Farree sucked in his breath. Just so had he seen Maelen gesture once or twice in the past; yet the prisoner was plainly no Thassa. He could not lift his own arms, which were bound tightly by the tangler. If he could what might he do—only copy her own gesture?
Maelen! He built up a mind picture of her without thinking.
The girl threw herself forward, her one hand out to his head, one emphatic shake warning him.
But that came too late. Skittering in and out of his thought bands was the touch he knew well—Togger! In spite of the continued emphatic warning the girl pantomimed, Farree deliberately pictured the smux, down to the last curve of the poison-feeding claws. Once done he held to that—not trying to reach any other of their company. It might be that his call for the smux was on so different a band of mind sense that it would not be detected by any of the sensors, mental or mechanical, which these killers used.
He put into his own call all the force of his frustration.
"Friend—friend!" Togger had made contact! Where was the smux—how far away? Farree forced all such speculation from his mind and continued to hold only on the picture of Togger, and to keep in touch with the smux. From the clearness of the touch, and the fact it grew continually sharper, he believed that by some freak of chance fortune was with him—Togger!
The girl was on her knees before him, staring straight into his eyes as if she could see through those into what stood in his mind—the squat body of his first and closest ally.
She brushed aside the locks of hair dangling about her face and then she held out both hands, touching his body between the loops of the cord which held him so motionless. Into him streamed a flow of strength. There was amazement in her expression, a recoil that almost caused an involuntary withdrawal from contact with him. Manifestly she had not expected what her touch was accomplishing.
"Togger—" He strained his mind touch as far out on the scale as he could. And touched now another—!
That these two had managed to reach him, and yet he had not felt any call from the Zacanthan, Maelen, or Vorlund, was surprising to him. Perhaps some device activated by his captors prevented this. But the party from his own ship must not be allowed to come within range of these who had established camp here. They in turn could be swept into captivity.
The near witless look that the girl had worn while the guard was with them was swept away by her continued attitude and expression of wariness. Her touch on Farree changed. Now she gripped each of his hands, even pinned as they were against his sides by the tangler, in one of hers and a stronger force flowed between them.
"Bad—bad in the air—" Togger broadcast. And repeated even more firmly, "In air, bad."
Still keeping touch with the smux Farree listened. There were more shouts and he could hear the crackle of lasers. Did that mean invaders were still trying to shoot down Selrena and her black-winged escort? Or were the three of his own comrades riding the flitter of their own ship and now taking a part in the battle?
His back was to the door of the shelter but he saw the girl's eyes widen, felt a small added pressure in her hands. Someone was there. Then Farree caught a whiff of the acrid odor given forth by Togger when he was aroused and his claws were ready to deliver poison to an enemy. There was another smell, too.
"Yazz!"
A furred body pressed against his back for an instant and then rounded into his sight. Mounted on the back of the slender hunter rode Togger, holding on to a strip which had been fastened around Yazz's body just behind her forelegs.
"Togger, Yazz!" Farree would have liked to have shouted aloud, but he remembered to keep his voice down. Yazz raised her slender nose, sniffed in direction of the girl, who stared wide-eyed at the pair of newcomers.
"Friends!" Farree, unable to even point because of his bound hands, nodded to the two newcomers.
She dropped her hold on his hands, edging back into the position in which he had first seen her. Still she looked from one to another of the three of them with wonder in her face. Yazz moved in closer and opened a mouth well equipped with teeth, ready to snap at Farree's bonds.
Hurriedly he sent a thrust of danger at Yazz. To touch those might well entangle her in turn. He must have his freedom—but how long they might have before the guard returned Farree had no way of telling. Fire—but there was no fire to shrivel the tangler cords into black strings as he had seen done before. Nor was the whip stock which controlled the spread of the sticky cords here. How then—?
It was Togger who answered that. The smux dropped from Yazz's back and scuttled forward, his large foreclaws slightly raised. There was the shine of poison showing on those, even one or two drops falling as he came to Farree.
Was that the answer? Could the caustic defense of the smux work to burn in another way? Farree clutched at that thought. Togger might not be able to nod in agreement as he squatted momentarily before his friend, but Farree was certain that that caustic burning was just what he proposed to try.
He clicked his claws and Yazz came to him. Using a dangling end of the strap by which he could ride on the larger animal's back Togger pulled himself up to that place he had occupied before. Yazz turned sidewise and with small, cautious movements she drew as near as she could to Farree without touching one of those white cords. Togger held on with his back legs and his small claws, and reached out to Farree, straining his whole body as far as he could to reach the prisoner.
Despite the growing stench of the poison and the threat of those claws should Togger aim badly, Farree stood as still as he could hold himself. Selecting a length of the bonds which was as far from any bare skin as he could find, Togger clasped it with a light grip.
There came an even stronger whiff of the poison. But the touch of the smux had not tied him into captivity, too. Instead there was a black ring where the claw had clutched as the smux loosed it. That blackness spread, in both ways, from the ring.
The cord loosed suddenly, fell down, while the black spread up the surface of each end of the cutting. Farree started once as part of the blackened stuff which touched his own skin gave him a sharp thrust of pain, as if he had held his arm in an open flame. His hands were free and the darkened portions were falling away. In moments he could shake himself and the last of the smoking tangler loops dropped from him.
He kicked those away and stood steady as Togger now leaped from his perch on Yazz to his favorite riding place in the front of Farree's jerkin. The girl's hand was at her mouth as if she were chewing on her knuckles.
Farree held out his hand to urge her to her feet. He might have very little hope of winning free from this camp but that was no reason not to try. Then she shook her head vehemently and pointed to what lay along the floor, which he had not noticed before. She was tethered to the large support in the middle of the shelter by a chain and a ring about one slender ankle; her ankle was much darkened by bruises, as if she had tried for freedom on her own.
The anklet was of the same silvery metal he had found in the deeps below Selrena's castle. But the chain itself was darker in hue and looked as if it might be steel. The end which was clasped around the support was even darker in color.
He reached for the nearest of the chain links to test the hold. She caught at his hand and shook her head sharply. He drew as gently as he could of her clutches and knelt, taking the chain up between his hands. The links were warm, even hot to the touch, but it seemed to him that when he jerked the loop around the support, it gave a little. Togger's acid poison had bitten through the tangler cord; could it also act on this?