It was very confusing. Jadawin hadn’t always lived on the home planet of the Lords or in his own private cosmos. For a while he’d been a citizen of Earth, and he hadn’t even known it because of amnesia. Then… to hell with it. It made McKay’s head ache to think about it. But some day, when there was time enough, if he lived long enough, he’d get it all straightened out. If he wasn’t completely nuts before then.
CHAPTER FOUR
KlCKAHA SAID, “I’m a Hoosier appleknocker, Angus. So I’m going to get us some fresh fruit. But I need your help. We can’t get close because of those tentacles. However, the tree has one weak point in its defense. Like a lot of people, it can’t keep its mouth shut.
“So, I’m going to shoot an arrow into its mouth. It may not kill it, but it’s going to hurt it. Hopefully, the impact will knock it over. This bow packs a hell of a wallop. As soon as the thing’s hit, you run up and throw this axe at a branch. Try to hit a cluster of apples if you can. Then I’ll decoy it away from the apples on the ground.”
He handed Anana’s light throwing axe to McKay.
“What about those?” McKay said, pointing at three trees which were only twenty feet below their intended victim. They were coming slowly but steadily.
“Maybe we can get their apples, too. We need that fruit, Angus. We need the nourishment, and we need the water in them.”
“You don’t have to explain that,” McKay said.
“I’m like the tree. I can’t keep my mouth shut,” Kickaha said, smiling.
He fitted an arrow to the string, aimed, and released it. It shot true, plunging deep into the O-shaped orifice. The plant had just raised the two tentacles to take another step upward and then to fall slightly forward to catch itself on the rubbery extensions. Kickaha had loosed the shaft just as it was off balance. It fell backward, and it lay on its hinder part. The tentacles threshed, but it could not get up by itself. The branches extending from its side prevented its rolling over even if it had been capable, otherwise, of doing so.
Kickaha gave a whoop and put a hand on McKay’s shoulder.
“Never mind throwing the axe. The apples are knocked off. Hot damn!”
The three trees below it had stopped for a moment. They moved on up. There had not been a sound from their mouths, but to the two men the many rolling eyes seemed to indicate some sort of communication. According to Urthona, however, the creatures were incapable of thought. But they did cooperate on an instinctual level, as ants did. Now they were evidently coming to assist their fallen mate.
Kickaha ran ahead of McKay, who had hesitated. He looked behind him. The two male Lords were standing about sixty feet above them. Anana, beamer in hand, was watching, her head moving back and forth to keep all within eye-range.
Urthona had, of course, told McKay to kill Anana and Kickaha if he ever got a chance. But if he hit the redhead from behind with the axe, he’d be shot down by Anana. Besides, he was beginning to think that he had a better chance of survival if he joined up with Anana and Kickaha. Anyway, Kickaha was the only one who didn’t treat him as if he was a nigger. Not that the Lords had any feeling for blacks as such. They regarded everybody but Lords as some sort of nigger. And they weren’t friendly with their own kind.
McKay ran forward and stopped just out of reach of a threshing tentacle. He picked up eight apples, stuffing four in the pockets of his levis and holding two in each hand.
When he straightened up, he gasped. That crazy Kickaha had leaped onto the fallen tree and was now pulling the arrow from the hole. As he raised the shaft, its head dripping with a pale sticky fluid, he was enwrapped by a tentacle around his waist. Instead of fighting it, he rammed his right foot deep into the hole. And he twisted sideways.