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"It is done. The Pinda-lick-o-yi entered the ship eagerly. Then they blew it and themselves up. Manulito did his work well." "And Kaydessa?" "The woman is safe. When the Reds saw the ship, they left their machine outside to hold her captive. That mechanical caller was easily destroyed. She is now free and with the mba'a she comes across the mountains, Manulito and Eskelta with her also.
A howl ... wailing ... sobbing ... was heard, one of the keening songs of the mba'a. Travis darted forward. He heard the nicker of a frightened horse, a clicking which could have marked the pawing of hoof on gravel, saw the brush hiding the stranger's hole tremble, a portion of it fall away. Travis sped on, his moccasins making no sound on the ground.
Whatever lay in ambush beside the upper track was growing impatient as its destined prey ceased to advance, the coyotes reported. "Your left beyond that pointed rock in the big shadow " "Do you see it?" Tsoay demanded. "No. But the mba'a do." The men had their bows ready, arrows set to the cords.
His head ached with dull persistence, the pain fostered in some way by his own bewilderment. To study the land ahead was like trying to see through one picture interposed over another and far different one. He knew what ought to be there, but what was before him was very dissimilar. A buff-gray shape flitted through the tall cover grass, and Travis tensed. Mba'a coyote?
"So far we have found only animal signs, and the ga-n have not warned us of anything else " "Those devil ones!" Again Deklay spat into the fire. "I say we should have no dealings with them. The mba'a is no friend to the People." Again a murmur which seemed one of agreement answered that outburst. Travis stiffened. Just how much influence had the Redax had over them?
"We are in two minds because of this Redax, so let us not do anything in haste. Back in the desert world of the People I have seen the mba'a, and he was very clever. With the badger he went hunting, and when the badger had dug up the rat's nest, so did the mba'a wait on the other side of the thorny bush and catch those who would escape that way. Between him and the badger there was no war.
He was startled, jarred by the new awareness of how much he had come to depend on the animals. Ordinarily, Travis Fox was not one to be governed by the wishes of a mba'a, intelligent and un-animallike as it might be. This was an affair of men, and coyotes had no part in it! Half an hour later Travis sat in the outlaw camp.
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