Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 22, 2025
"We'll need shelter before the storm strikes." To Shann's relief the other nodded. They trailed back across the beach, their backs now to the sea and Utgard. That harsh-sounding name did so well fit the line of islands and islets, Shann repeated it to himself. Here the beach was narrow, a strip of blue sand-gravel walled by wave-worn boulders.
With one hand he gripped the edge of that collar its serrations tearing his flesh and at the same time he drove his knife blade deep into the soft underfolds, ripping on toward the spinal column. The blade nicked against bone as the fork-tail's head slammed back, catching Shann's hand and knife together in a trap.
Which meant, Shann's thoughts began to make sense sense which brought apprehension the Throgs probably intended to disable rather than kill. They wanted prisoners, just as Thorvald had warned. How long did the Terrans have before the aliens would come to collect them? There was no fit landing place hereabouts for their flyer.
Taggi gave a last reluctant growl at the hound, to be answered by one of its ear-torturing howls, and then trotted off, Togi tagging behind. Thorvald caught Shann's slashed hand, inspecting the bleeding cut. From the aid packet at his belt he brought out powder and a strip of protecting plasta-flesh to cleanse and bind the wound. "You'll do," he commented.
The Throg with the translator was holding the other head set close to his own ear pit. And the claws of the guard came down on Shann's shoulders in a cruel grip, a threat of future brutality. The rattle of code continued while Shann thought furiously. This was it! He had to give a warning, and then the aliens would do to him just what the officer had threatened.
And the alien did not move at Shann's coming. Did the beetle-head sight him? Shann wondered. He moved cautiously. And the round head, with its bulbous eyes, turned a fraction; the mandibles about the the ugly mouth opening quivered. Yes, the Throg could see him. But still the alien made no move to rise out of his crouch, to come at the Terran.
He had appeared to know right from their first meeting just how to make Shann's life a misery. Now, in this slit of valley well away from the domes, Shann's fists balled. He pounded them against the earth in a way he had so often hoped to plant them on Garth's smoothly handsome face, his well-muscled body.
Well, the Survey officer had made it very plain during the past five days of what Shann had come to look upon as an uneasy partnership that he considered himself far abler to manage in the field, while he had grave doubts of Shann's efficiency in the direction of survival potential. The Terran started along the pattern of retreat he had laid out to the river bed.
He sniffed at a dollop of blood, the dark, alien blood, spattered on Shann's breeches, and then his head came up with a reassuring alertness as he looked to where his mate was still worrying the now quiet fork-tail. With an effort, Taggi got to his feet, Shann aiding him. The man ran his hand down over ribs, seeking any broken bones.
"Skull?" he repeated, a little absently, as he so often did in answer to Shann's questions unless they dealt with some currently important matter. "A queer sort of skull," Shann said. Just as vividly as when he had first awakened, he could picture that skull mountain with the flying things about its eye sockets.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking