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Maybe someday we can learn another trick how to live with them." He returned abruptly to the present. "You did contact the transport?" Shann explained what had happened in the com dome. "I think when the ship broke contact that way they understood." "We'll take it that they did, and be on the move." Thorvald helped Shann to his feet.
Thorvald strode into the open, sighted Shann, and began to run. "What did they ?" he began. Shann wanted to laugh, but the sound which issued from his dry throat was very little like mirth. He struggled helplessly until he managed to get out some words which made sense. "... hadn't started in on me yet. You were just in time."
At that time I think my father, Thorvald, was away from home with most of the men, I do not know why; but Ragnar, Steinar and I were lingering about the stead with little or nothing to do, since the time of sowing was not yet. At the news of the club-footed man, we ran for our spears, and one of us went to tell the only thrall who could be spared to make ready the horses and come with us.
There is always this advantage those hounds cannot be controlled from a flyer, and the beetle-heads never take kindly to foot slogging. So we won't have to expect any speedy chase. If it slips its masters in rough country, we can try to ambush it." In the dim light Thorvald was frowning. "I flew over the territory ahead on two sweeps, and it is a queer mixture.
Grettir rode thence to the Ridge in Waterdale, and Thorvald received him well, and asked closely about the struggle with Glam. Grettir told him all, and said thereto that he had never had such a trial of strength, so long was their struggle. Thorvald bade him keep quiet, "Then all will go well with thee, else wilt thou be a man of many troubles."
But an object not listed in the exhaustive Survey Archives would mean some totally new civilization, a new stellar race. "It is definitely a created article," the Survey officer continued. "And it was found on the beach of one of those sea islands." "Throg?" But Shann already knew the answer to that. "Throg work this?" Thorvald was openly scornful. "Throgs have no conception of such art.
Only that did not drown out another cry, a thin cry, diluted by the miles of land stretching behind them, but yet carrying that long ululating howl they had heard in the Throg camp. Thorvald grinned mirthlessly. "The hound's on trail." He bent to the pole, using it to aid the pace of the current.
Quartering the pocket valley, galloped the wolverines, expressing in that wild activity their delight in this freedom. "Good campsite." Thorvald shook his head. "We can't stay here." And, to underline that gloomy prophesy, there issued from that hole through which they had just come, muffled and broken, but still threatening, the howl of the Throgs' hound.
So all the folk of that land met together at my bidding yes, even the women and the children. First we laid the dead in the largest of Athalbrand's ships, his people and Athalbrand himself being set undermost. Then on them we set the dead of Thorvald, Thorvald, my father, and his son Ragnar, my brother, bound to the mast upon their feet.
Only under his stiff body Shann could still feel that vibration which was the sea battering against the cliff wall. Thorvald was crouched beside him, his hand still urgent on the younger man's shoulder. The officer's face was drawn so finely that his features, sharp under the tanned skin, were akin to the skull Shann still half saw among the ascending pillars of fog. "Storm's over."
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