United States or Eritrea ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
All the knowledge of a Guild Out-Hunter, added to the information gathered by the survey, would be used to provide Rynch Brodie with the training necessary for wilderness survival. Hume was already listing the items to be included as he strode down the street, his tread once more assured. His head ached dully, of that he was conscious first.
He continued to keep them whirling by means of waving hand and arm, but there was enough light to show Rynch the fingers of his other hand, busy on the front panel of the box he wore. That fingering stopped, then Rynch's head came up as he heard a very faint sound. Not a beast's cry or was it? Again those fingers moved on the panel. Was the other sending a message by that means?
He bit down hard on the knuckles of his clenched fist, attempting to bend that discovery into evidence. Why did he know at once that that thin, eerie wailing was the flock call of a leather-winged, feathered tree dweller, and that a coughing grunt from downstream was just a noise? "Rynch Brodie Largo Drift Tait." He tasted the blood his teeth drew from his own skin as he recited that formula.
In spite of his desire to be rid of Hume, Rynch found himself answering that in detail, discovering that on demand he could recall minutely the description of the animal hiding in the tree, the one who had waited in the shelter, and those he had glimpsed drawing in about the L-B clearing. "No intelligence." Hume turned his head to survey the distant wood. "The verifier reported no intelligence."
In spite of his caution Rynch was close to betrayal as he edged around a clump of vegetation growing half in, half out of the stream. Only a timely rustle told him that the other had sat down on a drift log. Waiting for him? Rynch froze, so startled that he could not think clearly for a second. Then he noted that the outline of the other's body was visible, growing brighter by the moment.
But that tall man the one who had led the party into the irregular clearing about the life boat Rynch shivered, dug his nails into the wood on which he lay. At the sight of that man, dream and reality had crashed together, sending him into panic-stricken flight. That was the man from the room the man with the cup! As his heart quieted he began to think more coherently.
The sum was fantastic, the whole story unbelievable. There was a hot stab of pain on his instep. Rynch cried out, stamped hard. One of the clawed scavengers was crushed. The man leaped back in time to avoid another step into a swarming mass of them at work on some unidentifiable carrion. Staring down at the welter of scaled, segmented bodies and busy claws, he gasped.
"And you, Out-Hunter," Wass' reptilian regard had moved again to Hume, "perhaps you have an adequate explanation for this discovery." "None of his doing," he burst out, "I remembered " Some inexplicable emotion made Rynch defend Hume then. Hume laughed, and there was a reckless edge to that sound. "Yes, Wass, your techs are not as good as they pretend to be.
The man nodded. "As you wish, Brodie." "Brodie?" Rynch squatted on his heels. Those gray eyes, so light in the other's deeply tanned face, narrowed the smallest fraction, Rynch noted with an inner surge of triumph. "Were you looking for me?" he added. "Yes." "Why?" "We found an L-B we wondered if there were survivors." Slowly Rynch shook his head. "No you knew I was here. Because you brought me!"
The box struck one of the dead water-cats, flashed as fur and flesh were singed. Rynch watched dispassionately before he caught the needler, jerking it away from the prisoner. The man eyed him steadily, and his expression did not alter even when Rynch swung the off-world weapon to center its sights on the late owner. "Suppose," Rynch's voice was rusty sounding in his own ears, "we talk now."
Word Of The Day