"I don't think they'd try anything against us if they did know about it. They need us to survive even more than we need them. But when-if-we ever find Urthona's home, then we'd better watch our backs. What bothers me is that we may need the beamer for other things."
He paused and stared past Anana's head.
"Like them."
She turned her head.
Silhouetted on top of a ridge about two miles away was a long line of moving objects. Even at this distance and in this light, she could see that they were a mixture of large animals and human beings.
"Natives," he said.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE THREE MEN HAD stopped and were looking suspiciously at them. When the two came up to them, Red Ore greeted them.
"What the hell are you two plotting?"
Kickaha laughed. "It's sure nice traveling with you paranoiacs. We were discussing that," and he pointed toward the ridge.
McKay groaned and said, "What next?"
Anana said, "Are all the natives hostile to strangers?"
"I don't know," Urthona said. "I do know that they all have very strong tribal feelings. I used to cruise around in my flier and observe them, and I never saw two tribes meet without conflict of some kind. But they have no territorial aggressions. How could they?"
Anana smiled at Urthona. "Well, Uncle, I wonder how they'd feel if you were introduced to them as the Lord of this world. The one who made this terrible place and abducted their ancestors from Earth."
Urthona paled, but he said, "They're used to this world. They don't know any better."
"Is their lifespan a thousand years, as on Jada-win's world?"
"No. It's about a hundred years, but they don't suffer from disease."
"They must see us," Kickaha said. "Anyway, we'll just keep on going in the same direction."
They resumed their march, occasionally looking at the ridge. After two hours, the caravan disappeared over the other side. The ridge had not changed shape during that time. It was one of the areas in which topological mutation went at a slower rate.
"Night" came again. The bright red of the sky became streaked with darker bands, all horizontal, some broader than others. As the minutes passed, the bands enlarged and became even darker. When they had all merged, the sky was a uniform dull red, angry-looking, menacing.
They were on a flat plain extending as far as they could see. The mountains had disappeared, though whether because they had collapsed or because they were hidden in the darkness, they could not determine. They were not alone. Nearby, but out of reach, were thousands of animals: many types of antelopes, gazelles, a herd of the tuskless elephants in the distance, a small group of the giant moosoids.
Urthona said that there must also be big cats and wild dogs in the neighborhood. But the cats would be leaving, since they had no chance of catching prey on this treeless plain. There were smaller felines, a sort of cheetah, which could run down anything but the ostrich-like birds. None of these were in sight.
Kickaha had tried to walk very slowly up to the antelopes. He'd hoped they would not be alarmed enough to move out of arrow range. They didn't cooperate.
Then, abruptly, a wild cluttering swept down from some direction, and there was a stampede. Thousands of hooves evoked thunder from the plain. There was no dust; the greasy earth just did not dry enough for that, except when an area was undergoing a very swift change and the heat drove the moisture out of the surface.
Kickaha stood still while thousands of running or bounding beasts raced by him or even over him. Then, as the ranks thinned, he shot an arrow and skewered a gazelle. Anana, who'd been standing two hundred yards away, ran toward him, her beamer in hand. A moment later he saw why she was alarmed. The chittering noise got louder, and out of the darkness came a pack of long-legged baboons. These were truly quadrupedal, their front and back limbs of the same length, their "hands" in nowise differentiated from their "feet".
They were big brutes, the largest weighing perhaps a hundred pounds. They sped by him, their mouths open, the wicked-looking canines dripping saliva. Then they were gone, a hundred or so, the babies clinging to the long hair on their mothers' backs.
Kickaha sighed with relief as he watched the last merge into the darkness. According to Urthona, they would have no hesitation in attacking humans under certain conditions. Fortunately, when they were chasing the antelopes, they were single-minded. But if they had no success, they might return to try their luck with the group.
Kickaha used his knife to cut up the gazelle. Ore said, "I'm getting sick of eating raw meat! I'm very hungry, but just thinking about that bloody mess makes my stomach boil with acid!"
Kickaha, grinning, offered him a dripping cut.
"You could become a vegetarian. Nuts to the nuts, fruits to the fruits, and a big raspberry to you."
McKay, grimacing, said, "I don't like it either. I keep feeling like the stuffs alive. It tries to crawl back up my throat."
"Try one of these kidneys," Kickaha said. "They're really delicious. Tender, too. Or you might prefer a testicle."
"You really are disgusting," Anana said. "You should see yourself, the blood dripping down your chin."
But she took the proffered testicle and cut off a piece. She chewed on it without expression.
Kickaha smiled. "Not bad, eh? Starvation makes it taste good."
They were silent for a while. Kickaha finished eating first. Belching, he rose with his knife in his hand. Anana gave him her axe, and he began the work of cutting off the horns of the antelope. These were slim straight weapons two feet high. After he had cut them off from the skull, he stuck them in his belt.
"When we find some branches, we'll make spear shafts and fix these at their tips."
Something gobbled in the darkness, causing all to get to their feet and look around. Presently the gobbling became louder. A giant figure loomed out of the dark red light. It was what Kickaha called a "moa" and it did look like the extinct New Zealand bird. It was twelve feet high and had rudimentary wings, long thick legs with two clawed toes, and a great head with a beak like a scimitar.
Kickaha threw the antelope's head and two of its legs as far as he could. The lesser gravity enabled him to hurl them much further than he could have on Earth. The huge bird had been loping along toward them. When the severed pieces flew through the air, it veered away from them. However, it stopped about forty feet away, looked at them with one eye, then trotted up to the offerings. After making sure that the humans were not moving toward it, it scooped up the legs between its beaks, and it ran off.
Kickaha picked up a foreleg and suggested that the others bring along a part, too. "We might need a midnight snack. I wouldn't recommend eating the meat after that. In this heat meat is going to spoil fast."
"Man, I wish we had some water," McKay said. "I'm still thirsty, but I'd like to wash off this blood."
"You can do that when we get to the lake," Kickaha said. "Fortunately, the flies are bedding down for the night. But if morning comes before we get to the water, we're going to be covered with clouds of insects."
They pushed on. They thought they'd covered about ten miles from the hill. Another two hours should bring them to the lake, if they'd estimated its distance correctly. But three hours later, by Anana's watch, they still saw no sign of water.
"It must be further than we thought," Kickaha said. "Or we've not been going in a straight line."