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Back on shore Karara shook out her hair, spread it over her shoulders to dry. "How many hundred years back will the probe return?" "More likely thousands," Ross commented. "Where will you start, Gordon?" Ashe brushed sand from the page of the notebook he had steadied against one bent knee and gazed out at the reef where they had set the probe. "Ten thousand years " "Why?" Karara wanted to know.
Karara had already changed course to head in that direction. Ahead of her he could see Loketh and Baleku both still bound for the mid-point of the shore where the jetty and the sunken cutters were. Ashe passed before him, and Ross reluctantly followed orders. A shelf of rock reached out from the cliff wall, under it a dark opening.
Karara kicked free of the weed, was already wading down to where the dolphins circled in the cave pool waiting for her. Ross followed, and the four swam for the open sea. It could not be much after dawn, Ross thought, as he clung by one hand to a rock and watched Karara and the dolphins on their way. Then he paddled along the shore northward for his own survey of the coast.
His eyes, grave and measuring, studied Ross, then Karara, then Ross again. "There is a way ... discovered by this useless one." Ross did not pay attention to the odd adjective Loketh chose to describe himself. He pressed to the important matter. "Can and will he show me that way?" Again that long moment of appraisal on the part of Loketh before he answered.
And once that decision was made, the Terrans went into action. Two days to go, to install the peep-probe and take some shots before the ship had to clear with or without their evidence. Together Ross and Ashe floated the installation out to the reef, Ui and Karara helping to tow the equipment and parts, the dolphins lending pushing noses on occasion.
Ross outlined the idea, speaking more to Karara than to the Rovers. "I do not know," she said doubtfully. "That would need many fish, too many to herd and drive " "Not fish," Torgul cut in, "salkars!" "Salkars?" "You have seen the bow carving on this ship. That is a salkar. Such are larger than a hundred fish!
But the thought that the dolphins could be trailing held both promise and worry promise of allies, and worry over what had happened to Karara. Had she, too, disappeared after Ashe into the hold of the Foanna? The day did not continue to lighten. Though there was no cottony mist as had enclosed them the night before, there was an odd muting of sea and sky, limiting vision.
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."
"A carnivore of size would have to have a fairly wide hunting range, yet there's evidence that this thing has laired in that den for some time. Which means that it must have a defined hunting territory allowing no trespassing from others of its species." Karara nodded. "Also it may hunt only at intervals, eat heavily, and lie quiet until that meal is digested.
She brought up both hands, cupping them about the knob, but not touching it directly. The sparks it emitted could have been flashing against her flesh, but Karara displayed no awareness of that. Instead, she lifted both hands farther, palm up and cupped, as if she carried some invisible bounty, then flattened them, loosing what she held.
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