The trail left by the fleeing prisoners was not difficult to follow; bits of lacy cloth, dropped hankies, candy wrappers, and the deep prints of spike heels served to indicate their direction of flight as plainly as a set of hand-painted signposts. The girls had pushed through dense thickets for a hundred yards, then encountered a well-defined trail leading in an approximately westward direction. It was now after Second Jooprise, and Retief moved along in multicolored gloom beneath towering trees of a thousand varieties, each bearing metal-bright leaves in gay tones, which rustled and tinkled, clashing with soft musical notes as the arching branches stirred to the wind.
Half an hour's walk brought him to a stream of clear water bubbling over a shallow, sandy bottom bright with vivid-colored pebbles. Small aquatic Quoppina the size of Phips darted to and fro in the sun-dappled water, propelled by rotating members modified by evolutionary processes into twin screws astern.
The water looked tempting. Retief hung his sword on a convenient branch, lifted off the helmet he had been wearing for the past eighteen hours, unstrapped the leather side-buckles and shed the chest and back armor, then splashed into the stream and dashed cold water over his face and arms. Back on shore, he settled himself under a mauve-barked tree, took out one of the concentrated food bars Ibbl had provided.
From above, a plaintive keening sounded. Retief looked up into the tree, saw something move in the Jooplight, striking down through branches and glittering dark foliage—a flash of vivid purple among the blackish-red leaves. There was a second movement, lower down. Retief made out the almost invisible form of a wiry, slender Quoppina, gorgeous violet where the light struck him, decorated with white-edged purple rosettes, a perfect camouflage in the light-mottled foliage. The creature hung motionless, wailing softly.
Retief jumped, caught a branch, pulled himself up, then climbed higher, avoiding the knife-edged leaves. From a position astride a stout limb twenty feet up, he could make out the cleverly concealed lines of a narrow-mesh net in which the captive—a Flink, Retief saw—hung, a tangle of purple limbs, twisted ropes, and anxiously canted oculars.
"What happened, fellow? Pull the wrong string and catch yourself?"
"I'm laughing," the Flink said glumly, in a high, thin voice.
"So go ahead, gloat," a second Flink voice called from above. "Rub it in."
"Just a minute and I'll cut you down," Retief offered.
"Hey, me first," the upper Flink called. "It was him started the trouble, remember? Me, I'm a peaceful Flink, bothering nobody—"
"It's a different Stilter, you lowlife," the nearer Flink called hastily. "This ain't the one from before."
"Oh, you've seen other Stilters around?" Retief inquired interestedly.
"Maybe; you know how it is. You meet all kinds of people."
"You're not being completely candid, I'm afraid. Come on—give."
"Look," the Flink said. "Such a crick I've got: How about cutting me down first and we'll chat after?"
"He's got a crick," the other Flink shrilled hoarsely. "Ha! In his lousy net I'm hanging! Six cricks I've got, all worse than his!"
"You think this noose is maybe comfortable?" the first came back hotly. "Rope burns I'm getting—"
"Let's compare notes later," Retief interrupted. "Which way did the Stilters go?"
"You look like a nice, kind sort of Stilter," the nearest Flink said, holding his oculars on Retief as he swung in a gentle arc past him. "Let me down and I'll try to help you out with your problem. I mean, in such a position, who could talk?"
"Cut him down, and he's gone like a flash," the other called. "Now, I happen to like your looks, so I'll tell you what I'll do—"
"Don't listen," the roped Flink said in a confidential tone. "Look at him—and he claims to be number one tribal woodsman, yet. Some woodsman!"
"A woodsman like you I shouldn't be, even without you was hanging in my noose," the other countered. "Take it from me, Stilter, Ozzl's the biggest liar in the tribe, and believe me, competition he's got!"
"Fellows, I'm afraid I can't stay for a conference after all," Retief cut in. "Sorry to leave you hanging around in bad company, but—"
"Hold it!" the Flink called Ozzl screeched. "I've thought it over and I've decided: A nice fellow like you I want my family to meet—"
"Don't trust him! I'll tell you what: Get me out of this lousy rope, and I'm your Flink—"
"You expect this Stilter—such a fine-looking Quopp—he should believe that? As soon as I'm loose, everything I own is his!"
"So what'll he do with a pile of empties? My deal is better, believe me, Mister; you and me, such a talk we'll have, you wouldn't believe—"
"You're right; he wouldn't. Him and me, together a long chat we'll have—"
There was a flash of green, a sharp humming; the Phip was back, hovering before Retief's face.
"Tief-tief, flip-flip," it churped. "Flip-flip Flink-flink!"
"Don't listen!" Ozzl screeched. "What does this midget know?"
"Flip-flip Flink-flink!" the Phip repeated.
"Hmmm. I seem to remember hearing somewhere that a Flink's word is good as long as he's standing on his head," Retief mused. "Thanks, partner." He gripped Ozzl's lower arms—in his species specialized as landing gear—and inverted the captive tree-dweller.
"If I cut you down, will you tell me where the Stilters are?"
"OK, OK, you got me," the Flink chirped glumly. "Cut me down and the whole miserable story I'll give you."
Retief extracted a similar promise from the second Flink.
"Look out, now," the latter cautioned. "All around is nets."
Retief made out the cleverly concealed lines of other nets and nooses, some small, some large enough to gather in a fair-sized Quoppina.
"Thanks for the warning," Retief said. "I might have walked right in to one of those."
Five minutes later both captives had been lowered to the ground and cut free. They sprawled, groaning, working their arms and experimentally revving up their rotation members: small pulleylike wheels which they customarily hooked over vines or branches for fast travel.
"Well," Ozzl sighed. "Me and Nopl, first class trappers we're supposed to be. Such a picture, the two of us in our own ropes hung up!"
"Nothing's busted," Nopl said. "Boy, such a experience!"
"Don't stall, gentlemen," Retief said. "The time has come to tell all: Where did you see the Stilters, how long ago, and which way did they go when they left?"
"A promise is a promise—but listen—you won't tell, OK?"
"I won't tell."
Ozzl sighed. "All right. It was this way . . ."
" . . . so I turned around, and zzzskttt! The Stilter with the copper-colored head filaments—the one the others called Fi-fi—pulls the trip wire—such a dummy I was to explain it—and there I am, downside up. It was humiliating!"
"Under the circumstances, a little humility seems appropriate," Retief suggested. "And after the Stilter tricked you into your own net, what then?"
"Then the two-timer cuts down the rest of the Stilters, and off they go—thataway." Ozzl pointed.
"Yeah," the other Flink said aggrievedly. "So there we hung until you come along—and all because we try to be polite and show that Stilter how the nets work, such an interest it was expressing."
Retief nodded sympathetically. "We Stilters are a tricky lot, especially when anybody tries to violate our tribal taboo against being eaten. And on that note I must leave you—"
"What's the rush?" Ozzl demanded. "Stick around awhile; a little philosophy we'll kick around."
"What about a drink, fellows?" Ozzl proposed. He took a hip flask from the flat pouch strapped to his lean flank, quaffed deeply, rose to his full three foot six, flexed his arms. "A new Quopp that'll make out of you," he announced and passed the bottle to Retief. He took a swallow; like all Quoppina liquors, it was thin, delicately flavored, resembling dilute honey. He passed the flask to Nopl, who drank, offered sulphurous sourballs which Retief declined.
"They're a good two hours ahead of me," he said. "I have to make up some time—"
The Phip was back, buzzing around Retief's head.
"Tief-tief," the Phip hummed. "Nip-nip!"
"Sure, give the little stool pigeon a shot," Nopl offered. "Whoopee! Life is just a bowl of snik-berries!"
"My pal, Tief-tief!" Ozzl slung one long, pulley-wheeled member across the lower portion of Retief's back in comradely fashion. "You're a shrewd dealer for a . . . a . . . whatever kind of Quoppina you are!"
Nopl took another pull at the flask. "Tief-tief, you should meet the crowd," he shrilled cheerfully. "A swell bunch, am I right, Ozzl?"
"Such a swell bunch, I'm crying," the Flink replied. "When I think what a swell bunch they are I wonder, what did I do to deserve it?"
"They're a lousy crowd teetotaling small-timers, but so what?" Nopl caroled. "Tief-tief they should meet."
"Sorry," Retief said. "Some other time."
Ozzl made a noise like a broken connecting rod, the Flink expression of suppressed merriment. "Guess again, Tief-tief," he caroled, and waved a wheeled member in an all-encompassing gesture. "Meet the boys!"
Retief glanced upward. From behind every leafy branch and vine-shrouded shrub, a purple Quoppina materialized, a rope or net in hand, a few nocking arrows to small bows, one or two armed with long, flexible tridents.
"About time," Nopl said and hiccuped. "I thought you boys would never show."
Retief stood in the center of the patch of open, Jooplit sward beneath the big tree from which a hundred silent Flink hung like grotesque fruits. An overweight Flink with the wine-purple carapace of mature age tilted myopic oculars at him. "These two loafers I send out, they should check the traps and with a drinking buddy they come reeling back," he commented bitterly.
"Who's reeling? Am I reeling? Look at me," Ozzl invited.
"What about the Stilter?" someone called. "He looks like prime stock—with a cheese sauce, maybe he should be served—"
"My pal, Tief-tief, nobody cuts up! First I'll drop dead!"
"This I could arrange," the oldster cut him off. "Now, if we slice up this Stilter, a snack for everybody he'll make—"
"Stop right there," Nopl shrilled. "A businessman like Tief-tief we couldn't eat! Cannibalism, yet, it would be! Instead, we'll truss him up and sell him—or maybe disassemble him for spares . . ."
Cries rang back and forth as the Flink discussed the various proposals.
"Such a head I've got," Nopl groaned during a momentary lull. "I think I need another little snort."
"That booze of yours works fast," Retief commented. "You got through the buzz and into the hangover stage in record time."
"Hung over or no, Ozzl and me will stick by you, Tief-tief. If they vote to sell you, I'll put in a good word we should hold out for top price."
"Marked down you'll not be while I'm around," Ozzl agreed.
The elderly Flink emitted a shrill cry for silence. "The pros and cons we've discussed," they announced. "It looks like the cons have it." A rustle ran through the Flink ranks. The encircling tribesmen moved in closer, shaking out nets and ropes as they maneuvered for favorable positions, Retief drew his sword, stepped back against the nearest tree trunk.
"Hey," the oldster called. "What's that sharp thing? It looks dangerous! Put it away like a nice piece of merchandise before somebody gets hurt."
"It's an old tribal custom among us Stilters that we make owning us as expensive as possible," Retief explained. "Who's going to be first to open an account?"
"It figures," the elder said judiciously. "Price supports, yet."
"Still, we try to be reasonable," Retief amplified. "I doubt if I'll disassemble more than a dozen Flink before you get a rope on me."
"Six," the Flink said flatly. "That's my top offer."
"I'm afraid we're not going to be able to get together," Retief said. "Maybe we'd better call off the whole deal."
"He's right," someone stated. "Worth twelve Flink, including maybe me, he's not."
Retief started forward, swinging the sword loosely. "Just step back, gentlemen," he suggested. "I have important business to transact, and no time to continue this delightful discussion—"
A noose whirled at him; he spun, slashed; the severed line dropped to the ground.
"Hey! That's expensive rope you're cutting," someone protested, hauling in the damaged lariat.
"Let him go," another suggested. "My rope I ain't risking."
"What's that?" the elder shrilled. "You want I should let valuable merchandise go stilting right out of sight?"
"Listen, Tief-tief," Ozzl called. "There's only the one trail, and it leads straight to the rock spire. Now, with us, you get sold for parts, so OK, there you are. But you climb up there and a Rhoon picks you up and flies off—I'm asking: Where are you?"
"Did you say Rhoon?" Retief inquired.
"On top of the rock spire they're thick like Phips on a jelly flower. A chance you haven't got!"
"Still, I think I'll risk it," Retief said. He moved toward the trail and two Flink rushed in, nets ready; he knocked them spinning, dodged two nets and a lasso, leaped for the dark tunnel of the trail and ran for it with a horde of Flink baying in hot pursuit.
Later, on a rocky slope a hundred yards above the tops of the thick jungle growth below, Retief pulled himself up onto a flat boulder, turned and looked down at the Flink tribe clustered below, staring up and shaking fists.
"Dirty pool, Tief-tief," Ozzl yelled. "This kind terrain, our wheels ain't meant for."
"Thanks for escorting me this far," Retief called. "I'll find my way from here."
"Sure." The Flink waved a member at the steep escarpments rising above. "Just keep climbing. The Rhoon roost is only about a mile—straight up. If you don't fall off and get killed, the Rhoon you'll find after a while—or they'll find you." He clicked his antennae in the Gesture of Sentimental Farewell. "You were a good drinking buddy, Tief-tief. Hang loose."
Retief scanned the slope above; he had a stiff climb ahead. He lifted off his helmet, pulled off the gauntlets, slung them by a thong to his belt. He shook his canteen; nearly empty. He took a last look at the valley and started up the almost vertical slope.
It was an hour after dawn when Retief reached a narrow ledge a thousand feet above the jungle valley below. The wind whistled here, unimpeded by Quoppian flora; in the distance, a pair of white flyers of medium size wheeled and dipped under the ominous sky of approaching First Eclipse, where the fire-edged disk of Joop rushed to its rendezvous with the glaring Quopp sun. Far above, a mere spec in the dark blue sky, a lone Rhoon circled the towering peak where the giant flyers nested.
Retief studied the rock face above; it was a smooth expanse of black slatelike stone rising sheer from the ledge. The route upward, it appeared, ended here.
One of the white aerialists was dropping lower, coming in to look over the intruder. Retief donned his headpiece, shifted his sword hilt to a convenient angle, waited for the visitor. He could hear the beat of its rotors now, see the pale coral markings along the underside of the body, the black legs folded against the chest region, the inquisitive oculars canted to look him over.
"What seek you here upon the wind slopes, groundling?" a thin voice called down to him, tattered by the gusty breeze. "There's naught for your kind here but unforgiving rock spires and the deep, cold air."
"They say the Rhoon have their nests up there," Retief called.
"That do they—up a-high, where low clouds scrape their bellies and death blooms grow amid the moss as black as night." The flying creature dropped closer; the slipstream from its ten-foot rotors battered at Retief, whirling dust into his face. He gripped the rock, braced his feet apart.
"Aiiii!" the flyer called. "If a zephyr from my passing can come nigh to spill you from your perch, how will you fare when some great lordling of the Rhoon comes like a cyclone to attend you here?"
"I'll work on that one when I get to it," Retief shouted over the tumult.
"If you've come to steal my eggs, you've picked a lonely death."
"Is there any other kind?"
The flyer settled lower, reached out and gripped a buttress of rock with black talons; its rotors whined to a stop.
"Perhaps you've tired of life, chained to the world, and you've come here to launch yourself into one glorious taste of flight," it hazarded.
"Just paying a social call," Retief assured the creature. "But I seem to have run out of highway. You wouldn't happen to know an easier route up?"
"A social call? I see you wish a braver death than a mere tumble to the rocks."
"I'd like to sample the view from the top; I hear it's very impressive."
"The view of raging Rhoonhood stooping to defend a nest is said to be the fearsomest on Quopp," the flyer agreed. "However, few eyewitness tales of the experience are told."
Retief studied the creature's rotors, spinning slowly as the wind sighed over the thin, curved blades.
"How much weight can you lift?" he inquired.
"I once plucked up a full-grown Flink and dropped him in the river, yonder," the flyer motioned with one limber arm. "I doubt if he'll come thieving 'round my nest again."
"I weigh more than a Flink," Retief pointed out.
"No matter that: You'd fall as fast as any Flink, and make a better splash."
"I'll bet you can't lift me," Retief challenged. The flyer revved its rotors, shifting its grip on its perch.
"Most groundlings plead for life when once I catch them on the rock spires. Now you invite my wrath."
"Oh no, I'm just talking about flying me up there." Retief pointed to the peaks towering above.
"Fly you . . . ?"
"Sure. I can't walk up a vertical wall, and it wouldn't be convenient to go down and look for another route."
"Can you be serious, poor earthbound grub? Would you indeed trust life and limb to me?"
"Most Quoppina will keep their word to a harmless stranger. Why should you be any different?"
"A curious rationale," the flyer said, "and yet, withal, a most refreshing one. I'd come to think of crawlers all as timid things, who cling and whimper out their fear when I come on them here among the lonely peaks. And now here's one who speaks as boldly as a flyer born!"
"Just put me down anywhere in climbing range of Rhoon country," Retief suggested.
"A strange anomaly is this: A wingless one who dares to come among the masters of the sky!" The flyer whirled its rotors, lifted, drifted, hovering, toward Retief. "I'll put you to the test then, groundling! Perhaps you'll weight me down, and then together we'll go tumbling toward our death below. But if my rotors hold, I'll bear you up, my life upon it!"
"Fair enough." Retief sheathed his sword, squinting against the down-blast of air. He reached for the steel-hard grapples of the flyer, gripped, held on. Air screamed as the whirling blades raced, biting for purchase; then he was lifting, floating up, wind screaming past his face, the mountainside dwindling away below.
The flying creature rose swiftly for a hundred feet; then it slowed, gained another fifty feet, inched upward, its rotors laboring now. A gust of wind tilted it, and it dropped, then righted itself, struggled upward again, paralleling the smooth face of rock at a distance of thirty feet, Retief estimated. A small white flower growing from a crevice caught his eye; slowly it dropped below him as the flyer gained altitude foot by foot. Above, Retief could see a tiny ledge where the vertical face ended, and above it a long sweep, only slightly less steep, to a lone spire thrusting up another five hundred feet against the darkening sky.
"How say you, groundling?" the laboring flyer's voice rang out, "will you trust me to press on, or shall I give it up and place you safe below?"
"Just a little way now," Retief called. "You can do it, old timer."
"I like the groundling's spirit, wings or no!" the Quoppina shouted into the wind. "We'll hazard all . . . and win or die . . . and none can say we quailed before the test!"
"You'd better save your wind for flying," Retief called. "We'll stage a self-congratulation session after we get there."
The wind whipped, buffeting. The cliff face moved past with agonizing sloth. Retief's hands were numb from the strain; the ledge was still twenty feet above, inching closer. The Quoppina's breathing was loud, wheezing; the sound of the rotors had changed timbre. They seemed to flutter now, as though the blades were loose. Then another sound was audible—a sharp whirring, coming closer . . .
Retief twisted his head. A second flying Quoppina had come up from the port beam; it hovered, studying the situation with alert oculars.
"That one's too big to eat, Gulinda!" it called. "I'll wager he's as tough as Wumblum wheel rim!"
"I'll place him . . . safe above . . . or die . . ." Retief's flyer got out.
"Ah—then it's a wager! Well, I suggest you waste no time. A Rhoon has seen you now, and half a minute hence he'll be here."
Retief's flyer grunted a reply, settled down to steady pulling. Ten feet more, five, three . . .
There was a deep thrumming, a beat of wind that bounced the flyer closer to the cliff face. Retief craned, saw the huge-bodied shape of a fast-descending Rhoon silhouetted against the vast, glittering disks of its spinning rotors. With a final, gear-screeching effort, the smaller flyer surged upward the final yard, banked toward the ledge. "Farewell!" it screamed. Retief dropped, slammed stony ground, fetched up against the rising wall above as the Rhoon pounced, hissing, its fanged eating jaws wide. Retief rolled away as the Rhoon struck out with a barbed hind leg, missed and struck again, sent stone chips flying. A narrow crevice split the rock a yard distant; Retief dived for it, wedged himself in just as the disk of Joop cut off the blackish sunlight like a snapped switch. Long Rhoon talons raked against the rock, sending a shower of bright sparks glimmering against the sudden dark. Then, with a hoarse scream, the Rhoon lifted away; the beat of its rotors faded. Retief leaned back in his cramped refuge, let out his breath with a long sigh, alone now with the stars that twinkled in the false night of the eclipse and the moaning wind that searched among the rock crannies.
Retief rested while Joop edged across the bright corona of the distant sun; the glowing halo bulged, then burst into full light as the transit was completed. He scanned the sky; a pair of Rhoon circled far above, light flicking from their rotors. He squeezed out of his hideaway, looked over the edge of the two-foot shelf on which he stood. Far below, the ledge from which he had hitched the ride to his present position showed as a thin line against vertical rock—and far below that, the jungle stretched like a varicolored carpet across low hills to distant haze.
He looked up; striated rock loomed, topped by a rock spire that thrust up like a knife blade a final hundred feet. Retief turned back to the cranny in which he had hidden. It narrowed sharply into darkness—but a steady flow of cold air funneled from it. He went to hands and knees, pushed through the first narrowing, found that the passage widened slightly. Above, the sky was a bright blue line between the rising walls of rock. He rose, crunching brittle debris underfoot, braced his back against one face of the chimney, started upward.
Halfway up, Retief found an outthrust shoulder of rock on which to rest. He ate half a food bar, took a swallow of water—the last in his canteen. Then he went on.
Once the cleft narrowed, then widened out into a near-cave, from which a cloud of tiny gray-black Quoppina no bigger than hummingbirds swarmed in alarm, battering at his face, uttering supersonic cries. Again, the black shadow of a Rhoon swept across the strip of sky above, momentarily blacking out the meager light. The armor chafed, cutting into his back; his hands were cut in a dozen places from the sharp-edged rock.
The crevasse widened again ten feet from the top. Retief made the last few yards in a scramble up a deeply scored slope half-choked with weathered and faded fragments of Quoppina exoskeleton and sun-bleached organic gears looped by tangles of corroded internal wiring. The Rhoon, it appeared, were messy eaters.
Keeping in black shadow, Retief studied the open sky; a thousand feet above, two Rhoon wheeled lazily, unaware of the intruder in their domain. He stood, dusted himself off, looked around at an oval platform fifteen by twenty feet, backed at one side by a spear of rock that rose ten feet to a needle point, edged on the remainder of its periphery by a void that yawned across to a stupendous view of high, lonely peaks, only a few of which topped his present vantage point. Closer at hand, a heap of round boulders caught his eye: Butter-yellow spheres eighteen inches in diameter. He went to them, tapped the smooth surface of one; it gave off a hollow, metallic bong. There were six of them—Rhoon eggs, piled here to hatch in the sun.
Retief glanced toward the monster parents circling above, still apparently serenely ignorant of his presence.
The big eggs were heavy, unwieldy in their lopsidedness. He lifted down the topmost spheroid, rolled it across to the cliff's edge, propped it, delicately poised, just above the brink. The next two eggs he ranged beside the first. Two more eggs formed a short second rank, with the final orb positioned atop the others. Retief dusted his hands, resumed the helmet and gauntlets he had laid aside earlier, then posted himself squarely before the gargantuan Easter display and settled down to wait.