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But he dared not break stride to do that. "Ahhhh!" The welcoming cry from Sssuri brought his attention back to his companion as the merman broke into a wild run. Dalgard summoned up his last rags of energy and coursed after him. Sssuri had halted before a dark lump which protruded from the side of the corridor. "A sea lock!"
And, although it was still but midafternoon, Dalgard pointed the outrigger into the promised shelter, the dip of his steering paddle swinging in harmony with that wielded by Sssuri in the bow of their narrow, wave-riding craft.
Once again Dalgard read his mind and waved the mermen back, sending them through the door to the ramp and the lower engine room. Raf stood in the doorway, the bomb in his hand, knowing that it was time for him to make the most accurate cast of his life. The sphere left his fingers, was a gleam in the murky air. It struck the pile of material. Then the whole world was hidden by a blinding glare.
The other's clothing, the helmet covering his head were more akin to those worn by the aliens than they were to the dress of the colonist. Yet the man beneath those trappings was of the same breed as his own people. And he could not believe he was a Peaceman of Pax all he had done here spoke against those legends of dark Terran days Dalgard had heard from childhood. But where had he come from?
But when one of those paws shot out to snatch the treasure, the traveler's hand was already cupped protectingly over the hoard. Dalgard formed a mental picture and beamed it at the twenty-inch creature before him. The hopper's ears twitched nervously, its blunt nose wrinkled, and then it bounded back into the brush, a weaving line of moving grass marking its retreat.
My people came from the stars in a ship, but not a ship of this world. We have been here for many years." The mermen were moving now. Several had waded forward to greet their chief, aiding him ashore. But when Raf moved toward the ledge, Dalgard put out a restraining hand. "Until we are summoned no. They have their customs. And this is a party-for-war.
The sea people had assured him that the stranger was making a good recovery, that within a matter of hours he could be freed from his cocoon of healing. Dalgard squinted at the sun sparkling on the waves. Where now? To the north where the space ship waited?
"He is afraid of those who walk erect as we do," he made answer. Those who walk erect Dalgard was quick to interpret that. He knew that Those Others were biped, quasi-human in form, closer in physical appearance to the colonists than to the mermen.
The excited twitter of their speech scaled up. "You travel with the beasts " the alien's accusation came crisply while the others gabbled. "That which hunts could not have tracked you had not the stink of the beast things been on you." "I know no beasts," Dalgard faced up to that squarely. "The sea people are my friends!"
Dalgard asked his question as Sssuri, his attention still on their back trail, stole along cautiously on a retracing of their path. But that retreat ended abruptly with the merman plastered against the wall, his whole shadowy form a tense warning which stopped Dalgard short. In that moment the answer flashed from mind to mind. "There are those which follow " "Snake-devils? Those Others?"
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