Hansen breast-stroked across the channel. Melene positioned itself just behind his neck, half-raised. When the grolock noticed them, Melene turned on. Hansen missed a stroke feeling the backwash, then recovered. The grolock stood still. Hansen swam up and climbed on the monster’s back. Melene climbed from him to the grolock, and it slowly lumbered out of the river back into the woods.
Ten minutes later, even the deep woods were brightening and they heard the roar of an aircar over the river.
“Where to, Hansen?”
“Well, the obvious place is the spaceport. But that’s too obvious. That’ll be well protected as well as crowded. So let’s go for the less obvious: The off-world communication station. We’ll call for help.”
The aircar roared by again in a different direction.
“Damn, those guys are too close for comfort. They shouldn’t be searching this near yet. What have I forgotten?”
“You think they may find us again, soon?”
“I’d get warmed up again, sweetheart. Wait! Communicator!”
Hansen pulled out the communicator he had taken from the guard. He turned it on and listened: There was nothing but static. He turned it off, then wedged it in a fold of grolock skin.
“There were no transmissions on the frequency it was tuned to. That means the Xobons knew it was missing and changed frequencies. Now they’re probably trying to home in on it.
“Time to come to papa again, Melene. And can you put the fear of God into this critter—make it head off fast so it takes that communicator far away?”
“Yes,” Melene said as it climbed back on Hansen.
The grolock snorted, then started off at a rapid trot, just as Hansen jumped from its back. Trees and vines went flying as it lumbered away.
Hansen got up and wiped himself off.
“Next time wait ’til I’m off, please.”
He started off at right angles to the grolock trail.
They came to a meadow. Melene slid down and began eating.
“How often do you have to eat?” asked Hansen, feeling a little hungry himself.
“Oh, I eat any chance I get. But I’ve gone three days without eating, once. A lot depends on how much mind control I need to do. It’s tiring and uses a lot of energy when I need to concentrate. Freezing that guard took everything I had. Controlling the grolock was child’s play.”
“What do you eat?”
“I’m a herbivore. Grass like this is fine. I like lazro roots when I can find them, and I go nuts over fliby berries. In a pinch there are a lot of other things that’ll do.”
“Like Colonial Alfalfa?”
“No. I hate to say it because I’ve grown to like you, but that stuff you’ve imported is poison. Nothing of this world can consume it.”
“You’re levo-eaters most likely.”
“Whatever you say.”
“Levo-nutrients can be arranged for. We’ve got good synthesizers on the mothership. Just help me pick out a few samples of things you like to eat, and things that are necessary for you to eat.”
“Why?”
Hansen stopped, and looked at the Harpupon.
“You’re going to have to come with me. We’re going back to the mothership to show that you exist. When we do that, you’ll be declared a vital endangered species, and that will put you under Federation protection. That process will take some time.”
“Why should I bother? I’m happy here.”
“Because things have changed. I know you exist, and at least one Xobon knows what you’re capable of. They’re pirates. They’ll take advantage of you. Certainly they’ll try catching and studying your kind. If they can find out how to use you, they’ll start taking you with them on ships. You’re the first telepaths we humans, or the Xobons, have ever encountered.”
“These are the ways of tool-makers?”
“Yes, for us, you are a potentially valuable tool. We want to use you, to study you, to find out what makes you tick.”
“How strange. Do you do this to yourselves?”
“Yes. We study everything. That’s why I’m here. That’s why the Xobons are here.”
“And if that is what the tool-using Xobons have in mind for us, what do the tool-using humans have in mind for us?”
“We’ll study you here on the planet surface. We won’t take you away.”
“Why do we need to be studied at all?”
Hansen sighed. “We study things that look useful. No tool-user can talk mind-to-mind, so that looks useful to us. I’d heard stories. That’s what brought me here. Apparently, so had the Xobons.
“Now we’ve got to get you and me both out of here to save your race. Climb aboard, sweetheart, it’s hoofing time.”
Hansen felt a warm glow again as the Harpupon crawled up and positioned itself on his back.
“There’s a road north of here. When we find that, I can find a communications station.” Hansen began a mile-eating stride north.