Andre Norton by Zero Stone

Author:Zero Stone
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2011-12-04T01:21:23+00:00

We had been so long without any contact with the natives that I had believed they had given up. If they moved in now, we might find our shelter a trap.

“How many and where?” Eet was right; in such a situation I must depend upon his senses.

“Three-” Eet took his time to answer. “And they are very hesitant. I think that this place represents danger to them. On the other hand - they are hungry.”

For a second or so, that had no meaning for me. Then I stiffened. “You mean-?”

“We - or rather you - represent meat. Contact with such primitive minds is difficult. But I read hunger, kept in check mainly by fear. They have memory of danger here.”

“But - by the signs we have seen, there is plenty of game here.” I remembered the fresh tracks, the evidences of life we had seen in profusion, and how easy it had been for the fisherman to scoop out his prey.

“Just so. A puzzle as to why our trail would draw them past easier hunting.” Eet did seem puzzled.

“The reason, I cannot probe. Their minds are too alien, too primitive to read with any clarity. But they are aroused now past the limit of prudence. And they are most dangerous in the dark.”

I fingered the beamer on my harness. If the creatures were mainly night hunters, a flash in their eyes would dazzle them for a moment. But my own folly in picking this hole with its towering walls about us might be the deciding factor - against us.

“It is not as bad as all that,” Eet broke in. “There is a top to the wall-“

“Well above my reaching. But if you can climb it - climb!” I ordered.

I felt a sharp tug at one corner of the covering I had drawn over us.

“Let this free,” Eet countered. “Climb I can, but perhaps we shall both be safe because of the fact that my claws are useful.” He was out of my lap, dragging the cover behind him, though it was a burden which pulled his head to one side.

“Hold me up,” he commanded then, “as high as you can reach, and take some of the weight of this thing!”

I obeyed, because I had no counterplan, and I had come, during our association, to give credit to Eet. I lifted his body, held it above my own head, and felt him catch hold, and draw himself up. Then I fed along the length of the shelter cloth, keeping its weight from pulling him back as he went. Suddenly it was still, no longer tugged.

“Tie the knife to it and let go-” Eet ordered.

Let my only weapon out of my hands? He was crazy! Yet even as my thoughts protested, another part of me set my hands busy knotting that tool-weapon to the end of the dangling cloth. I heard it, even through the storm, clang and rap against the stone as it was drawn aloft by Eet.

I faced around, to the open side of the enclosure.

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