She took a comb from the back pocket of her torn bellbottom trousers and straightened out her long hair, as black as a Crow Indian’s.
“There. Is that better?” she said, smiling. Her teeth were very white and perfect. Only thirty years ago, she’d had tooth buds implanted, the hundredth set in a series.
“Not bad for a starving dehydrated old woman,” he said. “In fact, if I was up to it … ”
He quit grinning, and he waved his hand to indicate the hilltops. “We’ve got visitors.”
It was difficult in this light to see if she’d turned pale. Her voice was steady. “If they’re bearing fruit, we’ll eat.”
He thought it better not to say that they might be eaten instead.
He handed her the beamer. It looked like a six-shooter revolver. But the cartridges were batteries, of which only one now had a charge. The barrel contained a mechanism which could be adjusted to shoot a ray that could cut through a tree or inflict a slight burn or a stunning blow.
Kickaha went back to where his bow and a quiver of arrows lay. He was an excellent archer, but so far only two of his arrows had struck game. The animals were wary, and it had been impossible, except twice, to get close enough to any to shoot. Both kills had been small gazelles, not enough to fill the bellies of five adults in twelve days. Anana had gotten a hare with a throw of her light axe, but a long-legged baboon had dashed out from behind a hill, scooped it up, and run off with it.
Kickaha picked up the bow and quiver, and they walked three hundred feet away from the sleepers. Here he lay down and went to sleep. His knife was thrust upright into the ground, ready to be snatched in case of attack. Anana had her beamer, a light throwing axe, and a knife for defense.
They were not worried at this time about the trees. They just wanted to keep distance between them and the others. When Anana’s watch was over, she would wake up McKay. Then she’d return to lie down by Kickaha. She and her mate were not overly concerned about one of the others trying to sneak up on them while they slept. Anana had told them that her wristwatch had a device which would sound an alarm if anybody with a mass large enough to be dangerous came close. She was lying, though the device was something that a Lord could have. They probably wondered if she was deceiving them. However, they did not care to test her. She had said that if anyone tried to attack them, she would kill him immediately. They knew that she would do so.
CHAPTER THREE
HE AWOKE, SWEATING from the heat, the bright light of “day” plucking at his eyes. The sky had become a fiery light red. The clouds were gone, taking their precious moisture elsewhere. But he was no longer in a valley. The hills had come down, flattened out into a plain. And the party was now on a small hill.
He was surprised. The rate of change had been greater than he’d expected. Urthona, however, had said that the reshaping occasionally accelerated. Nothing was constant or predictable here. So, he shouldn’t have been surprised.
The trees still ringed them. There were several thousand, and now some scouts were advancing toward the just-born hill. They were about ten feet tall. The trunks were barrel-shaped and covered with a smooth greenish bark. Large round dark eyes circled the trunk near its top. On one side was an opening, the mouth. Inside it was soft flexible tissue and two hard ridges holding shark-like teeth. According to Urthona, the plants were half-protein, and the digestive system was much like an animal’s. The anus was the terminus of the digestive system, but it was also located in the mouth.
Urthona should know. He had designed them.
“They don’t have any diseases, so there’s no reason why the feces shouldn’t pass through the mouth,” Urthona had said.
“They must have bad breath,” Kickaha had said. “But then nobody’s going to kiss them, are they?”