It broke, suddenly, a great cresting wave. He heard himself cry out, in alarm, and spring upright, but it was too late.
Suddenly the clearing was alive with darkly clustering swarms of crouching figures; Kennard yelled and leaped to his feet, but they were already struggling in the meshes of a great net of twisted vines that had jerked them closely together.
The fogged thickness of apprehension was gone, and Larry was clear headed, alert, aware of this new captivity. The net had drawn them close but not off their feet; they could see the forms around them clearly in the firelight and the color of phosphorescent torches of some sort. And the new attackers were not human.
They were formed like men, though smaller; furred, naked save for bands of leaves or some woven matting around their waists; with great pinkish eyes and long prehensile fingers and toes. They clustered around the net, twittering in high, birdlike speech. Larry glanced curiously at Kennard, and the other lad said tersely, “Trailmen. Nonhumans. They live in the trees. I didn’t know they’d ever come this far to the south. The fire probably drew them. If I’d known—” He glanced ruefully at their dying fire. The trailmen were circling round it, shrilling, poking at it gingerly with long sticks, throwing dirt at it, and finally they managed to cover it entirely. Then they stamped on it with what looked like glee, dancing a sort of victory dance, and finally one of the creatures came to the net and delivered a long speech in their shrill language; neither of the boys, of course, could understand a word, but it sounded enraged and triumphant.
Kennard said, “They’re terrified of fire, and they hate humans. Because we use it. They’re afraid of forest fire, of course. To them, fire means death.”
“What are they going to do to us?”
“I don’t know.” Kennard looked at Larry curiously, but all he said, at last, was, “Next time I’ll trust your hunches. Evidently you have some precognition too, as well as telepathy.”
To Larry, the trailmen looked like big monkeys—or like the kyrri, only smaller and without the immense dignity of those other creatures. He hoped they did not also have the kyrri trick of giving off electric sparks!
Evidently they did not. They drew the net tight around the boys’ feet, forcing them to walk by tugging at the vine ropes, but offered no further violence. A few hundred feet of this and they came upon a widened path; Kennard whistled, softly, at sight of it.
“We’ve been in trailmen country, evidently, most of the day. Probably they’ve been watching us all day, but they might not have bothered us if I hadn’t lit that fire. I ought to have known.”
It was easier to walk on the cleared path. Larry had lost track of time, but was stumbling with weariness when, much later, they came to a broad clearing, lighted by phosphorescence which, he now saw, came from fungus growing on broad trees. After a discussion in their twittering speech, the trailmen looped the net-ropes around the nearest tree and began to swarm up the trunk of the next.
“I wonder if they’re just going to leave us here?” Kennard muttered.
A hard jerk on the rope disabused them. Slowly, the net began to rise, jerking them off their feet, so that they hung up, swaying, in the great bag. Kennard shouted in protest, and Larry yelled, but evidently the trailmen were taking no chances. Once the slow motion rise stopped, and Larry wondered if they were going to be hung up here in a sack like a pair of big sausages; but after a heart-stopping interval, they began to rise again.
Kennard swore, in a smothered voice. “I should have cut our way out the minute they left us!” He drew his dagger and began feverishly to saw at one of the great vines enclosing them. Larry caught his arm.
“No Kennard. We’d only fall.” He pointed downward into the dizzying distance. “And if they see that, they’ll only take the knife from you. Hide it! Hide it!”
Kennard, realizing the truth of what Larry said, thrust the knife into his shirt. The lads clung together as the great vine net ascended higher and higher toward the treetops; far from wishing, now, to cut their way out, they feared it would break. The light brightened as they neared the lower branches of the immense trees, and at last, with a bump that flung them against one another, the net was hauled up over a branch and on to the floor of the trailmen’s encampment in the trees.