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As yet he had found no indication that anything above the intelligence level of the split horns was native to this world. But he was gnawed by the certainty that there was something here, waiting.... And the desire to learn what it was became an ever-burning ache. Perhaps he was what Deklay had accused him of being, one who had come to follow the road of the Pinda-lick-o-yi too closely.
"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.
They do not kill; they enslave. And when they discover that we live, then they will come against us " Deklay's lips moved in a wolf grin. "This is a large land, and we know how to use it. The Pinda-lick-o-yi will not find us " "With their eyes maybe not," Travis replied. "With their machines that is another matter." "Machines!" Deklay spat.
The knowledge of the Pinda-lick-o-yi is greater than ours when it deals with metal and wire and things which can be made with both. Machines brought us along the road of the stars, and there is no tracker in the clan who could hope to do the same. But now I have this to ask: Does our brother have a plan?" "Those who are Reds," Travis answered slowly, "they do not number many.
"This Red seems to think that he shall find those he seeks sitting waiting for him, as if their feet were nipped tight in a trap," Tsoay remarked. "It is the habit of the Pinda-lick-o-yi," Lupe added, "to believe they are greater than all others. Yet this one is a stupid fool walking into the arms of a she-bear with a cub." He chuckled.
There was the urge to invade the towers, to discover their secret, and flaring higher and higher the beginnings of a new fear. Was he now a battlefield for the superstitions of his race reborn by the Redax and his modern education in the Pinda-lick-o-yi world half Apache brave of the past, half modern archaeologist with a thirst for knowledge?
Alike, too, was a certain drawn look in their faces, a tenseness of the eyes and mouth as they listened to Travis. "So we must be on Topaz. Do any of you remember boarding the ship?" "No. Only that we awoke within it." Across the fire one chin lifted; the eyes which caught Travis' held a deep, smoldering anger. "This is more trickery of the Pinda-lick-o-yi, the White Eyes.
Now we stand at many places, as if we climbed a stairway, each at his own speed a stairway the Pinda-lick-o-yi has set us upon. Some here, some there, some yet farther above...." He sketched a series of step outlines in the air. "And in this there is trouble " "The truth," Travis agreed. "Yet it is also true that I knew nothing of this, that I climb with you on these stairs." "So I believe.
If we have warning, we can hold our own country! As the Pinda-lick-o-yi have discovered before." "Bows and arrows against guns and machines?" Travis inquired bitingly. "We must know more before we make any warrior boasts for the future. Tell Buck what we have discovered. Also say I will join you before," Travis calculated "ten suns.
Knife dueling among the Pinda-lick-o-yi, Travis remembered, had once been an art close to finished swordplay, with two evenly matched fighters able to engage for a long time without seriously marking each other. But this was a far rougher and more deadly game, with none of the niceties of such a meeting. He evaded a vicious thrust from Deklay. "The bull charges," he laughed. "And the Fox snaps!"
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