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"Contestant Vreeth " Benn's voice caught when the shining ears tipped toward
him. "Contestant Vreeth, why are you here in the halo?"
The mirrors blazed like yellow searchlights focused on him.
"Why should I answer the questions of a Terran planetic?"
"We have answered yours."
The mirrors tipped to search the slope ahead and slowly back to answer him.
"Perhaps because I came to hunt. Perhaps because of a sick-ness that killed
most of the game creatures on our hunting planet." The yellow beams dimmed for
a moment, shifting to Bolivar. "If the best hunting on Terra is creatures as
feeble as yourself, how can they offer sport?"
"You'll find them cunning enough," he told her. "And they carry weapons."
"If their weapons are good, we may find them a rewarding challenge."
"Your companions?" he asked. "Wing and Lilith? Are they going to Earth?"
"They are requesting residence rights."
"What do they want there?"
With no reply, the mirrors tipped away to search a waste of glowing stone
ahead. Benn shivered. He felt helpless, trapped in the currents of Bolivar's
reckless scheme. Even if it failed, it could spoil all his hopes for a human
future in the Elderhood.
"Contestant Vreeth " He nerved himself to try another question. "Where was
your home?"
"An impudent creature at the beacon station asked that question. He is dead."
"Killed, I have heard, by an accident." He watched the mir-rors. "The eldren
say such accidents should not happen. Com-ing when it did, this one is a very
strange coincidence. Can you tell me the cause?"
The mirrors bent as if to study him.
"My friends and I were confined in prison cells at the beacon station. We do
not know the cause." The mirrors seemed to stiffen. "Planetic, such questions
offend me. I will answer no more."
"Careful, Dain." Bolivar leaned to mutter at his ear. "She might forget the
rule that we win or lose together."
The mirrors darkened, flattened back against the sides of that great head, but
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still the great creature raced on. The luminous roof was higher now. That flat
expanse ahead really was a lake, he decided, bright with its reflection of the
glowing stone above and beyond it. Small green spots were scattered along the
shore.
They were soaring over a black-walled canyon where time must have worn the
luminous surface rock away. Vreeth dipped low over the cliffs beyond, touched
them with her talons, glided on down toward the lake. Benn frowned at the
green areas.
Vegetation? The caverns were endless, not all connected. There was atmosphere
here, and light from the radiant walls. Life might be possible. Even animal
life? The green spots were level and rectangular. Could they be fields?
Vreeth ran on with them down that glowing slope. Benn be-gan to see scattered
tufts of coarse grass and clumps of thorny brush in the hollows. The mirrors
lifted again before they came to the lake, and their golden beams picked out a
moving figure near the shore.
"A farmer!" Bolivar pointed. "A farmer here, if you can imagine!"
A small gray creature, it had been creeping across a tiny field. He saw it
stop and straighten, with something like a hand lifted to its eyes as it
peered at them. Something even smaller darted from its side, running toward
them out of the field. Vreeth dived to meet it, so abruptly that they slid off
her velvet back and fell sprawling on a slope of shining gravel.
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The Eye of Rhykloon
They rolled to the bottom of the gravel slope and staggered to their feet,
rubbing bruises and brushing bright grit off their life-skins.
"No leaks?"
"Or we could be dead." Ruefully Bolivar gazed after Vreeth. "What a partner!"
Mirror-ears flat, black talons reaching, she was diving at the thing that had
fled. Something small and white and quick. Dog-like, Benn thought. It darted
away along the lake shore and vanished beyond a wall of gray-green feathery
stuff that looked a little like bamboo. Vreeth dropped after it.
"Back in the jungle," Bolivar muttered. "Where I think she belongs."
When she didn't rise again, Benn turned to look at the crea-ture in the field.
It stood on two legs now, holding a bundle of that green vegetation in its [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]