PURSUIT
As the slowly it also at a pace, for the had them in hold. The pressed close to Shann until the of their fur, their animal warmth, him. One in its throat, in answer to that wind-borne wail.
"Hound?" Shann asked.
Beside him in the dark Thorvald was one of the they had to help the raft's voyaging. The them along, but there was a need for those lengths of to them free from and water-buried snags.
"What hound?" the man more when there came no answer.
"The Throgs' tracker. But why did they one?" Thorvald's was plain in his tone. He added a moment later, with some of his firmness, "We may be in for trouble now. Use of a means an attempt to take prisoners——"
"Then they do not know that we are here, as Terrans, I mean?"
Thorvald to be out his when he to that. "They have a here just on that they might miss one of us in the mop-up. Or, if they we are natives, they want a for study."
"Wouldn't they just blast Terrans on sight?"
Shann saw the dark which was Thorvald's shake in negation.
"They might need a live Terran—badly and soon."
"Why?"
"To the call beam."
Shann's vanished. He of Survey to the for such a move on the part of the aliens.
"The transport?"
"Yes, the ship. She won't here without the proper signal. And the Throgs can't give that. If they don't take her, their time's out they have a start here."
"But how they know that the transport is nearly due? When we their calls they're pure to us. Can they read our codes?"
"The is that they can't. Only, Throgs, all we know is supposition. Anyway, they do know the for a Terran colony, and we can't that in small nonessentials," Thorvald said grimly. "If that transport doesn't up the proper to set here on schedule, her captain will call in the ... then one Throg base. But if the beetle-heads can the ship in and take her, then they'll have a clear five or six more months here to their own position. After that it would take more than just one to clear Warlock; it will a fleet. So the Throgs will have another world to play with, and an one. This on a direct line the Odin and Kulkulkan systems. A Throg on such a cut us right out of this of the galaxy."
"So you think they want to us in order to the transport in?"
"By our type of reasoning, that would be a logical move—if they know we are here. They haven't too many of those hounds, and they don't them on jobs. I'd we'd our well. But we had to that attack on the camp.... I needed the map case!" Again Thorvald might have been talking to himself. "Time ... and the right maps—" he his on the raft, making the tremble—"that's what I have to have now."
Another of light-willows along the river-banks, and as they through that of they see each other's faces. Thorvald's was bleak, hard, his on the them as if he at any moment to see a Throg from the surface of the water.
"Suppose that thing—" Shann pointed with his chin—"follows us? What is it anyway?" Hound Terran dog, but he couldn't his to in a co-operation Throg and any mammal.
"A of and lizard, with a other touches, is about as close as you can to a description. And that won't be too accurate, like the Throgs its must have been of the family. If the thing us, and I think we can be sure that it will, we'll have to take steps. There is always this advantage—those cannot be from a flyer, and the beetle-heads take to slogging. So we won't have to any chase. If it its masters in country, we can try to it." In the light Thorvald was frowning. "I over the ahead on two sweeps, and it is a mixture. If we can the country the sea, we'll have the round. I don't that the Throgs will be in a to us in there. They'll try two to us on foot. One, use their energy to any valley, and since there are hundreds of all much alike, that will take some time. Or they can attempt to shake us out with a should they have one here, which I doubt."
Shann tensed. The of the of the Throg's were anything but pretty.
"And to a dumdum," Thorvald as if he were a purely and not a threat of something than death, "They'll have to in one of their major ships. Which they will to do with a near at hand. Our own spot now is the we should soon after tomorrow if the of this is what I have it. There is a of on this of the mountains. The river there and the land is bare. Let them send a ship over and we be as visible as if we were sending up flares——"
"How about taking now and going on only at night?" Shann.
"Ordinarily, I'd say yes. But with time pressing us now, no. If we keep on, we the in about hours, maybe less. And we have to with the river. To across country there without good and on is folly."
Two days. With the Throgs their on land, from their flyers. With a desert.... Shann put out his hands to the wolverines. The didn't near as as it had the night when Thorvald had planned this escape. But then the Survey officer had left out a points which were not pertinent. Was he also out other essentials? Shann wanted to ask, but somehow he not.
After a while he dozed, his on his knees. He awoke, out of a dream, a so and so in a picture on his mind that he was when he at the visible in the half-light of early dawn.
Instead of that of earth and now past him as the along, he should have been a against the sky—a were inhuman, from and returned while its was by water. In color that had been a of blood-red and purple. Shann again at the riverbank, on it still that of bone-bare dome, and nose slit, jaws. That was a mountain, or a was a skull—and it was to him; he must it!
He moved stiffly, his and arms but not cold. The on either of him. Thorvald to sleep, up beyond, the still in his hands. A map case was by a about his neck, its thin his arm and his as if for safekeeping. On the was the Survey seal, and it was with a lock.
Thorvald had some of the hard surface he had at the where Shann had him. There were in his cheeks, sending into high those his sockets, him a to the of Shann's dream. His was grimed, his and torn. Only his was as as ever.
Shann the of his hand across his own face, not that he must present an more appearance. He to look into the water, but that surface was not to act as a mirror.
Getting to his as the under his shift of weight, Shann the now about them. He not match Thorvald's inches, just as he must have a third less than the officer, but standing, he something of what now the banks of the cut. That which had been so thick in the around the had into clumps, in color. And the of and and soil. The earth those was not of the blue, but pallid, too, to gray, while the along the stream's were and smaller. They must have the line into the Thorvald had promised.
Shann around to west. There was light in the sky to tall black waiting. They had to those mountains, on the other were in sea water. He them carefully, each he from its fellows.
Did the among them? The that the place he had in his was real, that it was to be on Warlock, persisted. Not only was it a of the in the wild places of this world, but it was also necessary for him to it. Why? Shann puzzled over that, with a which was not fear, not yet, anyway.
Thorvald moved. The and the growly. Shann sat down, one hand out to the officer's in warning. Feeling that touch Thorvald shifted, one hand out in a which Shann was just able to avoid while with the other he the map case yet to him.
"Take it easy!" Shann urged.
The other's flicked. He looked up, but not as if he saw Shann at all.
"The Cavern of the Veil——" he muttered. "Utgard...." Then his did focus and he sat up, around him with a frown.
"We're in the desert," Shann announced.
Thorvald got up, on planted a little apart, looking to the of the waste from the river cut. He at the he to with the lock of the map case.
The were restless, though they still did not try to move about too on the raft, Shann with complaint. He and Thorvald satisfy their with a of from the kit. But those not the animals. Shann the with more knowledge than he had a week earlier. This was not land, but there the of the river.
"We'll have to Taggi and Togi," he the abruptly. "If we don't, they'll be into the river and off on their own."
Thorvald up from one of the tough, thin of map skin, again as if he had been from some distance. His moved from Shann to the shore.
"How? With what?" he wanted to know. Then the of the must have his isolation. "You have an idea——?"
"There's those fish we them by the stream," Shann said, an of a days earlier. "Rocks here, too, like those the fish were under. Maybe we can some of them here."
He that Thorvald would be to work the in shore, to time for such hunting. But there would be no with wolverines, and he did not to the animals for the officer's whim.
However, Thorvald did not protest. They the out of the main of the current, sending it in toward the southern in the of a of light-willows. Shann ashore, the after him, along at his while he likely looking to some odd dwellings. The fish with the were present and not in their native to avoid well-clawed which them out of the river shallows. There was also a with a and paddle-equipped forepaws, like a seal, which Taggi Shann had a to it closely. In fact, the along a half-mile of bank the Terran them to the raft.
As they hunted, Shann got a idea of the land about the river. It was sere, the for some of pushing through the ground like fingers, their in to the of Warlock's things. Under the sun that whole of country was in a which at repelled, and then to him.
He Thorvald on the upper bluff, looking out toward the waiting mountains. The officer as Shann the to the raft, and when he jumped the to join them, Shann saw he a map in his hand.
"The is not as good as we hoped," he told the man. "Well have to the river to the heights."
"Why?"
"There're rapids—bending in a falls." The officer down, out the and making at it with a tip. "Here we have to leave. This is all ground. But to the south there's a which may be a pass. This was from an survey."
Shann to to what such a go wrong. Main of the would be clear from aloft, but there might be at ground level which were not from the air. Yet Thorvald had planned this as if he had already their and that it was as open and easy as a Tyr's main transport way. Why was it so necessary that they try to the sea? However, since he had no to voice a for information, Shann did not question the other's of command, not yet, anyway.
As they and into the current, Shann his companion. Thorvald had the them. Yet he did not in the least about their being able to win through to the sea—or if he was, his of uncracked. Before their day together had ended, the Terran had learned that to Thorvald he was only another tool, to be used by the Survey officer in some project which the other of importance. And his of the was under so far. He valued Thorvald's knowledge, but the other's and his need for something more than a partnership of work.
Why had Thorvald come to Warlock in the place? And why had it been necessary for him to his life—perhaps more than his life if their was the Throgs' wish to a Terran—to that set of from the camp? When he had talked of that raid, his promised had been to their daily needs; there had been no mention of maps. By all Thorvald was on some mission. And what would if he, Shann, stopped being the other's and a here and now?
Only Shann about men to also know that he would not any out of Thorvald that the was not to give, and that such a showdown, prematurely, would only end in his own discomfiture. He now, his when he had Ragnar Thorvald months ago. As if the officer the likes, dislikes—or dreams—of one Shann Lantee. No, and approached each other. Dreams....
"On any of those maps," he asked suddenly, "do they have marked a like a skull?"
Thorvald with his pole. "Skull?" he repeated, a little absently, as he so often did in answer to Shann's questions unless they with some matter.
"A of skull," Shann said. Just as as when he had awakened, he picture that with the about its sockets. And that, too, was odd; with the of hours. "It has a and the wash that ... red-and-purple rock——"
"What?"
He had Thorvald's complete attention now.
"Where did you about it?" That quickly.
"I didn't about it. I of it last night. I there right in of it. There were birds—or like birds—going in and out of the eyeholes——"
"What else?" Thorvald across his pole, his alive, avid, as if he would the reply he wanted out of Shann by force.
"That was all I remember—the mountain." He did not add his other impression, that he was meant to that skull, that he must it.
"Nothing...." Thorvald paused, and then spoke slowly, with a visible reluctance. "Nothing else? No with a green veil—a wide green veil—strung across it?"
Shann his head. "Just the mountain."
Thorvald looked as if he didn't that, but Shann's must have been convincing, for he laughed shortly.
"Well, there goes one up in smoke!" he commented. "No, your doesn't appear on any of our maps, and so my not either. They may be screens——"
"What——?" But Shann that query.
A wind was in the to across the which the river, with it a shifting of which into the water as a haze, men, animals, and raft, and as when it falls.
Only that did not out another cry, a thin cry, by the miles of land them, but yet that long they had in the Throg camp. Thorvald mirthlessly.
"The hound's on trail."
He to the pole, using it to the of the current. Shann, in of the sun's heat, his example, if time had to on their side.
