Then, as before, the kusis began returning to the site-first a bold young male as point man, jittering about and scuttling out of sight at Salazar's slightest movement, only to reappear an hour later.
In three more days, the kusis were as thick as ever in the neighboring trees. Salazar noted that they kept away from the tree at the base of which he had laid the odorometer. But the next day a couple gingerly returned to that tree, keeping well up from the ground.
Salazar determined to collect his instruments and read their records the next day. But when, the following morning, he neared the tree of the odorometer, he was appalled to see a glitter of little metal and plastic parts spread over several square meters. He dashed forward to find the casing broken open and the contents—gears, spools, levers, filmstrips, and all the rest—spread around.
He bitterly reproached himself for letting the kusis make free with this costly piece of machinery. They were made on Terra, and it would take a couple of dozen years to get another from mankind's distant home planet. Nobody on Kukulcan could produce so complex an instrument.
If the answer was chemical, like the pheromones produced by moths and many other Terran organisms to lure the opposite sex, he would have no way to prove it. If the answer was phonic, his phonometer might settle the question if he could get enough significant recordings with it, though this would not be enough if the correct answer was a combination of sound and chemicals. If the answer were something other than either of those, he would have to cross that bridge when he came to it.
He bore the phonometer back to his tent, since there was no sense in letting the little devils ruin that one, too. Apprised of the catastrophe, Choku said:
"Honorable boss, surely you will wish to salvage the parts of that machine. If nobody on this world can create one, it might still be possible to reassemble it from the separated parts and to repair or replace any parts broken or missing."
"You are right," said Salazar. "Back in Henderson I have an instruction book on the machine, showing where every little widget goes. Where is a bag to collect the pieces? We shall also need your broom to sweep the parts beneath the tree out to where we can reach them."
An hour later, with Choku's help, Salazar had gathered and bagged every piece of the odorometer that either could find. Salazar spent the morning studying records on the phonometer. He thought he could identify the seismographic wriggles on the filmstrips with some of the kusis' repertory of sounds. In particular, the piercing whistles registered at about twenty thousand hertz, or cycles per second. This, Salazar thought, would put them up in the ninth octave of the diatonic scale, close to the upper limits of audibility to the normal human ear.
What he needed to do was to make a sound film of kusis going about their business and synchronize that film with the phonometer. But for a good phonometric record he needed to put the apparatus near them. When they saw it, they would flee in terror. When they got used to it, they would tear it to pieces. Their claws and efficient Kukulcanian muscles would make short work of even a strong metal casing.
"Choku," he grumped, "if I could only make the kind of squeals that the kusis do, I should soon discover whether their sounds stop the nanshins from giving them a bath in venom. On Terra, people make high-pitched whistles to control their pets." He paused. "Why could I not make a whistle right here? Know you of a patch of canes nearby?"
"Aye, honorable boss. The last time I went out for firewood, I saw a large growth of them west of here, around the curve of the mountain. I estimate that you could walk the distance in one of your hours, sir."
"Good! If you will put me up a bite to eat, I will set out forthwith."
Salazar was on his way back from the patch with a bundle of canes when he saw the sky, which had been fair in the morning, now fast clouding over. As he quickened his pace, the skies darkened further. Thunder rumbled. Then lightning flashed, followed at shorter and shorter intervals by thunder.
As the flashes came closer, Salazar noted that the initial pitch of the thunder rose in frequency. In theory one could make a fair guess at the distance of a flash not only by measuring the interval between flash and thunder but also from the frequency of the sound at the beginning of the thunder roll. If he only had the phonometer along ...
A vivid flash lit up the landscape as it came to earth somewhere in the nanshin forest on his left. Less than a second later there came a sharp, high-pitched crack, then a deafening crash of slightly lower frequency and a long roll, running down the scale to a bass rumble. Then came a drop of rain, followed by a downpour.
Salazar had become so interested in natural phenomena and in planning a possible scientific paper on thunder frequencies that he had forgotten to haul his yellow slicker out of his pack. Dropping the canes, he repaired the omission, though not without getting fairly wet.
He looked around. The nanshin forest on his left offered shelter, but of a dangerous sort. To the right the slope was fairly open, with stretches of grassoid, herbs, and scattered trees. Salazar knew better than to stand near an isolated tree in a thunderstorm. Farther down the mountain, the trees merged into the solid forest of the lower altitudes, but distance made it impractical to seek shelter thither.
There was nothing to do but to slog ahead through the rain. After a quarter hour the downpour subsided to a light rain. In half an hour the rain let up, and patches of sky appeared through the breaking clouds. When Salazar stopped to shed and fold his slicker, he heard a human yell.
The sound was repeated from ahead. He thought he heard: "Help! Au secours! Pomogitye! Help!" There seemed also to be an animal noise.
Dropping the slicker, Salazar pulled out the skeleton stock for his pistol and broke into a jog. Soon, around the curve of the mountain, he discerned a knot of figures. As he came closer, he saw that two Terrans were ringed by three poöshos, the continent's principal pack-hunting predators. They could be called reptilian wolves: quadrupeds of about wolf size with ears and fangs somewhat like those of a Terran canid. But their hides were hairless and scaly, and their bodies tapered smoothly aft into serpentine tails. They galloped round and round the people, snarling and wailing, now and then darting in to snap.
As he ran, Salazar unfolded the skeleton stock and fitted the butt of the pistol into it. If he tried to shoot at this range, he would as likely hit one of the Terrans as their attackers. As for shooting without the stock, forget it!
Another score of paces, and he thought he would have a chance. He recognized the two attacked as members of Ritter's zuta-watching party, Jomo Mpanza and Shakeh Dikranian. Mpanza, a stout, black-skinned man with a head of close-cut gray wool, was holding them off with his knobby walking stick, while Miss Dikranian, the sultry-looking, black-haired beauty, threw stones.
Salazar halted and put the stock to his shoulder. It would not be so accurate as the rifle, but it was all he had. He sighted on a poösho and squeezed. Bang! No change; he must have missed.
Salazar ran forward a few paces more, knelt, and tried again. Bang! A poösho leapt into the air, fell on its side, and lay writhing. The other two ran off down slope and disappeared. Salazar came forward and fired another round into the wounded animal, whose writhings ceased.
"Oh, Kirk!" cried Shakeh Dikranian, dropping her stone. She dashed forward and seized Salazar in a crushing embrace, pressing her full breasts against his damp bush jacket and making him even wetter. She kissed him rapturously. "I thought we were done for!"
She sneezed. Both rescuees' wet clothes clung to their skins.