Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 29, 2025
Do you then rate this other one as less than your own breed that you think him incapable of the same action?" "Of Throgs I know as much as this...." He held up his hand, measuring off a fraction of space between thumb and forefinger. "Yet you knew them before you came to this world." "My people have known them for long. We have met and fought many times among the stars."
Now he followed an experiment of his own, one he had had a chance to try only a few times before and never at length. Pressing his palm flat on Taggi's head, Shann thought of Throgs and of their attack, trying to arouse in the animal a corresponding reaction to his own horror and anger. And Taggi responded.
Running at the ungainly lope which was their best effort at speed were half a dozen Throgs emerging from the river section. Their attitude suggested panic-stricken flight, and when one tripped on some unseen obstruction and went down to fall beneath a descending tongue of phosphorescence he uttered a strange high-pitched squeal, thin and faint, but still a note of complete, mindless terror.
He ran a dry tongue over dryer lips and gazed eagerly ahead in search of the first of the beaches. What was so important about this island that Thorvald had to make a landing here? The officer's stories of a native race which they might turn against the Throgs to their own advantage was thin, very thin indeed.
His memories of how he had come into this place were vague; his body was a mass of dull pain, as if he had been scorched. Scorched! Had the Throgs used one of their energy whips to subdue him? The last clear thing he could recall was that slow withdrawal down the cleft inside the skull rock, the Throg not too far away the sound from the entrance. A Throg prisoner!
Throgs were mute, or at least none of them had ever uttered a vocal sound to be reported by Terrans. This one did not cry out. But he staggered forward, forelimbs up, clawed digits pulling at the wooden pin transfixing his throat just under the mandible-equipped jaw, holding his head at an unnatural angle.
But as moments passed and the Throg did not move in to make an easy kill, Shann collected his wits. Only one shot! Was the beetle injured, unable to make sure of even an almost defenseless prey? The Throgs seldom took prisoners. When they did.... The Terran's lips tightened. He worked his hand under his prone body, feeling for the hilt of his knife.
But to swing over that narrow edge of safety and begin a descent into the black of the well was far harder than any action he had taken since the morning the Throgs had raided the camp. The green mist could hold no terrors greater than those with which his imagination peopled the depths now waiting to engulf him. But Shann swung over, fitted his boot into the first hollow, and started down.
Shann countered defensively. "It's regulation," Thorvald agreed. He set down his stones in a row and then tossed the supply bag over to his companion. "Too late to hunt tonight. But well have to go easy on those rations until we can get more." "Where?" Did Thorvald know of some supply cache they could raid? "From the Throgs," the other answered matter of factly.
After that it would take more than just one patrol cruiser to clear Warlock; it will require a fleet. So the Throgs will have another world to play with, and an important one. This lies on a direct line between the Odin and Kulkulkan systems. A Throg base on such a trade route could eventually cut us right out of this quarter of the galaxy."
Word Of The Day
Others Looking