“And if you do not find him soon?”
Ross hesitated. She had not said the rest. What if he could not find Gordon at all? But he would—he had to!
“I’ll be back here”—he checked his watch, no longer an accurate timekeeper, for Hawaikan days held an hour more than the Terran twenty-four, but the settlers kept the off-world measurement to check on work periods—“in, say, two hours. You should know by then about the gate, and I’ll have some idea of the situation along the shore. But listen—” Ross caught her shoulders in a taut grip, pulled her around to face him, his eyes hot and almost angry as they held hers, “don’t let yourself be seen—” He repeated the cardinal rule of Agents in new territory. “We don’t dare risk discovery.”
Karara nodded and he could see that she understood, was aware of the importance of that warning. “Do you want Tino-rau or Taua?”
“No, I’m going to search along the shore first. Ashe would have tried for that last night … was probably driven in the way we were. He’d go to ground somewhere. And I have this—” Ross touched the sonic on his belt. “I’ll set it on his call; you do the same with yours. Then if we get within distance, he’ll pick us up. Back here in two hours—”
“Yes.” Karara kicked free of the weed, was already wading down to where the dolphins circled in the cave pool waiting for her. Ross followed, and the four swam for the open sea.
It could not be much after dawn, Ross thought, as he clung by one hand to a rock and watched Karara and the dolphins on their way. Then he paddled along the shore northward for his own survey of the coast. There was a rose cast in the sky, warming the silver along the far reaches of the horizon. And about him bobbed storm flotsam, so that he had to pick a careful way through floating debris.
On the reef one of the wrecked ships had vanished entirely. Perhaps it had been battered to death by the waves, ground to splinters against the rocks. The other still held, its prow well out of the now receding waves, jagged holes in its sides through which spurts of water cascaded now and then.
The wreck which had been driven landward was composed of planks, boxes, and containers rolled by the waves’ force. Much of this was already free of the sea, and on the beach figures moved examining it. In spite of the danger of chance discovery, Ross edged along rocks, seeking a vantage point from which he could watch that activity.
He was flat against a seagirt boulder, a swell of floating weed draped about him, when the nearest of the foraging parties moved into good view.
Men … at least they had the outward appearance of men much like himself, though their skin was dark and their limbs appeared disproportionately long and thin. There were two groups of them, four wearing only a scanty loincloth, busy turning over and hunting through the debris under the direction of the other two.
The workers had thick growths of hair which not only covered their heads, but down their spines and the outer sides of their thin arms and legs to elbow and knee. The hair was a pallid yellow-white in vivid contrast to their dark skins, and their chins protruded sharply, allowing the lower line of their faces to take on a vaguely disturbing likeness to an animal’s muzzle.
Their overseers were more fully clothed, wearing not only helmets on their heads, whose helms had a protective visor over the face, but also breast- and backplates molded to their bodies. Ross thought that these could not be solid metal since they adapted to the movements of the wearers.
Feet and legs were covered with casing combinations of shoe and leggings, colored dull red. They were armed with swords of an odd pattern; their points curved up so that the blade resembled a fishhook. Unsheathed, the blades were clipped to a waist belt by catches which glittered in the weak morning light as if gem set.
Ross could see little of their faces, for the beak visors overhung their features. But their skins were as dusky as those of the laborers, and their arms and legs of the same unusual length … men of the same race, he deduced.
Under the orders of the armed overseers the laborers were reducing the beach to order, sorting out the flotsam into two piles. Once they gathered about a find, and the sound of excited speech reached Ross as an agitated clicking. The armored men came up, surveyed the discovery. One of them shrugged, and clicked an order.
Ross caught only a half glimpse of the thing two of the workers dragged away. A body! Ashe. … The Terran was about to move closer when he saw the green cloak dragging about the corpse. No, not Gordon, just another victim from the wrecks.
The aliens were working their way toward Ross, and perhaps it was time for him to go. He was pushing aside his well-arranged curtain of weed when he was startled by a shout. For a second he thought he might have been sighted, until resulting action on shore told him otherwise.
The furred workers shrank back against the mound to which they had just dragged the body. While the two guards took up a position before them, curved swords, snapped from their belt hooks, ready in their hands. Again that shout. Was it a warning or a threat? With the language barrier Ross could only wait to see.
Another party approached along the beach from the south. In the lead was a cloaked and hooded figure, so muffled in its covering of silver-gray that Ross had no idea of the form
