thought, hope wasn’t absolutely dead. After a while, getting no report from us, our company would send another expedition.
Presumably that crew would take less for granted than we had, and avoid shipwreck. In time, a human base might be founded
on this planet. They might eventually learn about us, or deduce the truth after seeing things we’d been forced to make for
the Ai Chun.
Only the downdevils, with Rorn to advise them, wouldhave provided against that somehow. And would probably, after we had gotten their projects organized for them, take time off
to give us a good brainwashing and shape us all into Rorns.
I stumbled. The guard nudged me with a hard thumb.
Rage exploded. I wheeled about, yanked his knife from the sheath, and slashed. The flint blade was keen as any steel. It laid
open the burly arm that grabbed at me. Yellow blood spouted under a yellow flare of lightning.
The guard roared. I broke into a run. He came after me. His webbed feet did not sink in the mud like mine and his strides
were monstrous. He overhauled me and made a snatch. I dodged. His tail swung and knocked me off my feet.
Rain slapped me in the eyes. He towered above me, impossibly huge. I saw him bend to yank me up again. He kept on bending.
His legs buckled. He went down on his belly beside me, trying to staunch the arterial flow with his good hand. His hearts,
necessarily pumping more strongly than mine which had hemoglobin to help, drained him in a few seconds.
The boat crew milled closer. They could have taken me. But they had been bred into peacefulness. I reeled erect and stabbed
the air with the knife I still held. They flinched away. I ran from them.
A glance behind revealed that one dashed off to report. The rest trailed me at a distance. I made inland. Thunder bawled in
my ears. Rain hissed before the wind. My pack dragged me and the breath began to hurt my throat.
The Niao would not leave me. They kept yelping so that when the soldiers had been alerted they could find us. I was no woodsman,
least of all on a strange planet. I belonged out among the clean stars that I’d never see again. There was not one chance
of my shaking pursuit, not even in the thickest part of the woods that now loomed before me.
I glanced down at my stone knife. There was a release. I stuck it in my belt and kept going.
The forest closed about me. My cosmos was leaves, trunks, withes that slapped my face, vines that caught at my ankles, as
I plowed through muck. My eyes were nearly useless here. Swamp rottenness choked my nostrils. I heard some wild animal scream.
It was following me. No … those were Niao voices … they wailed. A lupine baying resounded in answer. I stopped to pant. In
a moment’s astounded clarity I knew that of course the Pack had kept a suspicious watch on us. Beneath every fury and fear,
I must have remembered and hoped—
When the Azkashi surrounded me I could just see them, four who looked saurian in the gloom. Their weapons were free and the
rain hadn’t yet washed off every trace of the butchery they had done.
I summoned my few words of their language and gasped, “We go. Shkil come. Go … ya-Valland.”
“Yes,” said one of them. “Swiftly.”
Their pace was unmerciful. I’ve only the haziest recollection of that trip into the hills. Memory ends with a red sun in a
purple sky, well over the crags and treetops that surround the lairs. Hugh Valland meets me. He’s kept himself and his outfit
clean, but hasn’t depilated in some while. His beard is thick, Sol golden, and he stands taller than a god. “Welcome, skipper!”
his call rings to me. “Come on, let’s get you washed and give you a doss and some chow. Lord, you look like Satan with a hangover.”
I fall into his arms.
I woke on a bed of boughs and skins, within a painted cave. A native female brought me a bowl of soup made from my rations.
She howled out the entrance, and presently Valland came
Presumably that crew would take less for granted than we had, and avoid shipwreck. In time, a human base might be founded
on this planet. They might eventually learn about us, or deduce the truth after seeing things we’d been forced to make for
the Ai Chun.
Only the downdevils, with Rorn to advise them, wouldhave provided against that somehow. And would probably, after we had gotten their projects organized for them, take time off
to give us a good brainwashing and shape us all into Rorns.
I stumbled. The guard nudged me with a hard thumb.
Rage exploded. I wheeled about, yanked his knife from the sheath, and slashed. The flint blade was keen as any steel. It laid
open the burly arm that grabbed at me. Yellow blood spouted under a yellow flare of lightning.
The guard roared. I broke into a run. He came after me. His webbed feet did not sink in the mud like mine and his strides
were monstrous. He overhauled me and made a snatch. I dodged. His tail swung and knocked me off my feet.
Rain slapped me in the eyes. He towered above me, impossibly huge. I saw him bend to yank me up again. He kept on bending.
His legs buckled. He went down on his belly beside me, trying to staunch the arterial flow with his good hand. His hearts,
necessarily pumping more strongly than mine which had hemoglobin to help, drained him in a few seconds.
The boat crew milled closer. They could have taken me. But they had been bred into peacefulness. I reeled erect and stabbed
the air with the knife I still held. They flinched away. I ran from them.
A glance behind revealed that one dashed off to report. The rest trailed me at a distance. I made inland. Thunder bawled in
my ears. Rain hissed before the wind. My pack dragged me and the breath began to hurt my throat.
The Niao would not leave me. They kept yelping so that when the soldiers had been alerted they could find us. I was no woodsman,
least of all on a strange planet. I belonged out among the clean stars that I’d never see again. There was not one chance
of my shaking pursuit, not even in the thickest part of the woods that now loomed before me.
I glanced down at my stone knife. There was a release. I stuck it in my belt and kept going.
The forest closed about me. My cosmos was leaves, trunks, withes that slapped my face, vines that caught at my ankles, as
I plowed through muck. My eyes were nearly useless here. Swamp rottenness choked my nostrils. I heard some wild animal scream.
It was following me. No … those were Niao voices … they wailed. A lupine baying resounded in answer. I stopped to pant. In
a moment’s astounded clarity I knew that of course the Pack had kept a suspicious watch on us. Beneath every fury and fear,
I must have remembered and hoped—
When the Azkashi surrounded me I could just see them, four who looked saurian in the gloom. Their weapons were free and the
rain hadn’t yet washed off every trace of the butchery they had done.
I summoned my few words of their language and gasped, “We go. Shkil come. Go … ya-Valland.”
“Yes,” said one of them. “Swiftly.”
Their pace was unmerciful. I’ve only the haziest recollection of that trip into the hills. Memory ends with a red sun in a
purple sky, well over the crags and treetops that surround the lairs. Hugh Valland meets me. He’s kept himself and his outfit
clean, but hasn’t depilated in some while. His beard is thick, Sol golden, and he stands taller than a god. “Welcome, skipper!”
his call rings to me. “Come on, let’s get you washed and give you a doss and some chow. Lord, you look like Satan with a hangover.”
I fall into his arms.
I woke on a bed of boughs and skins, within a painted cave. A native female brought me a bowl of soup made from my rations.
She howled out the entrance, and presently Valland came
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