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The two voyagers were neither of the same race nor of the same species, yet they worked together without words, as if they had established some bond which gave them a rapport transcending the need for speech. Dalgard Nordis was a son of the Colony; his kind had not originated on this planet.
The brush lands along the foot of the cliffs gave way to open fields, bare except for the grass rippled by the wind. It was not the type of country to attract the night runners, and Dalgard wondered a little. They should discover water, preferably a shallow stream, if they wanted to find what the monkey creatures liked best. Within a quarter-hour he knew that Sssuri was not going wrong.
They had been frank in admitting that while Those Others could be aware of their presence through telepathic means, they could not exchange thoughts. So now, his own band, basically strange to this planet, might well go unnoticed by the once dominant race of Astra. They or him or it were over in that direction, Dalgard was sure of that.
"But we must learn when they will come again and be waiting for them with your people and mine. For I tell you now, brother of the knife, they must not be allowed to rise once more!" "And how can we foretell their coming?" Dalgard wanted to know. "Perhaps that alone we cannot do. But when they come they will not leave speedily.
And Those Others, were they following the trail of their mechanical hound as they had before? Dalgard sent out questing tendrils of thought. Nowhere did he encounter the flashes which announced the proximity of Those Others. No, it would appear that they had unleashed the hound to do what damage it could, perhaps to serve them as a marker for a future counterattack. At present it was alone.
He bounded forward with a spurt, which Dalgard copied, and they ran lightly, the dust undisturbed in years puffing up beneath the merman's bare, scaled feet and Dalgard's hide boots. Still the unbroken walls, the feeble patches of violet in the ceiling. But no exit. And what good would any exit do him, Dalgard thought, if it opened under the sea?
And Sssuri accepted that as an invitation to descend, summoning Dalgard after him with a beckoning finger. Later they sat in a circle in the cushioning gray powder, the two from the south eating dried fish and sea kelp, while Sssuri related, between mouthfuls, their recent adventures.
"That finned one had no fear of me." "We were right then in heading north; this is new land." Dalgard got to his feet. On either side, the cliffs, with their alternate bands of red, blue, yellow, and white strata, walled in this pocket. They would make far better time keeping to the sea lanes, where it was not necessary to climb.
"For you," Dalgard pointed out, "but I am no dweller in the depths." "Neither were Those Others, yet they used these ways. And I tell you" in his earnestness the merman laid his hand once more on Dalgard's arm "to turn back now is out of the question. The death which haunts the darkness is still sniffing out our trail." Dalgard glanced involuntarily over his shoulder.
But Dalgard rummaged in his voyager's bag and brought out a half-dozen crystal beads. He laid these out on a flat-topped stone by the stream, seating himself cross-legged beside it. To the onlooker it would appear that the traveler was meditating. A wide-winged living splotch of color fanned by overhead; there was a distant yap of sound. Dalgard neither looked nor listened.
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