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"What happened?" He turned to Vistur for enlightenment. "As a salkar it leaps now and then above the surface. But that is no salkar. Unless, Ross, you who say you are from the sea have servants unlike any finned one we have drawn in by net or line before this day." The dolphins! Could Tino-rau or Taua or both be in steady pursuit of the ships?
Then they broke and ran back to the fairing which they had taken with such contemptuous ease. The salkar plowed along in their wake, but its movements grew more labored the farther it advanced, until at last it lay with only its head upraised, darting it back and forth, its fanged jaws well agape, voicing a coughing howl.
And that sub what had happened to it? The broadcast had been cut off; he had seen the failure of the weapons and the shore lights. Might the sub have suffered from salkar attack? Though Ross could hardly believe that the beasts could wreck it. The Terran was traveling blindly, keeping well under cover of such brush as he could, knowing only that he must head inland.
Now you talk of hunting them in their own territory on land and in the mountains where they have their base. That would be folly akin to swimming barehanded to front a salkar." "So then we must sit and wait for them to eat us up?" flared Ongal. "I say it is better to die fighting with one's blade wet!"
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!
Karara moved a little to his right, Taua between them, the dolphin's super senses their guide and warning. The swiftest of the cruisers had departed, Loketh on board to communicate with Tino-rau in the water. Since the male dolphin was the best equipped to provide a fox for salkar hounds, he was the bait for this weird fishing expedition. "No farther!"
One does not descend into the depths to kick a salkar in the rump; not if one still has his wits safely encased under his skull braid. As for a rogue fleet ... what would turn brother against brother to the extent of slaying children and women? Raiding for a wife, yes, that is common among our youth. And there have been killings over such matters. But not the killing of a woman never of a child!
There was one satisfaction. The Baldies were so intent upon this destruction that they kept no watch save that now and then one of them would run to the head of the path leading to the lagoon and listen as if he expected a salkar to come pounding up the slope. "They're ... they're rattled!" Ross could hardly believe it.
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