Under the cornucopia tree, he blew the horn. No “gate” appeared. He tried again a hundred yards away but without success. So, he decided, the horn worked only in certain areas, perhaps only in that place by the toadstool-shaped boulder.
Then he glimpsed the head of the girl who had come from around the tree that first time the gate had opened. She had the same heart-shaped face, enormous eyes, full crimson lips, and long tigerstripes of black and auburn hair.
He greeted her, but she fled. Her body was beautiful; her legs were the longest, in proportion to her body, that he had ever seen in a woman. Moreover, she was slimmer than the other too-curved and great-busted females of this world.
Wolff ran after her. The girl cast a look over her shoulder, gave a cry of despair, and continued to run.
He almost stopped then, for he had not gotten such a reaction from any of the natives. An initial withdrawal, yes, but not sheer panic and utter fright.
The girl ran until she could go no more. Sobbing for breath, she leaned against a moss-covered boulder near a small cataract. Ankle-high yellow flowers in the form of question-marks surrounded her. An owl-eyed bird with corkscrew feathers and long forward-bending legs stood on top of the boulder and blinked down at them. It uttered soft wee-wee-wee! cries.
Approaching slowly and smiling, Wolff said, “Don’t be afraid of me. I won’t harm you. I just want to talk to you.”
The girl pointed a shaking finger at the horn. In a quavery voice she said, “Where did you get that?”
“I got it from a man who called himself Kickaha. You saw him. Do you know him?”
The girl’s huge eyes were dark green; he thought them the most beautiful he had ever seen. This despite, or maybe because of, the catlike pupils.
She shook her head. “No. I did not know him. I first saw him when those”-she swallowed and turned pale and looked as if she were going to vomit-“things chased him to the boulder. And I saw them drag him off the boulder and take him away.”
“Then he wasn’t ended?” Wolff asked. He did not say killed or slain or dead, for these were taboo words.
“No. Perhaps those things meant to do something even worse than . . . ending him?”
“Why run from me?” Wolff said. “I am not one of those things.”
“I … I can’t talk about it.”
Wolff considered her reluctance to speak of unpleasantness. These people had so few repulsive or dangerous phenomena in their lives, yet they could not face even these. They were overly conditioned to the easy and the beautiful.
“I don’t care whether or not you want to talk about it.” he said. “You must. It’s very important.”
She turned her face away. “I won’t.”
“Which way did they go?”
“Who?”
“Those monsters. And Kickaha.”
“I heard him call them gworl,” she said. “I never heard that word before. They . . . the gworl. . . must come from somewhere else.” She pointed seawards and up. “They must come from the mountain. Up there, somewhere.”
Suddenly she turned to him and came close to him. Her huge eyes were raised to his, and even at this moment he could not help thinking how exquisite her features were and how smooth and creamy her skin was.
“Let’s get away from here!” she cried. “Far away! Those things are still here. Some of them may have taken Kickaha away, but all of them didn’t leave! I saw a couple a few days ago. They were hiding in the hollow of a tree. Their eyes shone like those of animals, and they have a horrible odor, like rotten fungus-covered fruit!”
She put her hand on the horn. “1 think they want this!”
Wolff said, “And I blew the horn. If they’re anywhere near, they must have heard it!”
He looked around through the trees. Something glittered behind a bush about a hundred yards away.
He kept his eyes on the bush, and presently he saw the bush tremble and the flash of sunlight again. He took the girl’s slender hand in his and said, “Let’s get going. But walk as if we’d seen nothing. Be nonchalant.”