"Bees? Those Earth bugs that make sugar?"
"Yes. But they aren't bugs."
"Okay," Hans answered indifferently. "I'll never see one. Let's get moving."
Presently they left cultivation, started into bush. Hans required Nixie to heel. Even though they were going uphill, the bush got thicker, became dense jungle. Hans led the way, occasionally chopping an obstacle.
He stopped. "Trash!" he said bitterly.
"Trouble?"
"This is why I wanted the flamer. This bit grows pretty solid."
"Can't we chop it?"
"Take all day with a bush knife; need heat on it. Going to have to poison this whole stretch 'fore I get a road through from Paw's place to mine."
"What do we do?"
"Go around, what else?" He headed left. Charlie could not see that Hans was following any track, decided he must know his way by the contour of the ground. About half an hour later Hans paused and whispered, "Keep quiet. Make Nixie keep quiet."
"What for?" Charlie whispered back.
"Good chance you'll see kteela, if we don't scare them." He went noiselessly ahead, with the other boy and the dog on his heels. He stopped. "There."
Charlie oozed forward, looked over Hans' shoulder -- found that he was looking down at a stream. He heard a splash on his right, turned his head just in time to see spreading ripples. "Did you see him?" asked Hans in a normal voice.
"Shucks, he was right there. A big one. Their houses are just downstream. They often fish along here. Have to keep your eyes open, Chuck." Hans looked thoughtful. "Kteela are people."
"Huh?"
"They're people. Paw thinks so. If we could just get acquainted with them, we could prove it. But they're timid. Come on -- we cross here." Hans d~scended the bank, sat down on muddy sand by running water and started taking his shoes off. "Mind where you sit."
Charlie did the same. Bare-footed and bare-legged, Hans picked up Nixie. "I'll lead. This stretch is shallow -- keep moving and don't stumble."
The water was warm and the bottom felt mucky; Charlie was glad when they reached the far side. "Get the leeches off," Hans commanded as he put Nixie down. Charlie looked down at his legs, was amazed to find half a dozen purple blobs, large as hens' eggs, clinging to him. Hans cleaned his own legs, helped Charlie make sure that he was free of the parasites. "Run your fingers between your toes. Try to get the sand fleas off as you put on your boots, too -- though they don't really matter."
"Anything else in that water?" Charlie asked, much subdued.
"Oh, glass fish can bite a chunk out -- of you...but they aren't poisonous. Kteela keep this stream cleaned up. Let's go."
They went up the far side, reached a stretch that was higher and fairly dry. Charlie thought that they were probably-going upstream, he could not be sure.
Hans stopped suddenly. "Dragonfly. Hear it?"
Charlie listened, heard the high, motor-like hum he had heard the night before. "There it is," Hans said quickly. "Hang onto Nixie and be ready to beat it off. I'm going to attract its attention."
Charlie felt that attracting its attention was in a class with teasing a rattlesnake, but it was too late to object; Hans was waving his arms.
The fly hesitated, veered, headed straight for him. Charlie felt a moment of dreadful anticipation -- then saw Hans take one swipe with his machete. The humming stopped; the thing flOttered to the ground.
Hans was grinning. The dragonfly jerked in reflex, but it was dead, the head neatly chopped off. "Didn't waste a bit," Hans said proudly.
"Huh?"
"That's lunch. Cut some of that oil weed behind you." Hans squatted down. In three quick slices he cut off the stinger and the wings; what was left was the size of a medium lobster. Using the chrome-sharp machete as delicately as a surgeon's knife, he split the underside of the exoskeleton, gently and neatly stripped out the gut. He started to throw it away, then paused and stared at it thoughtfully. --
Charlie had been watching in queasy fascination. "Trouble?"
"Egg sac is full. They're going to-swarm."
"That's bad, isn't it?"
"Some. They swarm every three, four years." Hans' hesitated. "We'd better skip seeing my land. Got to tell Paw, so they'll keep the kids in."
"Okay, let's get started."
"We'll eat lunch first. Ten minutes won't matter -- they aren't really swarming yet, or this one wouldn't have been alone."
Charlie started to say that he wasn't interested in lunch -- not this lunch -- but Hans was already starting a fire. --
What was left in the exoskeleton was clean milkywhite meat, lean flying muscle. Hans cut out chunks, toasted them over the fire, salted them from a pocket shaker. "Have some."
"Uh, I'm not hungry."
"You're crazy in the head, too. Here, Nixie." Nixie had been waiting politely but with his nose quivering. He snapped the tidbit out of the air, gulped it down, waited still more eagerly while Hans ate the next piece.
It did smell good...and it looked good, when he kept his mind off the source. Charlie's mouth began to water. Hans looked up. "Change your mind?"
"Uh...let me tastc just a bite."
It reminded Charlie of crab meat. A few minutes later the exoskeleton was stripped too clean to interest even Nixie. Charlie stood up, burped gently, and said, "Ready?"
"Yeah. Uh, Chuck, one thing I do want to show you...and there's a way back above it maybe quicker than the way we came."
"What is it?"
"You'll see." Hans headed off in a new direction. Charlie wondered how Hans had picked it without the aid of a compass bug.
In a -- few minutes they were going downhill. Hans stopped. "Hear it?"
Charlie listened, seemed to pick out a soft roar under the ever-present multiple voice of the jungle. "It's not a dragonfly?"
"Of course not. You've got ears."
"What is it?" Hans did not reply, led on. Presently they broke into a clearing, or rather a room, for the jungle closed in overhead. It enclosed a delightful, surprising waterfall; the muted roar was its song.
"Isn't that swell?"
"It sure is," Charlie agreed. "I haven't seen anything so pretty in years."
"Sure, it's pretty. But that's not the point. My land is just above. I'll put a water wheel here and have my own power." Hans led his two friends down near it, began to talk excitedly about his plans. The noise of falling water was so great that he had to shout.
So neither one of them heard it. Charlie heard Nixie bark, turned his head and saw it at the last moment. "Hans! Dragon!"
Too late -- the thing nailed Hans between his shoulder blades. It laid no eggs; Charlie killed it, crushed it with his hands. But Hans had already been stung.
Charlie wiped his trembling hands. on his pants and looked down at his chum. Hans had collapsed even as Charlie had killed the thing; he lay crumpled on the ground. Charlie bent over him. "Hans! Hans, answer me!"
Hans' -- eyelids fluttered. "Get Paw."
"Hans...can you stand up?"
"Sorry...Cbuck" -- then very feebly, "My fault." His eyes stayed open, but Charlie could get no more out of him. --
Even in his distress Charlie's training stayed with him. He could not find Hans' pulse, so he listened for his heart...was rewarded and greatly relieved by a steady, strong flub-a-dub!...flub-a-dub! Hans looked ghastly -- but apparently it was true that they just paralyzed; they didn't kill.
But what to do?
Hans had said to get his father. Sure -- but how? Could he find his way to the house? Even if he could, could he lead them back here? No, he wouldn't have to -- surely Mr. Kuppenheimer would know where the waterfall was that Hans meant to harness. So what he had to do was simply get back. Now let's see; they had come down the bank there -- and after they had crossed the stream -- it must be this same stream; they hadn't gone over any watershed. Or had they?