And on that, he walked off and left Porter standing. Proximity was too great a temptation, and Porter was too necessary. He put the man and his manner out of his mind, and walked down to the edge, where the crews were gathering up their gear and still waiting on those who had to walk the bridge first and inspect the ropes. They were returning finally, along with the farside guards.
He gave a casual wave to the others, but when the guards had reached the near side and caught sight of him, they pushed their way past the waiting men and came directly toward him. The rest crowded behind them to bear.
"We had a bad night," said one of the Burases, who had been the farside guards. "Mr. Merritt, we had plenty of visitors; we could see them plain. We saw them near the ropes, and fired at them—it scattered them, but I think we'd better delay work until we've scoured the area. Don't know what they could have set up for mantraps."
Merrill nodded calmly. "We'll do that, then. You did a good job, or we wouldn't have a bridge this morning. We'll have to double farside guard after this. Did you see any sign of them this morning?"
"Plenty of tracks, no bodies. But we thought we hit one or two. Could be they took the dead ones with them or they could have fallen into the canyon. We'd never recover them then."
"It's getting dangerous out there," the other man said. "Don't mind guarding, but I sure want help at it."
Merrill nodded again. "Whatever it takes. We haven't lost any lives yet and we're not going to. Volunteers, get over the other side and look around, carefully. I'll go with you."
"No, sir," said the elder Burns cousin. "No, sir. We aren't taking chances with you. Don't want our only engineer stumbling into something; we know the land. But won't anybody get much done this morning until we have ourselves a look around."
Sazhje was, as usual, perched on the tabletop. She never had understood the comfort of furniture: although she had a cot and a chair, she never used either, but dragged the bedding to the table and made her nest under it, sleeping there at night and sitting atop it at other times, under whatever logic no one had discovered.
Dinner was a time she seemed to anticipate; and each evening that Jim and Merritt came to bring her food, she would bounce down from her perch and pace excitedly back and forth just out of arm's reach. Of late, she would even venture to take the food from them, snatching and jerking back.
This evening, she reached tentatively to Jim's offering, jerked back, and then took it with a sudden move; but she seemed more at ease in their presence, as if the wariness itself had become a ritual. She sprang up to the table again and sat there eating and watching them until she was almost finished.
"Ssam-Zhim," she pronounced, as she would do sometimes conversationally, and offered them a half-eaten apple. Jim, venturing nipped fingers, took it and took a bite.
"Zhim," she said, took it back when he offered and gravely took another bite. Her smooth brow furrowed as in very deep thought, and on her way to another bite she held it out again. "Ah?"
"Sazhje's apple," said Jim.
"Sazhje ap-ph." The syllables came with difficulty, but they were understandable. She had a few words, intelligible to those who knew her small vocabulary. "Sazhje Zhim-Ssam." And what that was to mean was beyond guessing, but Sazhje came off the table and circled a little out of reach, as if she wanted to come closer, but feared to.
"Come," Merritt said. She knew that word. She ventured within reach, held out her hand to touch his, and then Jim's, then appeared greatly alarmed by her own boldness and retreated again.
"Come," Merritt said again.
Sazhje hesitated, then went to the table where she had left her last piece of fruit, picked it up and brought it to them, offering it with great seriousness. When Jim took it from her, she bent down and tugged at the chain at her ankle, looked up and held out her open hands to them.
"She wants that off so bad," said Jim. "Sam, what's it going to hurt?"
"Her," Merritt said. "No. It stays on."
She looked quite dejected when they did nothing for her request, and she went back to her table and sat down again. Jim went to her, though he was taking a chance, and patted her shoulder. She actually preened under that attention, turning her head so that her cheek touched his hand. She chattered something in her own language, if language it was, and looked melancholy.
"You've got a friend," said Merritt.
"Think so. Now watch her turn and take my hand off."
But Sazhje did nothing of the sort. She reached up a spidery arm and patted Jim's shoulder, cluttering something unintelligible. She reached as far as his head and touched his hair, apparently curious, tugging very slightly at the curls.
"Zhim," she said, and a smile jerked slightly at her thin lips. "Zhim—Ssam."
It was the first time they had ever drawn a smile from her. Jim recklessly set her down off her table and she tolerated it, then decided apparently that it had not been a hostile move at all. She slipped a little out of reach and regarded them both with a coquettish half-smile and a turn of her head, but then inexplicably went shy again and would not be approached. She hissed at them and bared her teeth.
"She's had enough," said Merritt "Let's not press her."
Merritt folded the notes back again, left them on the desk, and started to undress for bed. It was just as he was starting to take off his boots that he heard a strange sound from down the halclass="underline" one of Sazhje's irritation screams, muted, as she had never cared to restrain herself before.
He stood up, listened, heard nothing; but the recollection of testings at the bridge troubled him. On that impulse, he quietly took his gun and opened the door, headed quietly down the lamplit hall without raising an alarm: he had no desire to add to Sazhje's unpopularity by rousing the house unnecessarily.
The door was bolted from the outside as it ought to be: they had seen to that after dinner. He slid back the bolt in utter silence and turned the handle, pushed it open on the darkness within.
Sazhje was as close to the shuttered window as she could reach, a shadow among shadows. As she turned and saw him she gave out a soft chirring and her large eyes caught the light. Twice something bumped at the shingled ledge outside, or at the window itself, and went still.
Merritt stopped; he had too much respect for Sazhje's speed to venture to that window himself. He closed the door on her, rushed for the balcony over the main hall, to shout warning; and Sazhje let out a piercing cry, enough to warn any intruders and rouse the sleeping house before Merritt could call aloud.
The alarm was given outside almost in the same moment; there was a clanging of pans and men were shouting, rushing for weapons. A heavy fist pounded on the front door and a human voice shouted; Merritt pelted downstairs and slid the bar back. Others were coming from all parts of the house half-dressed and fully armed behind him.
It was Andrews at the door, George Andrews, bearing a bloody slash across the face and out of breath, a wild figure in the light from the hearth inside and the torches that were flaring inside and about the yard.
"We got a casualty," Andrews breathed. "The People got to us, sir. Ben Porter's dead, tried to stop something as it was coming away from the house. He and I were on sentry duty. Don't know how it happened or how it got past us in the first place, but—"
"Ben's dead?" Tom Porter shouldered his way to the door and all but collared Andrews. "My cousin's dead?"
“I'm sorry," said Andrews.
"What's the situation now?" asked Burns from another quarter. "Are we clear of them now?"
"Yes, sir," said Andrews. "There was only one of them that we saw. And him only when he jumped Ben. I'm sorry, Mr. Porter. I fired at the thing—couldn't hit it. We were both standing guard, and when we heard something—it was just too late. I don't think it even aimed to fight. We were just in its way."