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"I will." The natural end to the balath sleep was death. For the human
organism, in about a week. Ticos knew that if she couldn't get him to the
mainland and to antidotes presently, he wouldn't wake up again.
He took three soft-shelled seeds from her hand, said, "Hold your breath - good
luck!" and cracked them between his fingers, close to his face: Nile heard him
breathe deeply as the balath fumes drifted out from the seeds. Then he sighed,
slumped back and slid down out of sight into the pod: After a few seconds, the
pod cover closed over the vacated opening . . . . Well, he'd be as safe in
there for a while as he could be anywhere in this area.
She reset the belt, checked her gear. Then paused a moment, head turned up.
something - a brief muffled thudding, as much body sensation as sound. It
seemed to come from the sky. She'd heard similar sounds twice before while
Ticos was talking. Evidently he hadn't heard them. They might have been the
rumble of thunder, but she didn't think it was thunder.
Lightweight again, she moved back quickly along the living cables to the
floatwood bough which intersected the incubator and on to the barrier hedge.
She laid her hands for a moment against the hedge's, branches: They opened
quietly for her, and she slipped out into the forest.
For a minute she stood glancing about and listening. The thudding noise hadn't
been repeated and there were no other indications of abnormal activity about.
A great racket was starting up in the sea-haval rookery; but the sea-havals,
young and old, needed no abnormal activities to set them off. Nile descended
quickly through the forest until she heard water surge and gurgle below, then
moved back to the lagoon.
The sky was almost cloudless now, blazing with massed starshine. She gazed
about the lagoon from cover. At the base of the forest across from her a
string of tiny bright-blue lights bobbed gently up and down. Were they looking
for her over there? She twisted the otter caller.
. . . .
Sweeting appeared, bubbling and hunting-happy, eager to be given fresh
instructions. The tarm was dying or dead. The otters had rammed a fresh
battery of poison thorns into it when it came out into the water, and shortly
afterward it sank to the lagoon's root floor, turned on its side and stopped
moving: Next they discovered a large group of armed Parahuans prowling about
the floating pads and other vegetation in the central area of the lagoon. The
otters accompanied them in the water, waiting for opportunities to strike.
Opportunities soon came. By the time the search party grew aware of losses in
its ranks, eight lifeless Oganoon had been left wedged deep among the root
tangles. . . .
"You didn't let yourselves be seen?"
Sweeting snorted derisively.
"Waddle-foot jumps into water. Doesn't come up. Is sad, heh? Sea-haval eat
him? Guardian Etland eat him? No otters there then."
Nile could picture it. A subsurface swirl in the dark water, three or four
slashes; another flopping body hauled quickly down toward the roots . . . and
no slightest indication of the nature of the attacker. The remaining Parahuans
had bunched up together on the pads; keeping well away from the water. When
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lights began to flash and several boats approached, bristling with guns,
Sweeting and her companions moved off. From a distance they watched the boats
take the search party away.
Presently then: "Bloomp-bloomp! Big gun --"
Which explained the thudding noises Nile had heard. Great geysers boiled up
suddenly from the area where the Parahuans had been waylaid. The fire came
from a hidden emplacement on the far side of the lagoon. Sweeting described
pale flares of light, soft heavy thumps of discharge. A medium energy gun -
brought into action in hopes of destroying what? The Tuvela? The Palachs would
have no other explanation for what had happened out there. And if they'd
realized by now that their great tarm was also among the dead or missing . .
.
"What were they shooting at later?" she asked.
Sweeting tilted her nose at the sky, gave the approximate otter equivalent of
a shrug. "Up there? Kesters. . .."
"Kesters?"
Kesters it seemed to have been. Perhaps the gun crew had picked up a
high-flying migratory flock in its instruments and mistaken it for human
vehicles. In any case, some time after the discharge a rain of charred and
dismembered Kester bodies briefly sprinkled the lagoon surface.
Nile chewed her lip. Parrol couldn't possibly be about the area yet, and that
some other aircar should have chanced to pass by at this particular time was
simply too unlikely. It looked like a case of generally jittery nerves and
growing demoralization. Ticos had questioned whether the Voice of Action would
be able to maintain the organization of the forces which were now under its
sole control.
"And this last time?" she asked. Water stirred at her left as she spoke. She
glanced over, saw that the wild otter pair had joined them, lifted a hand in
greeting. They grinned silently, drifted closer.
"Wasn't us," Sweeting told her. The fire had been directed into the lagoon
again, near the western end of the island. The otters hadn't been anywhere
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