They had walked a mile when Garth halted. His whistles were low, and Candy, replying, also whistled softly. Then she spoke in English. "He says he detects middle-mass life-forms ahead about twenty meters. Also on both sides of us and behind us. He can hear them move and see their body heat. He cannot hear them speak."
"Tell him to proceed very slowly," Jack said.
Tappy came to his side and took his hand. She looked wary but not frightened. She certainly was much tougher than when he had met her. Her scary experiences might have destroyed the nerves of many, but she was basically courageous and resilient.
She had held his right hand briefly as if a touch could give her strength. Or did she think that she was giving him the strength?
Though the Imago seemed to be sleeping, some of its power could be leaking from it to her. And she was unconsciously transmitting that to him.
"You're getting too introspective, Jack," he told himself.
"You're so eager to find hidden meanings in this mess, you're getting ridiculous."
His left hand dangled free, but it was ready to snatch the beamer out of 'ts hoister if it were needed. He, Candy, and Tappy each carried one. There was also one in a recess in Garth. Jack could lift the lid and grab it quickly. But that was to be used only as a surprise weapon. All four beamers had been taken from the Gaol ship before they had left it. They also had extra batteries.
The Gaol moved ahead. Jack walked behind him but several paces to the Gaol's r"light. When he saw a figure stand up from the grass twenty feet ahead, Jack told Candy to tell Garth to stop.
The person in their path was a honker, though unlike any he had ever seen. Its body was festooned with animals and reptiles. At least, that was how the honker looked at first glance.
Tappy walked past Jack and Garth. Her right hand was raised high, its palm open toward the honker. The honker responded with the same signal. Jack knew that that was the I-come-in-peace sign. He made the same gesture, and so did Candy. Other honkers appeared from the tall grasses. He looked behind him. Scores of their fellows had popped out of their hiding places. They held flint-tipped spears and long blowguns, but these were pointed at the ground. And when the first one to bar the strangers' path blew some kind of salute, they also saluted.
After Tappy had quit honking, the male "wearing" the animals bowed low. The tentacles growing from his hips rose and waved.
The dorinouselike beast whose tail was embedded in the honker's navel waved its paws and squeaked loudly.
Jack thought, If I ever get back to Earth, I'll do a panting of this exotic being. He's so baroque, so nightmarish. I could make a career just from my depictions of non-Earth beings. And then there's Tappy in her many moods, Tappy blind, and Tappy seeing.
At the moment, it looked as if he had little chance of ever returning to his native world. And, if lie and Tappy did defeat the Gaol and she elected to stay here, he would not leave her.
Without Tappy, he would not care where he was.
Now she was honking at the witch doctor, chief., or whatever he was. When she stopped, he honked for a long time at her.
While speaking, he moved slowly toward her. Jack saw that he was old and wrinkled. Liver spots covered his body. But he was certainly quick and agile, nothing stiff or creaky about him. The snake coiled around his neck had a long thin body banded with alternating black and scarlet. Its head was twice as large in proportion to its body as any Earth snake would have been. It resembled a skinned and earless wolf's. It had neither eyes nor eye sockets. It uncoiled enough to extend its body and to lick Tappy's eyes and cheeks with a long wet unsnakelike tongue.
The dormouselike beast, the tip of the tail of which was sunk into the honker's navel, also lacked eyes. It stiffened its tail so that its body was at right angles to the honker's. Then its hairy three-toed paws clung to the skin of Tappy's belly for a moment while it sniffed with a huge doglike nose. Its tongue shot out. It was cylindrical and tipped with four tendrils. These momentarily flattened out on her belly, curled, then withdrew around the tip of the tongue, which also withdrew.
Jack had thought that the oyster-shaped thing over the honker's genitals was a sort of codpiece. But it quivered with a life of its own under its hairy exterior. And it split bilaterally for a few seconds to reveal some of its organs. Jack shuddered with repulsion. What function this molluskoid had, he could not guess.
Nor did he really want to know.
By then, the conversation of honker and human was over.
The animal-festooned male turned and began walking toward the crater wall. Except for the rear guard, which disappeared into the grass, everybody followed the weird male.
Tappy said, "He's the oldest honker on this planet, maybe two hundred or more years old. He's the administrative and spiritual leader of all the honkers. He's a sort of, how to translate? ...
shaman. from a long line of shamans."
"Doe's he have a name?" Jack said.
"It's a word that means, uh, one who puts a system together, uh, one who also gets a system working and keeps it working."
"You mean a builder?"
"No."
"An operator?"
"No, it's more like a . .
Poor Tappy! Her formal education had been very neglected.
She smiled and said, "An integrator!"
He told himself not to be so hasty in the future in judging her knowledge.
"Good' Let's call him the Integrator. I wonder what he integrates?"
The honkers appeared to be Stone Age preliterates. But that must be because they wanted the Gaol to believe that. As evidenced by the Integrator, they were more advanced in biological science than the peoples of Earth. What else were they concealing?
The Integrator halted, and he scanned the cloudless sky. The only objects in it Jack could see were five crimson birds circling high in the distance. Satisfied that he saw nothing suspicious, the shaman walked into a grove of huge trees resembling banyans with thick overlapping plates of yellowish bark. Jack sniffed at their strong odor.
He said, "Wino's delight! Muscatel, three dollars a gallon!"
The shaman walked into the semidarkness of the center of the grove. Jack, following him, was startled when he saw the bark of the central tree open. It swung out to display a hollow in the tree.
A honker stood within it. He bowed once to the shaman and three times to Tappy. Then he turned and went down a steep flight of steps. The shaman leading, all followed him.
But Tappy stopped and said, "What about Garths He can't get' down the steps, too. It's too narrow. And these wooden steps wouldn't bear his weight."
"Oh, man, I forgot about him," Jack said.
He, Tappy, and Candy went back up the steps, forcing the honkers behind them to get out of the tree. Jack was startled when he stepped out into the half-light. Garth was gone. A score of honkers was busily erasing the tracks of the Gaol's wheels.
"Ask them where Garth is," Jack said to Tappy.
Tappy honked at the nearest female. Then she said, "They've hidden him in a big hole in another tree. It's covered up with a fake section of bark."
"For God's sake!" Jack said. "Why didn't they tell us? And how did they get Garth to cooperate?"