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"Yes, my beautiful one, my treasure, yes!" The huge head swivelled to look at the
others, and the Kirgon's bright glowing face streamed prism colors as he laughed.
"Yes, Wind-speeder, my treasure, these are mine, so you must be careful not to hurt
them. They are useful to us for the moment." The blank glowing eyes moved
toward them, to be sure they got the point. He laughed again and stroked the
whiplash body with his hands.
Why, he loves that thing! And the thing loves him! Dane thought in amazement.
"This is my friend," the Kirgon said, "my only friend. He does whatever I want.
Shall I have him kiss you, Sh'fejj?"
A white blur; and the creature stood in front of Dravash, staring directly into his
face, the great jaws almost but not quite closed. "Or you, swordsman?"
And Dane was looking into a red cavern, where white spikes were set in rows like
chairs in a theatre.
"Or your female, or the slave pardon me, the native " Rianna managed to stand
her ground as the thing faced her, but Joda tottered back and tried to raise his
spear. The slave-hound had to raise its head but only a little to sniff at Aratak;
then it was back at its master's side. The Kirgon's hands toyed with the white ruff
around its neck.
"He thinks as I think. His mind is mine. He kills when I want to kill and spares
whom I wish to spare. He and I are one, in a way none of you deadskins can ever
understand. He tells me things. He has told me now, for instance, that there is a
pack of the blue-robed natives following you, and another following me. Do you not
think it is time we left this place?"
They stared at him, without answering.
"Come," he said arrogantly, and pointed west, and a little north, "There are some
excellent hiding places there; I have had a long time to learn the best of them. Or
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will that take you too far from your rendezvous point? If you prefer another
direction "
"This will do," Dravash said, "Let us go."
The Kirgon patted the dazzling white neck and the slave-
hound darted off into the jungle in quite another direction, while the Kirgon took
the northwesterly path he had indicated.
"What of your friend?" Aratak asked.
The Kirgon's mother-of-pearl lips writhed to show perfectly ordinary teeth.
Somehow Dane had believed they would be fangs.
"Windspeeder will make it certain we are not followed," he said.
Ahead of them a game trail opened in the jungle wall. The bright figure leading
them plunged into its shade. Instantly the glow of his skin was extinguished; a
grayish tint washed over the smooth mother-of-pearl hue. The Kirgon seemed to
hesitate, blinking.
Dane thought: if Belsar is such a dim star to him, if he can look straight into it without
blinking . . . then this must be pretty dark to him.
So he knows one of our weaknesses . . . but we know one of his. I'd make a guess that
he's as near to blind, in here, as makes no difference, and he's able to lead us without
stumbling because he knows the way.
Of course, he's got that Thing to help him. Windspeeder, or whatever he calls that
monster.
They followed into the darkness of the forest. Dane could find his way fairly well,
after his eyes adjusted to the dim light filtering down through the trees, but the
Kirgon was only a dim, blurred grayish figure. At any other time Dane would have
been fascinated, trying to figure out how the curious metabolism of the alien reacted
to light, so that in the sun he glowed like reflecting glass and in the darkness, the
brilliance of his skin was all put out.
Strange adaptation, you'd think he would glow in the dark, or something. Like
Aratak ... of course, it's not dark enough here for Aratak to start glowing, even
around his gills.
Aratak was bringing up the rear, on the alert for prowling rashas. Dravash was at
the front of their party, immediately after the Kirgon.
The Kirgon. Dane realized they still thought of him as the Kirgon. Strange, he
thought. He must have a name, and whatever the Kirgon equivalent might be of a rank
and serial number. He must have lost companions and perhaps friends and family; if
not he has a family somewhere. He's a moderately ordinary member, 1 suppose,
though of a very strange
race. He can't even be an outstanding member of it he's the one who ran away and
hid, instead of fighting. Yet he didn't tell us his name and we didn't ask. He didn't ask
our names, either.
We know the slave-hound's name, but not his.
He called Dravash "Sh'fejj." He probably addresses all members of lesser races as
"slave" anyhow. No what he called us was "subhuman deadskins."
But why didn't we ask his name? Not even Dravash asked.
Dane wondered; was it perhaps an attempt to keep the Kirgon from becoming a
person, an individual in their minds? Did he want to think of him as simply the
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alien the enemy?
Behind them a man shrieked, a horrible scream of agony and terror. Other voices
were shouting in the distance.
The Kirgon turned and his teeth flashed pale in his darkened face.
"They will not follow quickly," he said.
Dane thought of Master Rhomda, and all he had heard, little snippets, in this
culture, about the Anka'an Spearmen. He remembered the Spearman's courteous
unwillingness to kill Aratak, a courtesy they had returned by leaving him his spear.
Suddenly Dane felt sick. What was he doing here, running with this this slave-
catcher, this pirate, this invader, who smiled while that ghastly monster of his tore
apart a group of good, decent men who thought they were trying to protect their
homes from demons? And, having seen the slave-hound, who could blame them? It
wasn't fair, he was on the wrong side, he'd take Rhomda's side any time, if he was
given a choice....
He hadn't been. He had no choice.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Light glowed through the leaves ahead of them, the end of the leaf-floored tunnel,
lighted by Belsar's declining beams. They hurried on. Behind them, but at a
considerable distance from the previous screams and shouts, came shouts, a terrible
hoarse dying yell. The Kirgon laughed.
"Windspeeder," he said, "he has struck the other group; he will go from one to the
other, keeping them both busy and off our trail. He will kill a man each time he
strikes!"
His eyes looked different; in the dimness there now seemed to be a moving pupil, not
that disturbing blankness. Evidently his eyes, too, adjusted with the light.
Like built-in sunglasses, Dane thought. The Kirgon stepped into the light, and his [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]