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But before the Hawaikan had a chance to answer, Karara added another question: "But you believe that it did?" "I do not know. Only the magic has made Zahur a part of Glicmas, and Glicmas is now perhaps a part of that which spoke from the mountain. It is not well to accept gifts which tie one man to another unless there is from the first a saying of how deep that bond may run."
After witnessing the fate of those who had swum ashore from the wreck, he did not like to think what motive might have brought the Hawaikan here. Again Karara's thoughts must have matched his, for she added: "But he did not even draw his knife. What are you going to do with him, Ross?" That problem already occupied the Terran. The wisest move undoubtedly was to kill the native out of hand.
Could driblets of the same stellar knowledge have been here deliberately fed to warring communities? He asked Loketh about the possibility of space-borne explorers. But to the Hawaikan that was a totally foreign conception.
They had had idyllic weather for the six weeks since their planeting, no sign of any such trouble in the Hawaikan paradise. "It's coming," Hori repeated. "The gate is half up," Ashe thought aloud, "too much of it set to be dismantled again in a hurry." "If it's completed," Hori wanted to know, "would it ride out a storm?" "It might, behind that reef where we have it based.
No, he did not really believe that the Rover curse or their treatment of the captives would, either one, influence the star leaders. But, if the invaders did not return to their base, their vanishing might also work to keep another expedition from invading Hawaikan skies. Leave it to chance, a curse, and time.... So it was decided. "Have we won?" Ross asked Ashe later.
A sudden and dazzling flare of light made the Terran shade his eyes. Loketh set a pallid but glowing cone on a wall shelf, and the Terran discovered that the burst of light was only relative to the dark of the passage; indeed it was very weak illumination. The Hawaikan braced his body against the far wall.
The Terran had no idea how far he might question the Hawaikan, yet the fuller his information the better. He discovered that Torgul appeared willing to accept Ross's statement that he was from a distant part of the sea and that local customs differed from those he knew.
Loketh was beside him now and the Hawaikan nodded to the sea. "Better go there," he cried. "Over before they try to gut you!" "Kill!" The word shrilled into a roar from the Rovers. They started up the deck toward Ross and Loketh. Then someone leaped between, and Vistur fronted his own comrades.
The wide-set eyes were closed, and the mouth gaped open. Though he believed the Hawaikan unconscious, Ross still kept hold on those wrists as he moved from the sprawled body. With the girl's aid he used a length of kelp to secure the captive. The stranger wore a garment of glistening skintight material which covered body, legs, and feet, but left his lanky arms bare.
Ross clicked the lever when she was finished, and watched the small screen. The symbols which flashed there had meaning for him right enough; he could translate what she had just taped. The machine still worked to that extent. Now he pushed the box into place before Loketh and made the visibly reluctant Hawaikan take the disk from Karara.
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