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Updated: June 29, 2025
"If a cruiser berths here shortly, I don't propose to be under its tail flames when it sets down." The cruiser came. And a mop-up squad patrolled outward from the reclaimed camp, picked up two living Throgs, both wandering witlessly. But Shann only heard of that later. He slept, so deep and dreamlessly that when he roused he was momentarily dazed.
To descend again to the river, their raft gone, was worse than useless. There was only this side pocket in which they sheltered. And once the Throgs arrived, they could scoop the Terrans out at their leisure, perhaps while stunned by a controlling energy beam. "Taggi? Togi?" Shann was suddenly aware that he had not heard the wolverines for some time.
Did the Throgs unconsciously dampen out that mental reaching as the Wyverns had said they did when they had sent him to free the captive in the skull? Drops gathered in the unkempt tight curls on his head, trickled down to sting on his tender skin.
The current carried them along, but there was a need for those lengths of sapling to fend them free from rocks and water-buried snags. "What hound?" the younger man demanded more sharply when there came no immediate answer. "The Throgs' tracker. But why did they import one?" Thorvald's puzzlement was plain in his tone.
And their hidden temporary bases were looped about the galaxy, their need for worlds with an atmosphere similar to Terra's as necessary as that of man. For in spite of their grotesque insectile bodies, their wholly alien minds, the Throgs were warm-blooded, oxygen-breathing creatures.
And why had it been necessary for him to risk his life perhaps more than his life if their theory was correct concerning the Throgs' wish to capture a Terran to get that set of maps from the plundered camp? When he had first talked of that raid, his promised loot had been supplies to fill their daily needs; there had been no mention of maps. By all signs Thorvald was engaged on some mission.
But certainly others were non-Throg in outline. And the Terran was sure that at least three of those shapes, all different, had been in pursuit of one fleeing Throg, heading him off from that small open area still holding about Shann. For the Throgs were being herded in from all sides the handful who had come from the river, the others who had brought Shann there.
If we can reach the rough country bordering the sea, we'll have won the first round. I don't believe that the Throgs will be in a hurry to track us in there. They'll try two alternatives to chasing us on foot. One, use their energy beams to rake any suspect valley, and since there are hundreds of valleys all pretty much alike, that will take some time.
You must have seen their metal plates those are the beetle-heads' idea of beauty. Have those the slightest resemblance to this?" "Then who made it?" "Either Warlock has or once had a native race advanced enough in a well-established form of civilization to develop such a sophisticated type of art, or there have been other visitors from space here before us and the Throgs.
He drew his hands across his ribs, where pressure still brought an aching reminder of the crushing force of the energy whip the Throgs had wielded. There was no extra flesh on his body, yet muscles slid easily under the skin, a darker skin than Thorvald's, deepening to a warm brown where it had been weathered.
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