between his vulnerable shoulderblades. He kept walking.
Thus, by the time Ailiss and her party arrived, all ten of them were
trooping docilly after Jorn. Ailiss’ party, managing to look wise,
belligerent and baffled all at the same time, bad no choice but to fall in
around them as a sort of inadvertent honor-guard.
That they were intelligent was established almost instantly. Ailiss was
able to ask them a question and get a significant answer before either
party had learned a word of the other’s language. After inspecting their
hands quickly and finding them essentially just like hers, she included
them all in a quick gesture and held up ten fingers. To this, the
leader-the unpainted man who had spoken to Jorn-responded at once by
pointing to Ailiss and holding up one finger, to Jorn and Ailiss and
holding up two fingers, and to Ailiss~ party and holding up five. Although
her expression showed that she was a little stunned, Ailiss
122 fames Blish
promptly included the whole of the forest behind them with a sweep of both
hands, and then simply looked at the leader; to this he made a movement of
his head which might have been either negative or positive, and then, seeing
that she did not know how to interpret this, he held up one hand with all
the fingers closed.
Ailiss turned to jorn. “If he understands me, he means that there’s nobody
in the forest behind him,” she said, frowning, “and damned if I don’t think
he does.”
“I think so too,” jorn said. “Let me try it once.”
At her nod, forn pointed to the horizon across the lake and then did a slow