Great orbs may have widened. Perhaps a long, curved talon extruded from a half-furred, half-scaled finger and pointed toward Brother Mainoa’s throat.
Brother smiled as though at a joke. “I cannot believe you mean that You don’t need any of it against me. You don’t need much of it against mankind unless they choose to use heavy weaponry against you, and if they did, all your armor wouldn’t help much. Men are expert killers, if nothing else.”
Eyes narrowed, possibly, and Brother Mainoa seized his head in both hands. The others fell to their knees, holding their heads, except for Sylvan, who started forward, anger and fear combining to make him reckless.
“Whoa. Whoa.” Mainoa drew himself erect, gasping. “I wish they wouldn’t do that.” Now he knew what evolutionary tangle had led to this armour. There had been an enemy once, a huge, inexorable creature. Brother Mainoa had received an excellent picture of it rampaging about, devouring both Hippae and hounds. His head ached from the assault.
“Extinct?” he asked, receiving a feeling of agreement. “Did you kill them?”
They received an impression of perplexity, then sureness. No. The Arbai had killed them. The armored monsters had not been intelligent things. They had been only walking appetites. The Arbai had done away with them to protect the Hippae. Since that time, there had been many, many Hippae.
Brother Mainoa sat down on the walkway, suddenly lost in weariness. “This being is my friend,” he said to the other humans. “He and I have been talking for some time.” Now that he had almost seen the creature, he felt weak with anxiety over all the times he had talked with it, unseen. If he had seen, would he have said—? No. If he had seen, he could not have said anything. One could talk to gods and angels only so long as they did not look like gods and angels, he thought. In order to approach them, we must think of them as like ourselves, and one could not think of the foxen as like oneself. ..
“Foxen,” Tony breathed. He was still on his knees with the others.
“Foxen,” Mainoa agreed. “He or they managed to keep the Hippae at bay long enough for us to get here. He and a few of his friends wanted us to come here, where they could get a good look at us.”
“Does he know where Stella .. .” Marjorie pleaded. She had the impression of a vast head turned in her direction. She shuddered as she said, “I see. Of course. Yes.” Sylvan said, “Marjorie?”
“I can hear him,” she cried. “Sylvan, I can hear him. Can’t you?” He shook his head, casting a suspicious glance at the place he thought the foxen was. “No. I hear nothing.”
“You have been a hunter too long,” Mainoa said. “You have been deafened by the Hippae.”
“Is he speaking?” asked Sylvan.
Rillibee nodded. “It’s somewhat like speech. Pictures. Some words.” He rose to his feet, utterly immune to further wonder. The trees were wonder enough for one man. He needed nothing else. He did not want to talk to foxen. He, like Marjorie, wanted to find Stella. “What does he say about your daughter?” Sylvan asked. “That others of his kind are looking for her,” Marjorie replied. “That they will tell us when they find her.”
“There are many things they want to tell us, to ask us,” Brother Mainoa said wearily, longing for and yet dreading that converse. “Many things.”
“I’ll go back down and unsaddle the horses,” said Rillibee. If they weren’t going to hunt for Stella, then he wanted to be by himself, to cling to the trunk of a huge tree and let the feel and smell of it sink into him. In the darkness, they had looked like the spirits of trees. In the light, they looked like themselves. Joshua would have given his soul for trees like these. On all of Terra there were no trees like these. Trees, all around him, like a blessing. He turned to go back the way they had come.
Sylvan followed him. “I’ll help you,” he said. “I’m no good here.” Ungraciously, Rillibee nodded. The others did not even see them go.