The Stones of Nomuru

The other three Terrans all spoke at once. Kara cried: "Derek! Oleg! Stop him! He's out of his head!" Travers called: "You're being ridiculous, Conrad!" Pokrovskii said: "Calm down! Calm down!"

Paying no attention, Bergen closed with Salazar, who belatedly rose and got his fists up. He thought he landed one good punch, but Bergen's swing sent him sprawling. Bergen stood over him, bawling:

"Get up, you goddam sissy! Where's your manhood? Too dainty to hunt, eh? Get up and fight, or I'll kick you again!"

Kara screamed: "Conrad, you're the coward, beating up a man half your size!"

Salazar rolled to his feet and made a futile attack on Bergen, who blocked the smaller man's punches and knocked him down again. The difference in size was too great to overcome, even if the archaeologist had been a trained boxer.

Urged on by Kara Sheffield, Travers and Pokrovskii at last seized Bergen's arms and pulled him back, though his struggles made them stagger.

Dizzily, Salazar got to his feet, licking the blood that ran from a cut lip down into his beard. His left eye was nearly closed, and a punch in the chest had winded him.

"We'd better tie him up," gasped Salazar, dabbing at his cut hp. "At least until he quiets down. He might kill one of us."

There was a sudden outburst of Kukulcanian croaks and guttural cries. The ten natives who had accompanied the hunting party sprang to their feet with shrieks of alarm and raced off into the darkness. Almost at once, the firelit circle was filled with a host of other Kukulcanians, armed with muskets, pistols, and sabers. The Terrans had no chance to go for their firearms; before they could do more than cry out, the newcomers had seized them all in scale-mailed talons.

Salazar found himself being carried off in a horizontal position, with four Kooks clutching wrists and ankles. The others received the same treatment, despite Bergen's bellows of protest.

"What is, Keit'?' came the voice of Oleg Pokrovskii in the dark.

"Choshas, if I read their painted symbols right," mumbled Salazar. "De wild tribes?"

"Yep. Til try to find out what's up." He spoke to his captors in Shongo, but they did not reply.

The quintet of Terrans was bundled into a large two-wheeled cart and stood upright. Their wrists were lashed to wooden bars, which rose from all sides of the vehicle and supported the roof. The raucous sounds of Kookish verbiage filled the night air.

"Terrible talkers," murmured Travers. "What'll they do to us?"

"No idea," replied Salazar.

A whip cracked, and the vehicle lurched into motion. Sounds and smells convinced Salazar that the cart was pulled by a pair of kyuumeis, smaller and slenderer relatives of the tseturen, which were domesticated by the Kooks as meat and draft animals and often called "buffalo-lizards" by Terrans.

Salazar checked the time by his poignette; but since his hands were tied to bars a meter apart, he could not reach the little buttons to call his assistants at Nomuru. Through the bars, he tried to track their direction by the stars that diamonded the clear night sky. But fatigue, discouragement, and self-contempt at his inability to vanquish Bergen at fisticuffs made concentration difficult.

In the end, he simply stood with eyes half-shut, clutching the bars against the sway and jolt of the springless wagon. Around the vehicle, dimly-seen Choshas jounced along on their jutens.