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Shann crouched, charting the clumps ahead for a zigzag course which would take him to at least momentary safety in the river bed. Perhaps a mile downstream was the transport the Terrans had cobbled together no earlier than this afternoon, a raft Thorvald had professed to believe would support them to the sea which lay some fifty Terran miles to the west. But now he had to cover that mile.
The sun was still a pale smear just above the horizon. And it gave light enough to make out that trickle of islands melting out to obscurity. "Utgard " "Utgard?" Shann repeated, the strange word holding no meaning for him. "Legend of my people." Thorvald smeared spray from his face with one hand. "Utgard, those outermost islands where dwell the giants who are the mortal enemies of the old gods."
He glanced up, discovered the other surveying him critically. "You're not in uniform " "No, sir," he admitted. "I couldn't find my own kit." "Where are your badges?" Shann's hand went up to the marks left when he had so carefully ripped off the insignia. "My badges? I have no rank," he replied, bewildered. "Every team carries at least one cadet on strength." Shann flushed.
Though, because of Garth Thorvald, Shann's toll of black record marks had mounted dangerously high and each day the chance for any more duty tours had grown dimmer. Shann laughed, and the sound was ugly. That was one thing he didn't have to worry about any longer. There would be no other assignments for him, the Throgs had seen to that.
And there was an ache in his arm which was somehow reassuring with the very insistence of pain. Before opening his eyes, his fingers crossed the smooth slick of a bandage there, went on to investigate by touch a sleep mat such as he had found in the cavern structure. Was he back in that web of rooms and corridors? Shann delayed opening his eyes until a kind of shame drove him to it.
Thorvald tossed his improvised stone ax from hand to hand. "But do the Throgs know that?" The implications, the possibilities, in that idea struck home to Shann. Now he began to understand what Thorvald might be planning. "Now there is going to be a native race."
How could Shann even be sure that that carved disk and Thorvald's hokus-pokus with it had been on the level? On the other hand what motive would the officer have for trying such an act just to impress Shann? The beach at last! As they headed the canoe in that direction the wolverines nearly brought disaster on them.
Fear made a thicker fog about him than the green mist of the illusion. Only this was no illusion. Shann stared at the Throg officer with sick eyes, knowing that no one ever quite believes that a last evil will strike at him, that he had clung to a hope which had no existence. "Lantee!" The call burst in his head with a painful force.
To descend again to the river, their raft gone, was worse than useless. There was only this side pocket in which they sheltered. And once the Throgs arrived, they could scoop the Terrans out at their leisure, perhaps while stunned by a controlling energy beam. "Taggi? Togi?" Shann was suddenly aware that he had not heard the wolverines for some time.
There was no sign about the domes that any Throgs sheltered there. In fact, Shann saw no aliens at all except those who had come from the com dome with him. Of course! The rest must be in ambush, waiting for the transport to planet. What about the Throg ship or ships? Those must have been hidden also. And the only hiding place for them would be aloft.
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