He went quietly down the hill, through the wood, marking every tree and bush along his path, cataloguing and evaluating all the larger creatures, alert for any danger, fearing only that he might meet a danger he would not recognize.
The trees came to an end and the fields were ahead of him – the fields and roads and houses – and here again he hesitated to search out the land ahead.
A human was walking down by the creek with his dog and a car was moving slowly up a private road that ran to a house across the creek, a herd of cows were sleeping in a field but, except for these, the valley seemed clear except for mice and gophers and other smaller residents.
He started across the valley at a trot, then broke into an easy, rocking lope that ate up the ground. He reached the slope of the next high hill and went swarming over it and down the other side.
He hugged the knapsack underneath his left arm and the sack was bulky because it held Changer’s clothes as well as all the other items. It was a bother, for it lent him a lopsided balance for which he must compensate and he must for ever be on guard against its being snagged by a bush or branch.
He halted for a moment, dropped the knapsack to the ground and retracted his left arm. Relieved of its burden, the arm snuggled wearily into the pocket in his shoulder. He extruded his right arm and picked up the sack, tucked it underneath the arm and resumed his travelling. Perhaps, he told himself, he should shift the burden oftener, from one arm to the other. It might be easier if he did.
He crossed the valley, went up the next long hill, stopped at its crest to rest a moment before going on.
Willow Grove, Changer had said. A hundred miles. He could be there by dawn if he kept on as he had been going. And what might await the three of them when they reached Willow Grove? Willow was a tree and grove was a group of trees, and it was strange how humans named certain geographic points. There was little logic to it, for a willow grove could die and disappear and then the place name would have no significance.
Impermanent, he thought. But then the humans, themselves, as a race, were impermanent. Their continual changing of their lives, this thing that they called progress, made for impermanence. There was something to be said, he thought, for forging the sort of life a race might wish to live, to set up some basic values, and then be satisfied…
He took a step down the hill, then stopped, tensed and listening.
The sound came again – a faint, far bugling.
A dog, he told himself. A dog that had struck a trail.
He went swiftly, but cautiously, down the hill, sensing ahead and on either side. At the edge of the wood, he stopped to survey the stretch of level valley that lay ahead of him. There was nothing there that was a matter of concern, and he trotted out into the valley, came to a fence and leaped over and then went on.
For the first time, he felt a twinge of fatigue. Despite the relative coolness of the night, he was unused to the heat of Earth. He had been pushing hard, trying to cover as much ground as possible, to reach Willow Grove by morning. He’d have to take it easier for a while, hope to get his second wind. He must pace himself.
He crossed the valley at a trot, not breaking into a lope, reached the opposite slope and climbed it slowly. On the crest, he told himself, he would sit down and rest a while and by the time he started out again, he probably could resume his former pace.
Halfway up the slope he heard the baying once again and it seemed closer now and louder. It was whipped by the wind, however, and he could not be sure exactly how far away it was, or in what direction.
On the crest, he halted and sat down. The moon was rising and the trees in which he sat threw long shadows out across a tiny meadow that lay on the steep hillside.
The baying definitely was closer now and there were more dogs than one. He tried to count them. There were four at least, perhaps five or six.
Coon hunting, perhaps. The Brownie had said something about certain humans using dogs to chase raccoons, calling it a sport. But there was, of course, no sport in it. To think of anything like that as a sport called for a peculiar perversion – although, come to think of it, the humans seemed perverted in more ways than one. Honest war was something else, of course, but this was neither war nor honest.
The baying was coming up the slope behind him and coming fast. There was now a frantic, slobbering sound in the yelping of the dogs. They were hot upon the trail and coming fast.
Hot upon the trail!
Quester leaped to his feet and swung about, thrusting the sensor cone down the slope behind him. And there they were – driving up the hill, noses no longer to the ground, but lifted high to catch the scent that they had followed.
The realization struck him now – the thing he should have guessed, even back on the other hill when he first had heard the baying. The dogs were following no coon. They had struck on bigger game.
A thrill of horror shot through him and he spun about, to go plunging down the hill. Behind him, as the dog pack topped the hill, the wild song of the chase, no longer baffled by the rising slope of ground, rang out bugle-clear.
Quester flattened low against the ground, his legs a blur of speed, his tail floating out behind him. He reached the valley and crossed it and charged up the slope of the farther hill, He had gained distance on the dogs, but once again he felt the tiredness draining the strength out of his body and he knew the final outcome – he could outrun his pursuers in frantic bursts of speed, but in the end he’d lose, be overhauled when fatigue built up and slowed him down. Perhaps, he thought, the wiser thing would be to choose his ground and turn to wait for them. But there were too many of them. Two or three – he was sure he could handle two or three. But there were more than three. He could throw away the knapsack and, relieved of its weight and the unbalancing effect of it, he could run the faster. But the advantage would be slight and he had promised Changer he’d hang on to it. Changer would be annoyed if he abandoned it. Changer already was annoyed with him for occasionally forgetting that he had arms and hands.
It was strange, he thought, that the dogs should trail him. As an alien to this planet he must be different from anything the dogs had ever known, must leave a different kind of trail, must have a different scent. But the difference (if there were a difference) seemed to instil no fear in them, had seemed to do no more than rouse them to a higher hunting frenzy. Perhaps, he told himself, he was not so much unlike the creatures of this planet as he would have thought.
He went on, but at a slower pace, settling into a determined lope and seeming to hold his own, but he was tiring much too fast. Before too long he’d be forced to exert himself to keep ahead and when that happened, he knew the end would be in sight.
He could, of course, call on Changer to take over. Perhaps the dogs would break off their trailing if the trail turned into a human trail, or even if they did continue to follow it, would not attack a man. But he shrank from doing this. He should, he told himself, hold up his end. He found in himself a stubborn pride that would not let him call on Changer.
He topped the rise and below him lay the valley and in the valley a house with one lighted window shining. And in his mind a plan began to form.
Not Changer, but Thinker. That might turn the trick.
-Thinker, you can extract energy from a house?
-Yes, of course. I did it once before.
-From outside the house?
-If I am close enough.
-All right, then. When I get…
-Carry on, said Thinker. I know what’s in your mind.
Quester trotted down the hill, let the dogs close in, increased his speed when he struck the valley, heading for the house. The baying tapered off as the dogs, with the quarry now in sight, used every ounce of strength, every gasp of breath, to finally close upon it.