'How long will the power hold out?' Barch asked.
'With steady use, perhaps a month or two.'
'And how high can you walk?'
'Two or three hundred feet. Higher, if I take care.'
'Suppose you walk up fifty feet, and tell me what you see.'
Swaying and stepping as if walking on stilts, she rose into the air. The wind caught her, carried her drifting down the valley.
Barch scrambled over the rocks to keep abreast. 'What do you see?'
'Rocks, more black trees, a lake.'
'No smoke? No buildings?'
'Nothing.' She came back down in great sliding steps. 'Do you dunk we'll find anything to eat?'
'Of course,' Barch said confidently. 'Down by the lake, perhaps.'
A few minutes later the valley widened. Before them spread the lake, roughly circular, surrounded first by a rim of marsh, then a strip of open slope overgrown with thorny bush. Each bush terminated in a tight green sac, like a greengage. Barch picked one, split it, smelled of the pulp. 'Rather like lemon verbena, or bay turn.'
Komeitk Lelianr said in practical tones. 'It's likely to be poisonous.'
Barch smelled again, doubtfully. 'One can't hurt me too much…'
'It might make you sick.'
'Then we'll know it's poison; there's nothing like the empirical method.' He bit into the sac, chewed thoughtfully. 'It doesn't taste very good.'
'Look,' said Komeitk Lelianr. 'There's that flying thing again.'
Barch dropped the thorn-berry, watched the owl-headed, bat-winged, heron-legged creature slide to an awkward landing along the shore of the lake.
'If we can catch him,' said Barch, 'we'll have roast owl.' He bent, picked up a rock, moved cautiously forward.
The owl-bat-heron waded out into the lake-stopped short, one leg high in the air. The leg jerked forward, jerked back up; a black shape twisted through the air, fell into the thorny thicket.
'That looks like a fish,' exclaimed Barch. The bird stalked toward his catch. Barch ran forward, waving his arms. 'No you don't.' Gingerly he picked the black fish out of the thorns, while the owl-bat-heron scuttled back into the water. Komeitk Lelianr watched with distaste.
Barch tossed her his cigarette lighter. 'You build a fire, I'll clean this thing.'
He set it on a flat rock beside the river, sawed off head and tail with a sharp flake of stone. Gritting his teeth, he split open the soft belly, pulled, scraped, washed, and eventually had two strips of leathery white flesh.
Komeitk had started a fire by the edge of the forest; Barch secured a pair of green twigs, carefully roasted the fish for them.
'There,' he said, 'that smells pretty good.' He laid the fish on a rock, licked his fingers. 'It even tastes good.'
Komeitk Lelianr ate without comment.
'It's not too filling,' said Barch, 'but we won't starve today.' He looked back to the green thorn-berries. 'They didn't taste good-but I don't feel any pangs yet.' He covered over the fire. 'Now we'd better explore.'
A distant explosion jarred the air. Echoes rumbled away down the valley. 'What's that?'
Komeitk Lelianr stood listening. 'Probably there's a stone quarry somewhere over a mountain.'
Barch anxiously scanned the mountainside. 'We've got to explore, find out where the nearest settlement is, if there is one.'
'And then what?'
'We'll know more when we see how the land lies. If we could steal one of those barges somehow we might…' His voice trailed off into silence. He caught Komeitk Lelianr, pulled her down behind a thorn-bush. 'Quiet!'
Across the lake three men stood like pillars of gray rock.
'They've seen us,' whispered Komeitk Lelianr.
'I don't think so. I saw them come out of the forest.'
'If they come around this way, they'll see us.'
'They're coming.' Barch took round heavy stones in each hand, waited tensely for them.
CHAPTER V
Two of the men were dark-skinned, with faces thin and foxlike; the third was lemon-yellow, with a flat round face, orange eyebrows tufted like horns. They moved with a soft stealthy tread that suggested the wariness of deer.
'They've got bows and arrows,' muttered Barch. 'They can't be either slaves or keepers.'
'Perhaps they're fugitives too,' said Komeitk Lelianr.
The men drew closer, the sound of their voices came across the marsh. Through the thorns Barch could see every detail of their faces, their clothes. Twenty yards away they stopped short, turned to look down the valley.
Faint in the distance came a sound like a bugle call, then another from a different direction, then another, startlingly close. The three men hissed in sudden fright, bounded off up the hillside, disappeared under the blanket of black fronds.
Barch uneasily rose to his feet, looked across the lake.
'Whatever it is, it's certainly not good. We'd better leave too.'
Komeitk Lelianr seized his ankle. 'Get down,' she whispered, 'Podruods!'
Barch dropped flat on his face. Out of the forest sprang a lithe red figure. He stood poised, raised his spiked head, called; bugle tones rang across the lake.
He waited. Answering calls like hunting horns returned from the distance.
The Podruod stood like a statue; Barch and Komeitk Lelianr hugged the marshy ground.
There was a crashing of branches, thudding of hasty feet. A fat man with a conical tuft of pink hair stumbled into the clearing. He saw the Podruod, froze like a bird. The Podruod watched him without moving a muscle. The fat man cautiously started to slip around the lake. The Podruod made a leap forward, halted. Barch thought of a cat with a mouse.
The Podruod once more raised his head, again the brass voice rang out. Behind the fat man two more Podruods jumped into the clearing. The fat man ran frantically, panting and groaning.
A shadow passed over Barch's head; he looked up with a convulsive jerk that hurt his neck. It was a raft ten feet long, four feet wide, carrying a Klau. If the Klau had looked down he might have seen Barch and Komeitk Lelianr, but his eyes were on the fat man.
Under the raft hung a dark mass, like a bundle of clothes; as the raft slid forward it unfolded, lowered arms like lengths of black hose. They coiled around the fugitive's chest, his legs, his ankles. He stumbled, fell into the thorn-bushes where he lay kicking, thrashing, screaming like a horse.
The raft moved slowly on, dragged him through the bushes, across the mud, into the lake. He sank out of sight. The surface of the lake rippled and boiled. The raft rose; the fat man now hung limp. He was covered with round brown cups. One by one they dropped away, splashed back into the lake. Barch recognized the stinger- mollusks which had jarred his arm. He squeezed himself even flatter into the ground.
The black arms contracted, the fat man was hoisted up; a black mantle dropped in limp folds around him, pinched in at the bottom, became a tight bag.
The raft rose, slid quietly down the valley. Barch turned to look for the Podruods. They had vanished.
He lay flaccid for a moment, then nudged Komeitk Lelianr. In a husky whisper he said, 'Let's run for the trees.'
They hurriedly climbed the hill. Long red-veined black fronds fell around them like weeping willows. They could not see, they could not be seen. On the heavy humus their feet made no sound. Every moment or so Barch stopped to listen. Silence.
