Kartr fumbled for the fastenings of his belt and slipped his arm carefully out of its sling. Fylh sat crosslegged in the sand and watched them both, disapproval plain on his thin delicate face as they pulled off harness and uniforms. Fylh had never willingly entered water and he never would.
The sergeant could not stifle an exclamation of pleasure as the water closed about him, rising from ankle to knee, to waist, as he waded out, feeling cautiously with exploring toes. Zinga kicked up waves, pushing on boldly until his feet were off bottom and he tried his strength against the deeper currents of midstream. Kartr longed for two good hands and to be able to join the Zacathan. The best he could do was duck and let the drops roll down him, washing away the mustiness of the ship, the taint of the too long voyage.
“If you are now finished with this newly hatched nonsense”—that was Fylh—“may I remind you that we are supposed to be doing a job?”
Kartr was almost tempted to deny that. He wanted to stay where he was. But the bonds of discipline brought him back to the sand spit where, with the Trystian’s help, he pulled on the clothes he had taken a dislike to. Zinga had swum upstream and Kartr looked up just in time to see the yellow-gray body of the Zacathan leap through the mist below the falls. He sent a thought summons flying.
But then there was a flash of brilliant color, as a bird soared overheard, to distract him. Fylh stood with hands outstretched, a clear whistle swelling out of his throat. The bird changed course and wheeled about the two of them. Then it fluttered down to perch on the Trystian’s great thumb claw, answering his trill with liquid notes of its own. Its blue feathers had an almost metallic sheen. For a long time it answered Fylh, and then it took wing again—out over the water. The Trystian’s crest was raised proud and high. Kartr drew a full deep breath.
“That one is beautiful!” He paid tribute.
Fylh nodded, but there was a hint of sadness about his thin lips as he answered, “It did not really understand me.”
Zinga dripped out of the water, hissing to himself as if he were about to go into battle. He transferred some object he had been holding in one hand to his mouth, chewed with an expression of rapture, and swallowed.
“The water creatures are excellent,” he observed. “Best I’ve tasted since Vassor City when we had that broiled Katyer dinner! Pity they’re so small.”
“I only hope that your immunity shots are still working,” Kartr returned scathingly. “If you—”
“Go all purple and die it will only be my own fault?” The Zacathan finished for him. “I agree. But fresh food is sometimes worth dying for. Formula 1A60 is not my idea of a proper meal. Well, and now where do we wend our way?”
Kartr studied the plateau from which the river fell. The thick green above looked promising. They dared not venture too far into the unknown with such a small fuel supply and the return journey to plan for. Maybe a flight to the top of that cliff would provide them with a vantage point from which to examine the country beyond. He suggested that.
“Up it is.” Fylh got back in the sled. “But not more than a half mile—unless you are longing to walk back!”
This time Kartr felt the slight sluggishness of their break away, he strained forward in his seat as if by will power alone he could raise the sled out of the sand and up to the crest of the rock barrier. He knew that Fylh would be able to nurse the last gasp of energy from the machine, but he had no longing to foot it back to the Starfire.
At the top of the cliff there seemed to be no landing place for them. The trees grew close to the stream edge, thick enough to make a solid carpet of green. But a quarter of a mile from the falls they came upon an island—it was really a miniature mesa, smoothed off almost level—around which the stream cut some twenty feet below. Fylh set the sled down with not more than four feet on either side separating them from the edge. The stone was hot, sun baked, and Kartr stood up in the sled, unslinging visibility lenses.
On either side of the river the trees and brush grew in an almost impassable wall. But northward he sighted hills, green and rolling, and the river crossed a plain. He was restoring the lenses to their holder when he sensed alien life.
Down at the edge of the stream a brown-furred animal had emerged from the woods. It squatted by the water to lap and then dabbled its front paws in the current. There was a flicker of silver spinning in the air and the jaws of the beast snapped on the water creature it had flipped out of the river.
“Splendid!” Zinga paid tribute to the feat. “I couldn’t have done any better myself! Not a wasted motion—”
Delicately Kartr probed the mind behind that furry skull. There was intelligence of a sort and he thought that he might appeal to it if he wished. But the animal did not know man or anything like man. Was this planet a wilderness with no superior life form?
He asked that aloud and Fylh answered him.
“Did that bump you received when we landed entirely addle your thinking process? A slice of wilderness may be found on many planets. And because this creature below does not know of any superior to itself does not certify that such do not exist elsewhere—”
Zinga had propped his head on his two hands and was staring out toward the distant plain and hills.
“Green hills,” he muttered. “Green hills and water full of very excellent food. The Spirit of Space is smiling on us this once. Do you wish to ask questions of our fishing friend below?”
“No. And it is not alone. Something grazes behind that clump of pointed trees and there are other lives. They fear each other—they live by claw and fang—”
“Primitive,” catalogued Fylh, and then conceded generously, “Perhaps you are right, Kartr. Perhaps there is no human or Bemmy overlord in this world.”
“I trust not,” Zinga raised both his first and second eyelids to their fullest extent. “I long to pit my wits—daring adventurer style—against some fiendish, intelligent monster—”
Kartr grinned. For some reason he had always found the reptile-ancestored brain of the Zacathan more closely akin to his own thinking processes than he ever did Fylh’s cool detachment. Zinga entered into life with zest, while the Trystian was, in spite of physical participation, always the onlooker.
“Maybe we can locate some settlement of your fiendish monsters among those hills,” he suggested. “What about it, Fylh, dare we try to reach them?”
“No.” Fylh was measuring with a claw tip the gage on the control panel. “We’ve enough to get us back to the ship from here and that is all.”
“If we all hold our breath and push,” murmured the Zacathan. “All right. And if we have to set down, we’ll walk. There is nothing better than to feel good hot sand ooze up between one’s toes—” He sighed languorously.
The sled arose, startling the brown-coated fisherman. It sat on its haunches, one dripping paw raised, to watch them go. Kartr caught its mild astonishment—but it had no fear of them. It had few enemies and did not expect those to fly through the air. As they swung around Kartr tried an experiment and sent a darting flash of good will into that primitive brain. He looked back. The animal had risen to its hind legs and stood, man fashion, its front paws dangling loosely, staring after the sled.
They passed over the falls so low that the spray beaded their skins. Kartr caught his lower lip between his teeth and bit down on it. Was that only Fylh’s flying or did power failure drive them down? He had no desire to ask that question openly.
“To follow the river back,” Zinga pointed out, “is to take the long way round. If we cut across country from that peak we ought to hit the ship—”
Kartr saw and nodded. “How about it, Fylh? Stick to the water or not?”
The Trystian hunched his shoulders in his equivalent of a shrug. “Quicker, yes.” And he pointed the sled’s bow to the right.
They left the stream thread. A carpet of trees lay beneath them and then a scrubby clearing in which a group of five red-brown animals grazed. One tossed its head skyward and Kartr saw the sun glint on long cruel horns.
“I wonder,” mused Zinga, “if they ever do any disputing with our river-bank friend. He had some pretty formidable claws—and those horns are not just for adornment. Or maybe they have some kind of treaty of nonaggression—”