McKay said, slowly, “I wonder what they’d do to you if they knew you were responsible for their being here?”
Urthona turned pale. Anana laughed, and said, “I might tell them-when I learn how to speak their tongue.”
“You wouldn’t do that, would you?” Urthona said. He looked at her, then said,”Yes, you would. Well, just remember, I’m the only one who can get us-into my palace.”
“If we ever find it,” Anana said. “And if these savages don’t eat us first.”
She closed her eyes and went to sleep. It seemed like a minute later that she was roused by a kick in the ribs. It was the gray-haired woman in her panties, the chiefs woman, who’d taken a special dislike to Anana. Or was it so special? All the women seemed to loathe her. Perhaps, though, that was the way they treated all female captives.
Obviously, the women weren’t going to teach her the language. She picked on an adolescent, a short muscular lad who was keeping an eye on her. Since he seemed to be fascinated by her, she would get him to initiate her into the tribal speech. It didn’t take long to learn his name, which was Nurgo.
Nurgo was eager to teach her. He rode on a moosoid while she walked, but he told her the names of things and people she pointed out. By the end of the “day,” when they stopped for another two-hour snooze, she knew fifty words, and she could construct simple questions and had memorized their answers.
Neither Urthona nor McKay were interested in linguistics. They walked side by side, talking in low tones, obviously discussing methods of escape.
When they resumed their march in the deepening twilight, the chief asked her to demonstrate the use of the Horn. She blew the sequence of notes which would open any “gate”-if there had been one around. After some initial failures, he mastered the trumpet and for a half-hour amused himself by blowing it. Then the shaman said something to him. Anana didn’t know what it was. She guessed the shaman was pointing out that the sounds might attract the attention of enemies.
Sheepishly, he stuck the Horn into a saddlebag.
Amazingly, the woman with her jeans had so far not been curious about the heavy lump in the leg of the cloth. Since she had never seen this type of apparel before, she must think that all jeans were weighted in this fashion.
Near the end of the “night” the caravan stopped again. Guards were posted, and everybody went to sleep. The moosoid, however, stayed awake and chomped on tree branches. These were carried on the travois or on their backs. The supply was almost gone, which meant that men would have to forage for it. That is, find a grove or forest of walking plants, kill some, and strip off the branches.
At “noon” the following day the two mountains forming the pass to the sea seemed to be very close. But she knew that distance was deceiving here. It might take two more days before the pass was reached. Apparently the tribe knew how far away it was. The beasts wouldn’t make it to the sea before they became weak with hunger.
Twenty of the men and some four adolescents rode out onto the plain. As fortune had it, the necessary food was advancing toward them. It was a square of trees which she estimated numbered about a thousand. The riders waited until it was a quarter of a mile from the channel. Then, holding lariats made of fiber, they rode out. Nearing the trees, they formed an Indian file. Like redskins circling a wagon train, they rode whooping around and around it.
The plants were about ten feet high and coniferous, shaped like Christmas trees with extraordinarily broad trunks which bulged out at the bottom. About two-thirds of the way up, eyes ringed the boles, and four very long and thin greenish tentacles extended from their centers. When the tribesmen got close, the whole unit stopped, and those on the perimeter turned on four barky legs to face outward.
Anana had noticed that a herd of wild moosoids had ignored them. There must be a reason for this. And as the men rode by, about twenty feet from the outguards, she saw why. Streams of heavy projectiles shot from holes in the trunks. Though a long way from the scene, she could hear the hissing of released air.