Wind drove smoke about him. Ayyar heard a desperate burst of coughing. Then the would-be rescuer half fell, half flung himself at the cabin door, to fall across the entrance.
Ayyar whistled. They had no idea how long the narcotic effects of the smoke would last. Thus he must search at once for what was needed, and the others were prepared to pull him out if he too succumbed. With a wet-sleeved arm held across nostrils and mouth, Ayyar approached the flitter. It would seem that that last burst of smoke was the end product of the burning sal, for Ayyar could smell nothing now but the brush afire.
He forced himself to the flitter, revulsion for the off-world machine weakening him. There was a com unit in there, right enough, but it was built in. Perhaps Jarvas could command his antipathy long enough to use the broadcaster for a single message. But on the other hand, either man might wear a travel-talk.
The shrinking in him was worse pain than any davez sting, but Ayyar dared not surrender to it. Putting out his quivering hands, he turned over the man lying in the cabin doorway. What he wanted was fastened to one outflung wrist. Shuddering, Ayyar fumbled with the seal-catch, jerked free the strap, and brought away the call disk. It was as though he held unmentionable foulness against his Ift flesh. So greatly had the change conditioned him against those who had once been his own kind that he could hardly continue to grasp that small round of metal, the strap still warm from the arm against which it had been locked.
But grimly holding on, he plunged down the riverbank to the place beyond the smoldering fire, where the others waited. He dropped the com on a rock, unable any longer to stand its touch, and then tramped away some paces to retch and retch again.
When, sweating and shivering, he returned, only Jarvas and the girl were there. Jarvas, beads of moisture gathering on his hairless head, was examining the com.
“Where are—?” Ayyar began hoarsely.
Illylle nodded to the now almost dead fire. “They send the off-worlders back to port. Rizak sets the automatic return. They will carry with them the false Ift.”
“But why—?”
“He says”—she nodded to Jarvas who was still rapt in concentration over the com—”their safe return there shall prove our good will. They will now believe more in his message if they receive it.”
They saw the flitter rise, swing about, head in the direction of the port. Then the other two Iftin came unsteadily to join them. Rizak sank down, his head thrown back, his eyes closed, his mouth hanging open a little, his chest heaving. To have entered the cabin and set the controls must have taken a strength of will such as Ayyar was sure he did not possess. Why had the change set in all of them such a terrible aversion to those who had once been blood, flesh, and bone kin to them? Jarvas had said it must be a safety measure provided by those master Iftin biologists—to keep the new race apart until they were in such numbers they could not be reabsorbed by their own kind. But the master biologists had not foreseen this present difficulty. How could Iftin deal with those who made them physically ill to approach, mentally disturbed? Perhaps all their communication could come only through such a device as Jarvas struggled now to make operative.
“Can it be used?” Illylle dared to ask.
Jarvas’ face was drawn, wasted. He kept his place near the rock by manifest effort.
“We can only try,” he mumbled. The cover of the com had been raised. Instead of speaking into its tiny mike, Jarvas held two twigs together just above its surface. Now he clicked those together in a pattern of sound that meant nothing to Ayyar.
Twice he looked up, his twigs silent, a lost, wondering expression momentarily crossing his face, as if some supposedly well-rooted memory had failed him. Then he went on, less confidently, but with dogged purpose. It was in mid-click that he was interrupted by the com itself. The voice was thin, metallic:
“Vorcors! Vorcors! What are you doing?” There was a peremptory sharpness, a demand for the truth and that speedily.
Once more, and more slowly, Jarvas clicked.
“Vorcors! What in the name of the Seventh Serpent?” Then there was complete quiet, save for Jarvas’ clicking out of a code once almost better known to him than the name of Pate Sissions, how long ago, how far away? And Pate Sissions was no Ift.
“They ought to be taping it,” Kelemark remarked. “Once let them decode it—”
“If they can.” Rizak’s answer was a half whisper. He pointed to Jarvas. The clicking grew ever slower, the moments of puzzlement longer, closer together. It was as if the longer he strove to use his off-world memory, the more difficult it became.
At last he turned to them with a wry grimace. “That is my best, I am afraid. One more run through. And let us trust I did not do as poorly as I fear!”
He readied his twigs, but that metallic voice came from the com:
“You—whoever you are—we have a fix on you!”
Rizak glanced up and over his shoulder as if he feared to see a scout already hovering to descend.
“Why should they warn us?” Ayyar wondered.
“Perhaps,” Illylle answered him, “because Jarvas is not as inept as he fears. Perhaps already they have read or found someone who knows his code. Shall we wait to meet them?”
Jarvas shook his head. “Not now, not until we know more. However—” The twigs he had used for message sending he now put to another use. Wet and dipped in the ash of the burned bushes, they provided him with clumsy writing materials. And around the com on the rock he put some symbols, not in any off-world writing Ayyar knew but in one that must have potent meaning, or at least Jarvas believed so enough to take pains over the inscription.
They headed south, their cloaks and packs weighing on them. Ayyar had lost all the strength he had gained from drinking Iftsiga’s sap. His head whirled giddily at intervals, and he wondered how long he could keep the pace Kelemark set. Somewhere before them was the sea, but still the Waste brooded on their right hand. And in it things stirred; he was as sure of that as if he could see them.
A small copse provided them with a breathing space. Even so limited a stretch of woodland was refreshing. Ayyar rested on the dried leaves of other seasons, but he dared not close his eyes. Sleep was too close, weighting his eyelids, slowing his body.
“What will they do? Will they come?” Illylle questioned.
“I do not know.” Jarvas twisted a scrap of moss he had picked up absently. “I do not doubt they had the fix. And they must believe in the code, or they would have attacked without warning. In a short time the flitter will come home with the crew safe, plus the robot. That should prove our good will. When they come, they will read what I wrote about the com. Even in a century, the scout recognition symbols cannot have altered too much. They may then send a message off-world, to trace one Pate Sissions.”
“But all that will take much time!” protested Illylle.
“Yes. And time we may not have. But just now I see no better way. Do any of you?”
Even Illylle was forced to concede he was right. But Ayyar noted that she turned her head now and then, to stare out over the Waste. He wondered if she also had that sensation of a watcher there, biding time for a purpose that in the end would do them no good.
Though they listened, there was no sound on the com of any flitter homing. Ayyar could not deny his disappointment, though he knew that it was foolish to hope for such a quick reply. As Jarvas had pointed out—the port authorities must be checking and rechecking.
The Iftin did not go any farther than the edge of the dune land. And it was there that Lokatath came to them. A raw and bleeding scratch crossed one cheek, as if some branch had laid whip to him, and he breathed with the heavy gasps of one who had gone a distance at a speed he had to drive himself to hold.
“They muster!” He pulled himself to a sliding stop by holding to a bush.
“The off-worlders?”
Lokatath shook his head in answer to Jarvas’ question. “Those—from there—” He pointed with his chin to the west.
“The wytes are out coursing the Waste. And they hunt with the false Iftin—who move toward the river!”
“How many?”
Lokatath shrugged. “Who can tell? They weave in and out, and it would seem that the ground itself sometimes moves to hide them or to confuse—”