the device to bring down flying kesters. for a change of diet. The female
demonstrated, rolling over on her back, holding an imaginary hole-stock to her
mouth and making a popping noise through her lips. "Splash come kester!"
They'd modified the technique to handle the occasional large predators who
annoyed them too persistently - larger thorns, jammed directly through the
hide into the body: Big sea animals didn't die as quickly as the fliers, but
they died.
"Many thorns here," the male assured Nile. "Stick in ten, twenty, and the tarm
no trouble."
She studied him thoughtfully. Sweeting could count . . . but these were wild
otters. Attempts had been made to trace the original consignment of
laboratory-grown cubs to its source. But the trail soon became hopelessly lost
in the giant intricacies of Hub commerce; and no laboratory was found which
would take responsibility for the development of a talking otter mutant. The
cubs which had reached Nandy-Cline seemed to be the only members of the strain
in existence.
For all practical purposes then, this was a new species, and evidently it was
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less than fifty years old. In that time it had progressed to the point of
inventing workable dart blowguns and poisoned daggers. It might have an
interesting future. Nile thought she knew the yellow bladder gum to which they
referred. It contained a very fast acting nerve poison. What effect it would
have on a creature with the tarm's metabolism couldn't be predicted, but the
idea seemed worth trying.
She asked further questions, gathered they'd seen the tarm motionless under
the blockhouse only minutes before Sweeting got the first caller signal. It
was the creature s usual station as water guard of the area. Evidently it had
been withdrawn from the hunt fvr the Tuvela. Groups of Parahuans were moving
about in the lagoon, but there was no indication they, were deployed in
specific search patterns...
"Waddle-feet got jets," remarked the male.
"Slow jets," said the female reassuringly. "No trouble!"
But armed divers in any kind of jet rigs could be trouble in open water. Nile
shrugged mentally She could risk the crossing. She nodded at the dark outlines
of the distant forest section. "I've got to go over there," she said.
"Sweeting will come along. The waddle-feet have guns and are looking for me.
You want to come too?"
They gave her the silent laugh again, curved white teeth gleaming in the
dusk.
"Nile-friends," stated the male. "We'll come Fun, heh? What we do, Nile? Kill
the waddle-feet?"
"If we run into any of them," said Nile, "we kill the waddle-feet fast!"
. . . .
A few minutes later the three otters slipped down into a lifting wave and were
gone. Nile glanced about once more before following. A narrow sun-rim still
clung to the horizon. Overhead the sky was clear-pale blue with ghostly
cluster light shining whitely through. High-riding cloud banks to the south
reflected magenta sun glow. Wind force was moderate. Here in the lee of the
forest she didn't feel much of it. The open stretch of sea ahead was broken
and foaming, but she'd be moving below the commotion.
In these latitudes the Meral produced its own surface illumination. She saw
occasional gleams flash and disappear among the tossing waves colonies of
light organisms responding to the darkening air. But they wouldn't give enough
light to guide her across. Time to shift to her night eyes . . .
She brought a pack of dark-lenses from the pouch, fitted two under her lids,
blinked them into position: a gel, adjusting itself automatically to varying
conditions for optimum human vision. An experimental Giard product, and a very
good one.
She pulled the breather over her face, fitted the audio plugs to her ears, and
flicked herself off the floatwood. Sea shadow closed about her, cleared in
seconds to amber half light as the dark-lenses went into action. Fifteen feet
down, Nile turned and stroked into open water.
Open but not empty. A moving weed thicket ahead and to the right . . . Nile
circled about it, a school of small skilts darting past, brushing her legs
with tiny hard flicks. She brought her left wrist briefly before her eyes,
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checked the small compass she'd fastened to it, making sure of her direction.
The otters weren't in view. If the crossing was uneventful, she shouldn't see
much of them. They were to stay about a hundred feet away, one of the wild
pair on either side, Sweeting taking the point, to provide early warning of
approaching danger.
A cloud of light appeared presently ahead; others grew dimly visible beyond
it. . . pink, green, orange. The Shining Sea was the name. the sledmen gave
the Meral as it rolled here down the southern curve of the globe toward the
pole. Nile began to pass thickets in which the light-bearers clustered. Each
species produced its own precise shade of water-fire. None were large; the
giants among them might be half the length of her forearm, narrow worm bodies.
But their swarms turned acres of the subsurface to flame.
The fins moved her on steadily. She listened to the sea through the audios, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]