He went
off to hack out armloads of grass and fashion the sleep mats for the
sun-warmed ground.
They had eaten and were lounging in content on the soft sand just
beyond the curl of the waves when Sssuri lifted his head from his
folded arms as if he listened. Like all those of his species, his
vestigial ears were hidden deep in his fur and no longer served any
real purpose; the mind touch served him in their stead. Dalgard caught
his thought, though what had aroused his companion was too rare a
thread to trouble his less acute senses.
"Runners in the dark--"
Dalgard frowned. "It is still sun time. What disturbs them?"
To the eye Sssuri was still listening to that which his friend could
not hear.
"They come from afar. They are on the move to find new hunting
grounds."
Dalgard sat up. To each and every scout from Homeport the unusual was
a warning, a signal to alert mind and body. The runners in the
night--that furred monkey race of hunters who combed the moonless dark
of Astra when most of the higher fauna were asleep--were very
distantly related to Sssuri's species, though the gap between them was
that between highly civilized man and the jungle ape.
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