“Go back and tell the colonel he has two hours to get to town,” Retief said. “Any Voion found loose in the jungle after that will be roasted over a slow fire.” He implemented the command with a blow of the flat of the blade that sent the Voion wobbling villageward; then he whirled and plunged into the dense growth, made for a vantage point overlooking the village.
There was a high-pitched cry from the far side of the town—Ip-ip at work. The Voion were milling now, unsettled by the sudden noises. The one whose club Retief had clipped off charged into the midst of the platoon, shrilling and waving the stump of the weapon.
” . . . forest demon,” he was yelling. “Nine feet high, with wheels like a juggernaut, and a head like a Voion, except it was red! Hundreds of them! I’m the only one got away . . . !”
Branches rustled and clanked as Jik-jik came up. “Hoo, Tief-tief, you quite a strategist. Got a passel of the trash that time! What’s next?”
The colonel was shrilling orders now, the roll call abandoned; Voion scurried to and fro in confusion.
“Let them go. I see they’re not bothering with their prisoners.”
The Voion were streaming away down the wide trail in considerable disorder, flinging loot aside as they went. In two minutes the village was deserted, with the exception of the ranks of chained Zilk, staring fearfully about, and the crumpled bodies of their relatives.
“We’ll go in quietly so as not to scare them to death,” Retief said. “And remember, the idea is to make allies of them; not hors d’oeuvres.”
* * *
Fifty-one Zilk, three of them badly dented, had survived the attack. Now they sat in a circle among their rescuers, shaking their heads mournfully, still not quite at ease in the presence of seventy fighting Ween.
“Ye warned us, I’ll gi’ ye that,” one said ruefully. “Never thought I’d see the day a bunch of Voion’d jump us Zilk, face to face—even if they did have us six to one.”
“The Voion have a new mission in life,” Retief said. “Their days of petty larceny are over. Now they’re after a whole planet.”
“Well, I guess we fix them, hey Tief-tief?” Jik-jik chuckled. “The way them babies run, they going to need retreads before they gets to town.”
“That was just a minor scuffle,” Retief said. “They’re shaken up at the moment, but they’ll be back.”
“You sure enough reckon?” Fut-fut executed a twitch of the palps indicating sudden alarm.
“For a Stilter what just hit town at First Joop, you sure is take in a lot of ground in a hurry,” Jik-jik said plaintively. “If you knowed them rascals coming back, how come you tell us to mix it in the first place?”
“I thought it would save a lot of talk all around if you Ween saw a demonstration of Voion tactics first hand. Then, too, it seemed worthwhile to help out the Zilk.”
“We lost good old Lop-lop,” Jik-jik pointed out. “His head plumb bashed in. He was a good eater.”
“They lost thirty-five club swingers,” Retief said. “We’ve gained fifty-one new recruits.”
“What that?” Jik-jik clacked his secondary claws with a br-r-rapp! “You ain’t talking about these here greens-eaters . . . ?”
“Why, ye murdering spawn o’ the mud devil, d’ye think we Zilk’d have any part of ye’r heathen ways?” one of the rescuees hooted, waving his scythe. “Ye can all—”
“Hold it, fellow,” Retief said. “If it comes to a fight with the city boys, you tribes will stick together or lose. Which will it be?”
“Where you get a idea like that, Tief-tief? They always been a few Voion sneaking around, getting they antennae in—”
“Just before I arrived here, Ikk declared himself proprietor of the planet; if the rest of you are good, he promises to make you honorary Voion.”
There was a chorus of indignant buzzes and hoots from Ween and Zilk alike.
“Well, I’m glad to see an area of agreement at last,” Retief said. “Now, if you Zilk are recovered, we’d better be pulling out—”
“What about our crop?” Tupper protested. “It’s all ready to harvest—”
“This here grass?” Jik-jik contemptuously plucked a wide golden leaf from the row beside him, waved it under his olfactory organ. “Never could figure out what a Quoppina thinking of, all the time nibbling leaves . . .” He paused, sniffed at the leaf again. Then he bit off a piece with a sound like a sardine can being torn in two, chewed thoughtfully.
“Hey,” he said. “Maybe us been missing something. This plumb good!”
Fut-fut snorted his amusement, plucked a leaf and sniffed it, then bit.
“Hoo!” he announced. “Taste like prime Flink, dog if it don’t!”
In a moment, every Ween in sight was busily sampling the Zilk greens.
“Don’t s’pose it matters,” a Zilk grumbled. “We’ll never get the crop in anyway, wi’ these Voion robbers on the loose.”
“Don’t worry about that,” a Ween called. “Us’ll have these here greens in in ten minutes flat!”
Jik-jik nodded, still masticating. “Maybe us Ween and you Zilk could work together after all,” he said. “Us’ll do the fighting and you fellows grow the greens.”
* * *
Retief, Jik-jik and Tupper watched by the trail as the last of the grubs were carted away by nervous mothers to shelter in the deep jungle along with the village pots and pans, and the newly acquired store of alloy plants. Suddenly Topper pointed.
“Look up there,” he boomed. “A flight of Rhoon—big ones! Coming this way!”
“Scatter!” Retief called. “Into the woods and regroup on the trail to the north!”
Ween and Zilk darted off in every direction. Retief waited until the lead Rhoon had dropped to almost treetop level, heading for a landing in the village clearing; then he faded back into the shadows of the jungle. One by one ten great Rhoon settled in, their rotors flicking back glints of Jooplight as they whirled to a stop. In the gloom, dark figures moved: Voion, filing out from between the parked leviathans, forming up a loose ring among the deserted huts, fanning outward, clubs ready.
“Come on, Tief-tief,” Jik-jik said softly. “If them Rhoon wants the place I says let ’em have it—” He broke off. “Look there!” he hissed. “Voion—swarms of ’em—wheeling right under them big babies’ snappers!”
“They got here a little sooner than I expected,” Retief said softly. “They must have already set up a field HQ nearby.”
“Tief-tief, you know what I’m thinking? I’m thinking them Voion and them Rhoon is working together! But they can’t! Ain’t no tribe never worked with no other tribe, not since the Worm’s first Wiggle!”
“The Ween and the Zilk got together,” Retief pointed out. “Why not the Voion and the Rhoon?”
“But that ain’t fair, Tief-tief! Ain’t nobody can fight a Rhoon! And they always been such peaceable babies. Just set on their mountaintops and leave the flatland to us.”
“It seems they’ve changed their ways. We’ll have to fall back. Spread the word to the troops to move off—and keep it quiet.”
“Sure is getting dark fast,” Jik-jik commented nervously. “Us Ween figure it bad luck to move around in the dark of Joop.”
“It’ll be worse luck if we stay here. They’re forming up to sweep this stretch of jungle clear.”
“Well—if you says so, Tief-tief,” Jik-jik conceded. “I’ll spread the word.”
Half an hour later, the party paused on the trail, in total darkness now.
Tupper was peering through the blackness. “I’d give a pretty to know where we are,” he said. “Stumping along a trail in the dark—’tis no fit occupation for a sane Quopp.”
“We’ll have to call a halt until Second Jooprise,” Retief said. “We can’t see where we’re going, but neither can the Voion. They’re not using torches either.”
“But I can hear ’em; they’re not far behind us—the night-crawling heathen!”
“It’ll be Second Jooprise in another half hour, maybe,” Jik-jik said. “I hopes them Voion is as smart as we is and set still for a while instead of cooking up surprises.”
“I don’t like it,” Tupper stated. “There’s something about this spot—I got a feeling hostile eyes are on me!”
“They’ll be hostile clubs on you, if you keeps talking so loud,” Jik-jik said. “Hush up now and let’s all set and rest whiles we can.”
Tupper was moving carefully about in the darkness. “Oh-oh,” he said softly.
“What that?” Jik-jik demanded.
“It feels like . . .”
“What it feel like?” Jik-jik asked breathlessly.
“Tief—better give us a light,” Tupper said tensely.
Retief stepped to his side, took out a lighter, fired a torch supplied by a Ween. The oily brand flared up, cast dancing light on a purplish-gray mound blocking the path.
“Was there something?” a deep voice boomed out.
“Now we is done it,” Jik-jik choked out. “Us is right smack dab in the middle of Jackooburg!”