'You'll find him,' Ulysses said.
The bat-man waddled off sullenly to eat. Awina said, 'I wonder why we did not think about using him to find The Old Being. We should have done so. But then we are not gods.'
'I wonder why he is so reluctant to do this for me,' Ulysses said. 'There isn't much danger for him, except for miscalculating the time for the fuse to burn. But he was reluctant before he knew anything about the bombs.'
'I do not know,' Awina said slowly, as if she did not want to make any accusations — as yet.
He tried to get her to express any suspicions she might have, but she denied having any. He gave up on her; she could be as evasive as any feline when she chose. But he determined to watch Ghlikh even more closely. However, if Ghlikh did not wish to track down The Old Being, he could just fly away. Or he could just not find the colossus.
Three weeks later, they were in the country of the Alkunquib again. A week before, The Old Being had raided the fields of the most northerly of the Wagarondit. A relay of runners had brought the news to Ulysses, who had roused his force and gotten them to marching northward within an hour. His force consisted of twenty warriors, twenty carriers, Awina and himself. They proceeded at a wolf trot, a hundred paces running and a hundred walking. They ate up the miles from dawn to dusk. Ulysses fell into his sleeping bag every night and rocketed into sleep. He awoke in the morning with every muscle protesting. Not until the fourth day did he wake up without pain. By then he had lost even more weight than on the first expedition. Unlike the smaller, lighter and wiry nonhumans, he could not run all day without extending himself. He was too big and too heavily muscled. But he could not let them see their god poop out, so he kept up the pace.
He had worn out the shoes he was wearing when depetrified and now was wearing moccasins. This made his feet hurt for a long time, but he eventually got used to them.
He estimated that he had lost about twenty pounds since the day he awoke. But the exercise was good for him. He had no fat, and his wind was superb. Still, there wasn't a Wufea, including Awina, who could not run him into blind staggers.
Deep into Alkunquib land, the party stopped one morning when Ghlikh appeared in front of them. He was flying swiftly, skimming above the treetops, and even at a distance his expression told them that he had found The Old Being With The Long Hand.
A moment later he sideslipped into the glade and landed alongside them.
Panting, he said, 'He's up ahead! On the other side of that big hill!'
'What is he doing?' Ulysses said.
'Feeding! Stripping a tree of all its leaves!'
Ulysses had not really expected Ghlikh to locate the beast. But he could have wrongly interpreted the bat- man's reactions. Or, maybe something had caused the bat-man to change his attitude. If so, who or what could have done that?
Ghlikh had some difficulty getting off the ground. The open space was not long enough for him to get a proper run even if he was unburdened. Carrying the five-pound bomb, he had no chance at all. Nor was there any possibility of using a steep hillside as a launching place. Trees covered the hills everywhere.
Ulysses hesitated. He could have Ghlikh carried to a point two miles behind them where there was an area for him to take off. Ghlikh could fly back and rendezvous with them. He did not want to wait around for him but he had to do so if Ghlikh's function was not to be wasted. Besides, he had plenty of time. Why worry about wasting it when he had just put in many millennia with no anxiety whatsoever?
He ordered two Wagarondit to carry Ghlikh between them to the open strip. He then ordered the party to proceed slowly and quietly. Ten of the warriors were ready with their bows and arrows, and the other ten, with the carriers, had prepared their rockets and bombs.
They went up the steep hillside through the huge evergreens that leaned out at a slight angle, and then they crawled on hands and knees over the brow of the hill. Down below was a valley with many trees but with a number of open spaces. About fifty of the trees looked as if winter had struck them. The eater of their leaves was a beast, not a season. He was so huge that Ulysses found trouble crediting his senses.
He stood higher than some of the young trees. He was as grey as any elephant, but he had an enormous white spot on his right shoulder. His long yellow tusks looked so heavy that Ulysses wondered that the beast could raise his head. His trunk, relatively longer than those of the elephants of Ulysses' day, moved sinuously through the trees, plucking off whole branches, dragging them into the enormous mouth and then snaking out again. Even at this distance, the rumblings of his Brobodingnagian belly reached the hunters.
The wind was from the north, so the beast would not be able to smell or hear them, if they were careful. His eyesight might not be as weak as others of the elephantine clan, so Ulysses cautioned them again that they should use every bit of cover they could.
It took the whole party an hour to work down the hillside and among the trees at the bottom of the valley. By then, Ulysses was beginning to worry about Ghlikh. He should have shown up long ago. What could have happened? Maybe some Alkunquib renegades or members of other tribes to the north were scouting around and had killed Ghlikh and his bearers. Maybe. why worry about it? If Ghlikh did not show, there was nothing to be done about it. The attack would proceed without him.
Ulysses motioned to the others to stay where they were, which was mainly behind trees. He took the wooden bazooka into which he had loaded the wooden rocket and crept forward. Behind was Awina, holding a small torch she had just lit. Other torches were being lit from boxes of smouldering punk blown into red heat just before shavings were placed on them. Then the torches were applied to the boxes to catch fire. This was the crucial moment as far as Ulysses was concerned. The smoke, even if downwind, might be smelled by the animal, or his eyes, even if weak, might see the thick black clouds.
The thunderous belly rumblings, the tearing off of branches, the dragging through the mouth and stripping off of leaves, and the crash of branches thrown aside continued. The whale-like grey bulk shifted back and forth in a continual little dance. The trunk worked busily, and all must have seemed at peace in the world of The Old Being With The Long Hand.
A shadow fell on Ulysses. He looked up. The dark winged form of Ghlikh was flapping over him. Ulysses waved at him to veer off to the right. If his shadow fell on the beast, who was probably as skittish as any African elephant, it would panic or at least alert him.
Ghlikh either did not see him or else misinterpreted his gesture. He flew straight ahead toward the animal at an altitude of about fifty feet. He held the bomb clutched to his belly with one hand and the small torch with the other. The thick smoke roiled out behind him as if he were a demon on fire.
Ulysses swore and ran toward The Old Being. On both sides of him the warriors and carriers, forgetting their caution in their excitement and fear, crashed toward the beast. Their childhood had been filled with scary stories of this monster, and some had even seen him at a distance or in action. The fathers of two of them had been smashed beneath those enormous pads. But they would not hang back because they would be thought cowards, and it was better to be dead than disgraced. However, they had become overbold, too competitive, and so they were betraying themselves.
And betraying me, too, Ulysses thought.
It was too late to do anything but attack and hope for the best. If only Ghlikh didn't get buck fever and miscalculate, miss that animal, though how anybody could miss anything so big would be a wonder.
But Ghlikh did. Apparently, he had gone on by and then banked, intending to make his run down-wind to come up from behind the beast. This was not very intelligent. In the first place, he had gone directly over the beast and so cast his shadow on it. But the animal had not noticed. Now, however, the smoke from the torch came to the beast even though Ghlikh was fifty feet up.
The beast stopped tearing at the branches, raised his proboscis, sniffed here and there, and then began to trumpet.
Ghlikh dropped the bomb and then screamed with frustration.
The colossus answered with a scream of his own and a sudden shift from motionlessness into a charge that picked up speed unbelievably fast. The animal may not have seen anything as yet; he may have been just startled and so was running away. blindly. Ulysses, and, suddenly, the rocket seemed very inadequate.
Despite which, he placed the bazooka and its load on his shoulder and yelled at Awina to light the fuse. He could not see her, but she told him calmly what she was doing.
At that moment, Ghlikh's bomb went off about thirty yards behind the grey juggernaut. The Old Being
