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Updated: May 4, 2025
The shelter they completed was compact and efficient but totally unlike anything Shann had ever seen before, certainly far removed from the domes of the camp. He said so, nursing his raw hands. "An old form," Thorvald replied, "native to a primitive race on Terra. Certainly the beetle-heads haven't come across its like before." "Are we going to stay here?
The Survey officer caught the torch from Shann's hold and knelt to flash it into the interior of the passage. As the beam slowly circled that opening, he held out his other arm, measuring the size of the aperture. "When that thing gets on a hot scent" he snapped off the beam "the beetle-heads won't be able to control it. There will be no reason for them to attempt to.
"The beetle-heads didn't really get to work on you " "Told you that," Shann said impatiently. "But what brought that fog and got the Throgs?" Thorvald smiled grimly. The ghostly light was fading as the fog retreated, but Shann could see well enough to note that around the other's neck hung one of the Wyvern disks. "It was a variation of the veil of illusion.
There is always this advantage those hounds cannot be controlled from a flyer, and the beetle-heads never take kindly to foot slogging. So we won't have to expect any speedy chase. If it slips its masters in rough country, we can try to ambush it." In the dim light Thorvald was frowning. "I flew over the territory ahead on two sweeps, and it is a queer mixture.
I've tried to get through to them about danger from the Throgs, telling them what it would mean to them to have the beetle-heads settle in here for good. They just brush aside the whole idea." "Can't you argue that the Throgs are males, too? Or aren't they?" The Survey officer shook his head. "That's a point no human can answer.
"If that transport doesn't pick up the proper signal to set down here on schedule, her captain will call in the patrol escort ... then exit one Throg base. But if the beetle-heads can trick the ship in and take her, then they'll have a clear five or six more months here to consolidate their own position.
They jerked him to his feet, faced him toward the outer door, and propelled him through it with a speed and roughness indicative of their feelings. The hour was close to dusk and Shann glanced wistfully at promising shadows, though he had given up hope of rescue by now. If he could just get free of his guards, he could at least give the beetle-heads a good run. He saw that the camp was deserted.
Almost, Shann thought, as if he could turn that blade of rage against one Shann Lantee for being yet alive when more important men had not survived. "I saw the attack from an upper ridge," the younger man said, having been put on the defensive. Yet he had a right to be alive, hadn't he? Or did Thorvald believe that he should have gone running down to meet the beetle-heads with his useless stunner?
But whether those beetle-heads squatting over on the mainland are able to answer to 'he, 'she, or 'it, your solution is just as good as mine. We've always considered the ones we fight to be males, but they might just as possibly be amazons. Frankly, these Wyverns couldn't care less either; at least that's the impression they give."
You must have seen their metal plates those are the beetle-heads' idea of beauty. Have those the slightest resemblance to this?" "Then who made it?" "Either Warlock has or once had a native race advanced enough in a well-established form of civilization to develop such a sophisticated type of art, or there have been other visitors from space here before us and the Throgs.
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