The mottled vessel slowed still more, the golden snake growing slack in the water, seeming to writhe around as it sought for something to strike at. Inch by inch Zara crept backward, until she was wholly covered by a patch of great vines with bright blue flowers. She was not alone in her hiding place. Insectlike beings were there too, and welcomed her presence enthusiastically as a source of nourishment.
The mottled ship dropped gently toward the beach and came to rest, not more than fifty yards away. A wide door fell open in its side, and became a gangplank.
Zara could not help gasping at what came out. T'Worlie, Sheliaks, Sirians, and all had not prepared her for the hideousness of the creatures in the ship. An armored, black-beaked, hunchbacked creature waddled out across the lowered platform, and flapped down to the beach on stubby yellow wings.
Zara wriggled uncomfortably, trying to dislodge the small bloodsucking insects, at the same time uneasily conscious of a bad smell of some sort. She could not identify it. Then it hit her hard, and she realized it came from the creature on the beach, a foul odor of carrion and decay, even at this distance strong enough almost to turn her stomach.
The creature flapped awkwardly into the air and flew around the perimeter of the lake. As it came near, Zara willed herself to look down without moving a muscle. The reek was overpowering as the creature flapped overhead.
After a moment she dared to look up, and saw that the Watcher had returned to the beach. It shrilled some sort of message at the unseen crew of the brown-mottled ship, and slowly other creatures like it began to come out of that dark doorway. One by one they vaulted across the flat platform and glided into a ragged line before the first Watcher.
All of them engaged in a colloquy of whistles and screeches, until another appeared from the ship and hopped and flew down to them with what looked like a bundle of white staves or lances, which he passed out to the others. The squat Watcher squealed something, and all of them rose hooting into the air.
Zara realized she was in desperate trouble. This was a search party, no doubt of it, and more likely than not she was the quarry. Perhaps they had seen her dive into the forests here, or perhaps she had given herself away in some other manner. No matter; they were intent on a trail, and at the end of it would be Zara Doy Gentry.
She whimpered in fear, trying to decide what to do. But her choices were so few! She could use the laser weapon at her belt, hoping to kill a few of the creatures before the others killed her. She could try to flee—but where? And with what hope of success? Or she could continue to cower in her' bower of vines, being eaten by the tiny biting insects, until the creatures found her. None of those was very attractive . . .
And the time when she would be found did not seem very far away. One of the Watchers was circling near her. She heard it shriek, almost overhead, saw the bright-spotted blackness of its slick hard body, saw the flash of its bright yellow wings. She couldn't tell which way its huge, bulging greenish eyes were looking, but for a moment she thought it had seen her.
But then its great, pliant ears cupped toward something ahead. Squealing, it flapped out of sight, brandishing the long white staff. She caught a gasp of relief— tainted with the creature's evil reek.
She lay quiet, while the hoots and squeals of the searchers kept up an insane dialogue all around -her, until finally they seemed to concentrate and grow farther away.
She dared to peer out, and saw that, one by one, they were landing near their vessel again. v Had they given up the search? Were they about to get back in their ship and go away?
She crawled out of the tangle of vines to see. They were in a confused, bickering huddle around the ship. The golden snake that had hung into the water was wriggling insensately about, touching them and recoiling, darting into the underbrush and rushing blindly back. They ignored it. They seemed to reach a conclusion, then, and two of them leaped ponderously back onto the platform and disappeared into the ship.
In a moment they reappeared, bearing great platters of what looked like raw meat. They dropped in their ungainly way to the beach and began to parcel out bits of meat among their fellows.
It was lunchtime, Zara realized. Their table manners—pretending they chose to use a table, which they did not—were atrocious. They bickered and fought over the choicer pieces, throwing the bones and offal carelessly into the woods. The squealing noises did not stop while they ate; they clearly had no compunction about talking with their mouths full, if indeed so gross a species had compunctions about anything.
At that point it occurred to Zara that she had been thinking of them as animals.
But they were not animals. They used advanced technology. They communicated among themselves.
And if she could get a little closer to them, her Pmal translator might be able to pick up enough of their squeals and screeches to give her some idea of what those communications were.
With agonizing care she slipped along the margin of the lake, eyes firmly on the feeding Watchers, until she was less than a dozen yards from the sandy beach where they had landed. She activated the Pmal and held it to her ear. It would take time for it to store up enough speech to be able to deduce meanings, but it should only be a few minutes before it could at least identify and translate a few words . . .
Time was growing short. They were close to finished with their meal. A few of them had evidently been detailed to the task of cleaning up, and were picking up left-over pieces from the platform of the ship. One flapped and waddled toward her.
She became conscious of her exposed position, but the Watcher did not seem interested in exploring the undergrowth; it was only looking for a place to dump its tray of slop. It did so, and turned away.
For just a moment Zara felt a quick thrill of relief.
Then she saw what the slop consisted of.
"Dear God!" she moaned aloud, unable to prevent it.
The hooting and squealing rose like a barnyard chorus as the Watchers caught the sound. Hopping and flapping their great yellow wings, they came at her, and the golden snake that had hung from their ship writhed faster than any of them. Before she could move it had slipped across the beach with the sine-wave wriggle of a sidewinder, touched her gently, then locked on her.
She was held so tightly she could hardly breathe, much less run.
But she hadn't been able to run before that, either— not run, and not even stand up. Not since she looked at the trash and offal the creature was throwing away, and saw one rounded bit of waste, melon-sized and bloody, roll languorously toward her and stop . . .
She knew then what these creatures had been feeding on, when she realized that she was looking at the severed head of her husband.
What followed was for Zara a desert of half- understood misery. The choking coils of the golden rope seemed to have intelligence of their own. They wrapped themselves around her, bearable when she was still, tightening cruelly with every move she made to work them off. She was tumbled face-down on the talc- white beach, with the hideous squeals and hoots of the Watchers piping querulously or menacingly all around her, their foul reek choking her nostrils. All that was merely painful. What was unbearable was the memory of the empty, staring eyes of her husband, fixed on eternity. If Zara had been asked to describe her marriage, back on Earth, she would have defended it as a convenient thing that cost little to maintain and, if it gave little in return, was no burden to her. His death had killed no part of herself. But it was pain nevertheless, pain to see this close person destroyed so callously, used so demeaningly, to stuff the maws of these-filthy creatures.