Here, for the first time in some while, the trail they were following became once more visible as it wound between the trees. Obviously it was in regular use, to have had enough traffic to keep it from being overgrown. What was it doing here, in a region that did not usually host ordinary travelers-
A faint touch on his left arm brought him back to his surroundings. He looked at Amanda, and she briefly brushed the outside corner of her left eyebrow with a forefinger, as if some small insect had landed there.
This was one of the "signals" from the "short- language and signals", she had asked him if he remembered, back when they were about to leave the courier ship. She had just signed that something was watching them and paralleling their course on the side indicated. Whatever it was, was doing so deliberately, for it was at once keeping up with them, and keeping out of sight among the trees and brush off to their left.
Without looking directly to his left, Hal set himself to seeing what he could pick up out of the corner of his eyes. It took a little time, but eventually he became aware of whatever it was, more by the faint noises and small movements of the ferns and branches it pushed aside in its passage - though it was apparently trying to move as quietly as it could - than by actual sight of it.
He glanced at Amanda and questioned her with a raised eyebrow.
Amanda shook her head in puzzlement, and her hands moved in small movements, quick but unobtrusive signals. "It's human - a child, or child-sized, I think," she said in this silent fashion. "It's interested in us for some reason. There's an open spot of nothing much more than bush and fern just ahead. Let's sit down there as if we're taking a break and try to tempt it out into the open."
Hal blinked a signal of agreement at her, and a few moments later when they had emerged into the open area she had referred to and reached close to the center of it, she yawned, stretched and stopped. Hal stopped with her. "Let's sit down a bit," she said clearly. Whoever was shadowing them could not have failed to overhear. "There's no hurry. "
She had stopped by a small bank overgrown with fern-a tiny variety rather than the larger growth that had been interspersed with the trees earlier. This was, in fact, a natural stopping place. It occurred to Hal that these would make an excellent bed for Amanda and himself to stretch out on, together. They sat down on the bank now, cross-legged and facing each other. "Chit!" said Amanda. "Reelin."
She had switched now to the audible "short-language." On the Dorsai a number of code words were generally known by everyone, since these could come in useful if two Dorsai on a foreign planet wanted to exchange information within the hearing of others when they did not wish to be understood. In addition, each family tended to have its own private code of made up words, and the members of the Morgan and the Graeme families, growing up and playing together as children, knew most of each others' private codes. As youngsters, there had also been a particular pleasure in being able to exchange secret information under the noses of nonunderstanding adults. So the codes were always improved upon by each new generation.
In effect, what Amanda had just said was, "Let's talk in a way our shadower can't understand. Maybe we can trick whoever it is into coming closer to try and hear better, and figure out what we're up to." "Right," said Hal. There was no particular reason not to use a plainly understandable word in answer, and a few understandable words might increase the temptation of the listener to come in close and hear enough of them to make out what the tenor of conversation was. "Muckle minny cat," he added.
He was pointing out that there were two of them, and since whatever or whoever it was that had been shadowing them was not large, one of them ought to be able to catch it while the other blocked its escape in this direction. Implied was the question of who should chase and who should block.
Amanda smiled, slightly but firmly. "One! (I'll be the one to chase), '' she said. "Home snapback (you stay here and get ready in case whoever we're chasing doubles back this way.)" "R," he said, agreeing. She would be faster and more agile at broken-country running than he. "Mark!"
The last word was to remind her that their listener had crept close enough so that now an effort might be made to catch him or it. "R," said Amanda. "One-C."
The last code word reasserted the fact that she was in Command, and, as the chaser, she would pick her own moment to begin pursuit. Meanwhile, with their gazes apparently only upon each other, they were both using their peripheral vision to try and observe something about their watcher, who had indeed slipped closer to them to try to understand their strange conversation. "Whisper stonewall (I've heard some talk about this person, but I could never get a definite information),'' said Amanda. They both had their shadower plainly in view out of the corners of their eyes now. "Y'un."
That she was a "young-one, " a half-grown girl, was inarguable, since - except for a length of what looked like dark green, dried vine, with half of a split open pod in the middle of it, knotted around her waist - she was completely unclothed, naked was not a word that suited, since she wore her lack of clothes as unselfconsciously and naturally as an animal wears its pelt of fur. The vine seemed more an ornament than any attempt at a piece of clothing, although at the moment she was apparently using the split-open half of the pod as a sort of pocket for carrying what looked like small rocks, about half the size of her own fist. She was certainly under the age of twelve or thirteen, unless she was a case of arrested physical development. "Carry!" said Amanda - which broadly translated into 'we've got to get her out of here and to some place where she can be cared for!" "R," said Hal.
His agreement was automatic, while waiting for her to start the pursuit - and in fact he had hardly got the last codeword out before she had sprung to her feet and dashed off in pursuit of the little girl.
Amanda was fast - very fast. But the child was almost literally like the wind. Also, plainly, she knew every foot of the ground. She zig-zagged like a hare in flight, leading the way through openings in the forest growth large enough for someone her size to slip through, but too small for one of adult size. In seconds they were both out of Hal's sight among the farther trees.
The sound of their passage, however, turned once more in his direction, and he suddenly caught sight of the little girl backtracking at full speed. She looked likely to cross the trail some twenty meters ahead of Hal. He jumped to his feet and ran to intercept her.
She zigged and gained on him, zagged and made it back and across the trail after all. He followed her out of sheer stubbornness for perhaps fifty meters, and then accepted the fact that she had been gaining on him with almost every step and was plainly now lost beyond question. He walked slowly back to the trail and Amanda, catching his breath as he went.
Amanda was standing waiting for him on the bank where they had been sitting. "It'd take a hunting party of a dozen, with nets, to surround that one and get her," Amanda said as Hal came close. She had already gotten her wind back, which was more than he had. "The climate's mild year 'round at this altitude. But still, how she's survived by herself, God knows. She couldn't have gotten this wild and skillful in just one summer. She's like an animal - maybe more animal than human, by this time. One way or another, it's the Occupation that's responsible for this, too. In Exotic times, she'd have been found and brought in long before this." "R," said Hal, trying not to pant. He was once more annoyingly conscious of how unfit he was, in spite of his daily exercise sessions at the Final Encyclopedia, and being lashed in the face by branches that were just at the right height to be run under by the child, but not by him, had not made him any happier. "I suppose we might as well be getting along." "Might as well," agreed Amanda.