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They considered.
Jets, heh? the big male asked.
Sadly, no jets! Sweeting made a stroking motion with her forelegs, flipped
hind feet up briefly. Human swim . . .
Human swim! Tarm thing eat you! the female told Nile decisively. You hide,
keep no-smell, Nile! How do the no-
smell? Trick, heh?
Uh-huh. A trick. But it won t work in the water.
The male grunted reflectively. Tarm s back under big house. Might stay, might
not. He addressed the female. Best poison-kill it soon?
Poison-killing, it developed, involved a contraption put together of drift
weed materials hollow reeds and thorns chewed to fit the hollows and smeared
with exceedingly poisonous yellow bladder gum. Wild otter tribes had developed
the device to bring down flying kesters for a change of diet. The female
demonstrated, rolling over on her back, holding an imaginary hole-stock to her
mouth and making a popping noise through her lips. Splash come kester!
They d modified the technique to handle the occasional large predators who
annoyed them too persistently larger thorns, jammed directly through the hide
into the body. Big sea animals didn t die as quickly as the fliers, but they
died.
Many thorns here, the male assured Nile. Stick in ten, twenty, and the tarm
no trouble.
She studied him thoughtfully. Sweeting could count . . . but these were wild
otters. Attempts had been made to trace the original consignment of
laboratory-grown cubs to its source. But the trail soon became hopelessly lost
in the giant intricacies of Hub commerce; and no laboratory was found which
would take responsibility for the development of a talking otter mutant. The
cubs which had reached Nandy-Cline seemed to be the only members of the strain
in existence.
For all practical purposes then, this was a new species, and evidently it was
less than fifty years old. In that time it had
progressed to the point of inventing workable dart blowguns and poisoned
daggers. It might have an interesting future. Nile thought she knew the yellow
bladder gum to which they referred. It contained a very fast acting nerve
poison. What effect it would have on a creature with the tarm s metabolism
couldn t be predicted, but the idea seemed worth trying.
She asked further questions, gathered they d seen the tarm motionless under
the blockhouse only minutes before
Sweeting got the first caller signal. It was the creature s usual station as
water guard of the area. Evidently it had been withdrawn from the hunt for the
Tuvela. Groups of Parahuans were moving about in the lagoon, but there was no
indication they were deployed in specific search patterns. . . .
Waddle-feet got jets, remarked the male.
Slow jets, said the female reassuringly. No trouble!
But armed divers in any kind of jet rigs could be trouble in open water. Nile
shrugged mentally. She could risk the crossing. She nodded at the dark
outlines of the distant forest section.
I ve got to go over there, she said. Sweeting will come along. The
waddle-feet have guns and are looking for me.
You want to come too?
They gave her the silent laugh again, curved white teeth gleaming in the dusk.
Nile-friends, stated the male. We ll come. Fun, heh? What we do, Nile? Kill
the waddle-feet?
If we run into any of them, said Nile, we kill the waddle-feet fast!
A few minutes later the three otters slipped down into a lifting wave and were
gone. Nile glanced about once more before following. A narrow sun-rim still
clung to the horizon. Overhead the sky was clear pale blue with ghostly
cluster light shining whitely through. High-riding cloud banks to the south
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reflected magenta sun glow. Wind force was moderate.
Here in the lee of the forest she didn t feel much of it. The open stretch of
sea ahead was broken and foaming, but she d be moving below the commotion.
In these latitudes the Meral produced its own surface illumination. She saw
occasional gleams flash and disappear among the tossing waves colonies of
light organisms responding to the darkening air. But they wouldn t give enough
light to guide her across. Time to shift to her night eyes. . . .
She brought a pack of dark-lenses from the pouch, fitted two under her lids,
blinked them into position: a gel, adjusting itself automatically to varying
conditions for optimum human vision. An experimental Giard product, and a very
good one.
She pulled the breather over her face, fitted the audio plugs to her ears, and
flicked herself off the floatwood. Sea shadow closed about her, cleared in
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