Moki cursed as the tiny torpedo failed to detonate.
# Teeth, teeth are — are -
Better, better than -
# Things! #
He swung his jaw left and right. He had abandoned the sled's sensors, and was controlling the machine purely by habit.
Where was the smart-aleck! Let him come out and get it over with!
Moki was tired and cranky and unutterably bored. He had never imagined that being a Great Bull could be so tedious. Moki wanted the hot, almost orgasmic rage back. He tried to call up the bloodlust again, but kept thinking about killing fish, not dolphins.
If only he could emulate the savagery he had heard in K'tha-Jon's hunt-cry! Moki no longer hated the frightening bosun. He had begun to think of the giant as a spirit creature of pure and evil nature. He would kill this smart-aleck Tursiops and bring its head to K'tha-Jon as proof of his worthiness as a disciple. Then he, too, would become elemental, a terror that none would ever dare thwart.
Moki brought the machine about in a circle, keeping close to the seafloor to take advantage of shadows of sound. The Tursiops had turned left at high speed. His turn had to be wider than Moki's, so all Moki had to do was hunt in the correct arc.
Moki had been on guard duty when this chase began, so his sled had torpedoes. He was sure the smartass didn't have any. He whistled in eager anticipation of an end to the tedious chase.
A sound! He turned so quickly he banged his snout against the plastic bubble-dome. Moki gunned the sled forward, readying another torpedo. This one would finish his enemy off.
A sheer drop opened into a broad ocean canyon. Moki took ballast and fell, hugging the wall. He throttled back and stopped.
Minutes passed as the sound of muffled engines grew louder from his left. The oncoming sled was staying close to the cliff face, at a greater depth.
Suddenly, it was below him! Moki chose not to fire right away. This was too easy! Let the smart-aleck hear death suddenly fall upon him from behind, too close to evade. Let him writhe in panic before Moki's torpedo tore his body into pieces!
His sled growled, then dropped in pursuit. His victim could never turn in time! Moki crowed,
# A herd bull is! -is!
# A Great Bull… #
Moki interrupted his chant. Why wasn't the smart-aleck fleeing?
He had been relying entirely upon sound. Only now did he turn his eye on his intended victim.
The other sled was empty! It drove along slowly, unpiloted. But then where… ?
* Hunting ears
Can make a bull -
*But eyes
And brains
Make spacefen — *
The voice was above him! Moki cried out, trying to turn the sled and fire a torpedo at the same time. With a despairing wail the engines screamed and then died. His neural link went dead just as he came about into sight of a sleek, gray Tursiops dolphin, two meters above him, white teeth shining in the light from the surface.
* And fools
Make only
Corpses — *
Moki screamed as the cutting torch on the pilot's harness exploded into laser-blue brilliance.
68 ::: Tom Orley
Where did they all come from?
Tom Orley hid behind a low weed mound and looked about at the various alien parties on the horizon. He counted at least three groups, all converging from different directions on the floating eggshell-shaped wreck.
About a mile behind him, the volcano still rumbled. He had left the crashed Thennanin scoutship at dawn, leaving a pan of precious fresh water under the dying pilot's mouth, within reach if he should ever awaken.
He had set out soon after sighting the party of Tandu, testing his newly woven 'weed-shoes' on the uneven slimy surface. The splayed, snowshoe-like devices helped him walk cautiously across the slick carpet of vines.
At first he moved much faster than the others. But soon the Tandu developed a new technique. They stopped floundering in the mire, and came on at a brisk walk. Tom kept low and worried about what would happen if they caught sight of him.
And now there were other parties as well, one approaching from the southwest and one from the west. He couldn't make them out clearly yet, just dots bobbing slowly and with difficulty on a low, serrated horizon. But where the hell had they all come from
The Tandu were closest. There were at least eight or nine of them, approaching in a column. Each creature splayed its six spindly legs wide apart to spread its weight. In their arms they cradled long, glistening instruments that could only be weapons. They marched forward rapidly.
Tom wondered what their new tactic was. Then he noticed that the lead Tandu did not carry a weapon. Instead, it held the leash of a shaggy, shambling creature. The keeper leaned forward over its charge, as if coaxing it to keep at a given task.
Tom risked raising his head a couple of feet above the mound.
'Well, I'll be damned.'
The hairy creature was creating land — or at least solidity — in a narrow causeway in front of the party! Just before and on both sides of the trail, there was a faint shimmering where reality seemed to struggle against a noxious intrusion.
An Episiarch! Momentarily Tom forgot his predicament, grateful for this rare sight.
As he watched, the causeway failed in one spot. The luminous band around the edges of the trail snapped together with a loud bang. The Tandu warrior standing there flailed and thrashed as it fell into the weeds. By fighting it merely tore the carpet and opened the hole wider until, finally, it sank like a stone into the sea.
None of the other Tandu seemed to take notice. The two behind the gap leaped across to the temporarily solid 'ground' beyond. The party, diminished by one, continued to advance.
Tom shook his head. He had to reach the wreck first! He couldn't afford to let the Tandu pass him.
Yet if he did anything, even resumed his own march, they'd certainly spot him. He didn't doubt their efficiency with those weapons they carried. No human warrior ever underestimated the Tandu for long.
Reluctantly, he knelt and untied the fastenings on his weed-shoes. Discarding them, he crawled carefully to the edge of an open pool.
He counted slowly, waiting until he could hear the column of Galactics approaching. He rehearsed his moves in his mind.
Taking several deep breaths, he pulled his diving mask over his face, making certain it was snug and the collecting fins were clear. Then he pulled his needler from its holster, holding it in two hands.
Tom set his feet on two firm roots and checked his balance. The pool was just in front of him.
He closed his eyes.
* Listen
For the swishing tail
Of the tiger shark — *
His empathy sense pinpointed the powerful psi emissions of the mad ET adept, now only some eighty meters away.
'Gillian…,' he sighed. Then, in one sudden fluid motion, he stood up and extended his weapon. His eyes opened and he fired.
69 ::: Toshio
Against Toshio's objections, they had used the last of the longboat's energy to lift it to a landing site on top of the island. He had offered to blast a wider opening into the chamber below the metal-mound, but Takkata-Jim had turned his suggestion down cold.
