"Sorry about that," growled Cantemir. "How much farther?"
"Maybe half a kilometer."
They plodded on. A wild tisai, looking like a slate-gray reptilian version of the Terran tapir, crashed away, followed by four spotted young.
At last Fetutsi held up a hand. "Ay-yens quiet. Makutos iss. Cameras ready."
Fetutsi advanced slowly, waving back the occasional wildlife enthusiast who tried to push past her. Salazar heard a subdued rustling and crashing ahead. A louder, prolonged crash, together with movement of the foliage, told of the overthrow of a smaller tree.
As the party neared the source of the sounds, huge dark bodies materialized through the trees. A herd of mouse-brown makutos was browsing in a comparatively clear area. Salazar heard gasps from some Patelians.
The makuto was a bipedal herbivore, larger than any he had ever seen. When they reared up, bracing themselves by their huge balancing tails, they towered as high as an eight- or nine-story building. Their hind legs were like the trunks of the larger trees, ending in huge splayed feet with massive toenails like small hooves. Their forelegs, though smaller, were still long enough to reach down branches with their clawed hands, like those of Fetutsi on a gargantuan scale. One of those hands, Salazar thought, could pick up a zuta watcher as easily as he, Kirk Salazar, could pick up a kitten. Their bellies rumbled like distant thunder, punctuated by explosions of vented gas like trumpet blasts.
Their snouts were prolonged into meter-long proboscises, like dwarfish elephants' trunks. They pulled down branches to within reach of those prehensile organs and stuffed the greenery into vast pink maws.
"Pictures now," said Fetutsi in a low voice.
Cameras buzzed and clicked. Cantemir muttered: "Boy, if I had my fourteen-millimeter, I'd show 'em!"
"What would you want to shoot one for?" asked Salazar. "You couldn't eat it."
"What real man could see a good shot like that and not want a crack at it? Anyway, there are plenty more on the mainland."
"This is a subspecies, distinct from those on the mainland."
"Huh! They don't look different to me."
"Too roud noise!" hissed Fetutsi, flicking her forked tongue.
Salazar forbore to argue further, although as a biologist he took a poor view of sport hunting. For the next quarter hour the watchers quietly watched and photographed. Now and then one would whisper:
"I say, look at that one!"
"There's a couple of young, playing like puppies!"
"If one played with you, it would squash you like a bug."
"Don't they do anything but eat all day long?"
"I suppose they must copulate, though how they manage with those great tails I can't imagine."
"Standing face to face, maybe?"
"They must eat hundreds of kilos of green stuff daily."
"It takes a lot of fuel to power an engine that big."
"It would get pretty dull, just watching them just eat, eat, eat."
"You just bother one and it wouldn't be dull at all."
Fidgeting restlessly, Cantemir muttered: "Damn! Can't see right with all these trees in the way."
"Can't be helped," said Ritter. "They are—"
"I'm going up where I can get a whole one in my field." Cantemir set out, helping his injured limb along with his stick.
"Hey!" said Tchitchagov. "I told you—"
"What do?" said Fetutsi sharply. "Back, ay-yen! You come back!"
Cantemir ignored the command. He advanced to fifteen or twenty meters in front of the others, then knelt and aimed his little camera.
"Back!" said Fetutsi more loudly. "Animars angry!"
In fact, Salazar noticed, the nearest makuto had turned toward the Patelians. Its round ears, like those of an oversized mouse, swiveled toward the watchers, and its trunk was raised to horizontal, swinging right and left. It sniffed with a sound like a starting steam locomotive.
"Time to go!" called Tchitchagov. "Get back, George, before you get us stepped on!"
"Come back, George!" added Salazar. "Want us killed?"
More makutos turned toward the Terrans, bringing their bodies down to horizontal, balanced by their enormous tails. They moved agitatedly about.
"Oh, all right!" said Cantemir, rising and limping back to where the rest of the party was lined up.
"Let's go!" said Tchitchagov. "You lead, Fetutsi!"
"Damn!" said Cantemir. "Dropped my lens cap. Be right back." In Sungao he added to Fetutsi: "Cover me!"
He limped back to where he had knelt. After looking about for several seconds, he snatched up the lens cap and turned back toward the party, which was already hastening back along the trail.
The nearest makuto gave a thunderous snort, like the blast of a celestial trumpet, and started for the Terrans. After it came the rest of the herd, their footfalls shaking the forest floor.
"Tchyort!" yelled Tchitchagov. "I warned you! Grab his other arm, Kirk, and help me hurry him up."
With Tchitchagov on one side and Salazar on the other, they boosted Cantemir along. The lumberman made fair time by bringing his stick down beside his injured foot with each stride and putting most of his weight on the stick.
Behind them, the crashing of the makutos and the rumble of their footfalls told them that the herd was getting closer. Cantemir speeded up even more, uttering little grunts every time he put his weight on his injured ankle. Ahead the Patelians, strung out, ran after Fetutsi. Now and then one tripped and sprawled, but the crashing and thunder behind had them instantly up and running again.
They ran and ran until one Terran after another had to stop for breath. Then the approach of the herd sent them running once more. Tchitchagov and Salazar hauled Cantemir along at a slower pace but one that did not force them to stop.
At length they burst out on the road at the spot where they had left the wagon. The vehicle had not yet returned, since they had been gone for less than the two hours planned.
The crashing in the forest became louder. Tchitchagov said: "Across the field!"
The Terrans ran across the road and started to climb through the fence. Some became enmeshed in the wires until the others freed them. Among the last to reach the fence was Cantemir, who threw his stick beyond the fence and pushed through a gap in the wires. But the wires caught on projections of his gear, so that his struggles seemed only to entangle him further.
Tchitchagov had already cleared the fence and was running across the dusty field in pursuit of the other Terrans. Salazar said: "Hold still, damn it, George!" as he bent to untangle the wires. As he pulled the last one away from Cantemir's body, the lumberman crawled through, picked up his stick, and rose. Just then the first makuto loomed up between the trees across the road.
Being slim, Salazar quickly wormed his way through the wire. He caught up with the hobbling Cantemir, who paused to look back. Three makutos had come out of the forest and stood blinking in the sunshine, raising their trunks and loudly sniffing to locate their annoyers.
"Hell, that fence won't stop 'em," said Cantemir in a despairing voice, "unless it's electrified. And if it was, we'd know it."
"Keep moving, idiot!" said Salazar.
"Hey, look! There comes Chief Yaamo's automobile!" cried Cantemir, pointing. "He's got the only steam car on the island."
The vehicle resembled a small flatbed truck with a tall, slender stack rising from the steam boiler in front. There were no seats, merely a rail running around the rectangular deck. On the deck, holding the rail in front, stood the driver and Chief Yaamo. Two bodyguards with rifles held the side rails. Kooks were indifferent to what Terrans considered necessary comfort.
The vehicle was passing in front of the makutos before any of those aboard it noticed. Then a guard pointed and cawed. The car speeded up, flashed past the makutos, and continued on toward Sungecho, leaving a plume of gray and white smoke from its stack and a cloud of yellow dust from its wheels.