The captain waved a hand and ducked back into the ship. The leader spoke to the man with the black object. “Take a group and scout around with that hand detector—just in case the retron interference was real.”
Groups began to form and head off in different directions. The bushy-faced man led one toward the village. It passed quite near to Fornri, who studied its members carefully and puzzled over the strangely shaped weapon one of them carried. The Langri had described such things, but none of his students believed what he told them.
Twenty strides toward the village, one of the group turned aside suddenly, leaped into a clump of bushes, and dragged out— Dalla, kicking and screaming. Fornri leaped to his feet in consternation and then quickly dropped out of sight. He had not known Dalla had followed him, and it was a contingency the Langri’s Plan did not provide for, but Fornri did not hesitate. While Dalla continued to struggle and occupied the men’s full attention, he moved stealthily toward them.
The man who captured her was laughing. “I like this world better and better. I hope there’s enough of these to go around.”
“Let’s take her to the ship,” Bushy-face said. “I want to see what sort of language she speaks.”
The other answered, “That isn’t what I want to see.”
Fornri was near enough to charge. He crashed into the man holding Dalla and knocked him sprawling. The others immediately grappled with Fornri, and all of them tumbled into a heap while Dalla quickly vanished into the forest. Three of the men pulled Fornri to his feet and held him, and another restrained Dalla’s captor, who was furiously angry and attempting to assault Fornri.
“Never mind,” Bushy-face said. “He’ll do as well as the woman.”
“Not for me, he won’t!”
“Let’s take him to the ship,” Bushy-face said. “We can look at the village later.”
As they approached the ship, the leader came to meet them. “What do you want with a native?” he asked disgustedly.
“I want to find out something about him,” the bushy-faced man said. “His features are Abdolynian, and I think I have some language keys.”
“With all the interesting things crawling in that ocean, you shouldn’t be wasting your time on humans. There are life forms there I don’t believe even when I’m looking at them. I didn’t need to worry about anyone sneaking a swim.” He turned to a man who was quietly following him about. “Hirus, what are the chances those freaks might be worth money?”
“The only ones interested would be museums and animalariums,” the other said. “They haven’t got money. If you donated a few of them, no doubt they’d be pleased to name a choice specimen after you. That thing with all the legs and the long neck— how’d you like to have it called genus Wemblous?”
The fat man shuddered.
Bushy-face had darted up the walkway to the ship while the others held onto Fornri. Now he returned with another sort of strange black object. He held it in front of Fornri, pressed some of the gleaming protuberances—and the thing spoke! It said, “Fraugh, villick, lascrouf, boumarl, caciss, denlibdra.”
Bushy-face was watching Fornri intently. “Those are key words,” he said. “If he’s Abdolynian, he ought to be able to understand at least one of them.”
Fornri, comprehending that he’d been expected to make meaning of the strange sounds, suppressed a smile.
One of the men exclaimed, “Look at the puggard! He’s laughing at you! He understands Galactic!”
Suddenly Fornri bolted, slipping from their grasps, knocking over the sentry who was pacing an aimless circle about the ship, and getting away cleanly. He outdistanced the pursuit and reached the forest safely. Dalla had been watching. She was waiting for him just inside the forest, and the two of them quickly placed its comfortably thick vegetation between themselves and the strangers’ weapons. They hurried toward the Forest Village.
There a crowd of terrified adults clustered about the Langri’s hammock. Women and men were wailing in turn, “Langri, a thing-from-the-sky! What shall we do?”
The Langri lay deathly still, but as Fornri and Dalla pushed through to him, his eyes opened and he muttered, “Too late.”
“The Langri won’t help us,” a woman said reproachfully.
“The Langri is very sick,” Dalla said. “You shouldn’t bother him.”
The Langri muttered again, “Go away. I’m dying.”
“He won’t tell us what to do,” the woman said.
“He’s already told us what to do,” Fornri said. “He taught us his Plan. Now we’ll follow it,” He spoke quietly to the man beside him. “Sound the signal gourds. Summon all the villages.” The man stared at Fornri for a moment. Then he smiled, nodded, and hurried away.
“We must capture the skymen,” Fornri told the others. “We have to do it without spears or knives, because we dare not injure them. The Langri said that is very important. Even if they injure or kill us, we must capture them without harming them. Do you understand?”
“How?” a man demanded.
Fornri smiled. “The Langri has told us how.”
The panic was lifting slowly. This descent of a thing-from-the-sky was the most terrifying event of their lifetimes, but if someone would tell them what to do, they would go and do it. Fornri divided them into two groups and sent them east and west to meet those coming from the other villages.
After he got them started, he turned again to the Langri. The staring eyes did not recognize him. “Should have taught the children,” the Langri muttered. “Children were interested. Older ones in a hurry to grow up. Should have started sooner and taught the children.” His body went rigid. “Hide the crystals!” he gasped.
Fornri clasped the Langri’s hand. Then his eyes sought Dalla’s. “Come,” he said.
They turned away. Only a few women, the Langri’s nurses, remained with him. Already a signal gourd was sending out patterns of deep honks, and the gourds of nearby villages were answering.
They had not reached the first bend in the forest path when they heard, behind them, the women’s voices raised in the lament of death. They did not look back. The most important thing in the Langri’s life had been his Plan; he surely would understand if they also made it the most important thing in his death.
The Langri had told them how, and they did exactly as he said. One group of skymen had blundered into the forest after Fornri. They advanced boldly, with one of their strange weapons in the lead, until one of them stepped off the path to pick fruit and ran a Death Thorn into his leg. The others argued as to whether the thorn should be left in his leg or pulled out at once with the chance of breaking it, because it was barbed, and he died before they could decide.
While they argued, Fornri surrounded them with the first villagers to arrive. The skymen started a panicky retreat, carrying the body with them, and Fornri sprang his ambush on a curve of the path. He captured them one at a time, without injury to anyone—just as the Langri had foretold.
A short time later, villagers from the west dropped from trees onto the party of skymen worshiping the mysterious black object. One skyman suffered an injured ankle and had to be carried. Fornri’s friend Tollof was struck by the mysterious force of a sky-man’s weapon. They thought he was dead, but a short time later he regained consciousness, though it was the following day before he could move his arms and legs. The black object was broken, but that was the fault of the skyman carrying it.
Capture of the remaining groups required complicated stalking. Finally the ship was rushed and those inside made prisoners before they were able to close the hatch. The skymen were marched to a remote stretch of beach by a meandering route deliberately chosen to confuse them. They were given food and told that on the morrow shelter would be built for them.