
"And if he--or she--fails," the girl's voice dropped low, "it is the
last time." A sob came into her voice. "Even if I could go back to my
people, I would be degraded to menial labor or breeding--could never
fly again."
Torcred felt pity for her despite his prejudices; and at the same time
her words recalled his own worries, and he frowned blackly. The girl
mistook his expression for an indication that she had somehow said too
much, and she sank back into brooding silence.
She glanced up only when the car's wheels ground to a stop on the salty
crust, and Torcred, with a relaxing sigh, was already unsnapping his
safety belt and switching off the panting motor. The girl saw flames
and shadows amid which black figures moved, and she shrank back in
fright, uncomprehending. As the Terrapin flung open his door, mingled
sound of clanging metal and hissing fire rushed in to increase her
confusion.
He paused momentarily; his expression was unreadable as he gazed on her
white face.
"Stay where you are and make no noise," his low voice rasped sternly.
"I'll come back."
Torcred closed the door firmly and heard its lock click. The girl,
if she foolishly wanted to escape, probably could not find the catch
inside, and there was nothing she could hurt herself with if she still
felt suicidal. There at least she would be safe from prying eyes,
until he could untangle the tumult of unaccustomed emotions that were
struggling within him. A terrapin had only one place to himself, the
interior of the fighting machine--those with families, of course, knew
no such word as privacy.
He turned, straightening his back resolutely, and advanced into the
midst of the terrapin camp.