And it was as if the merman had closed off
his mind to his companion. Flesh fingers touched scaled ones as they
moved from one hold to the next, but Sssuri might have been half a
world away for all the communication between them. Never had Dalgard
been so shut out and with that his sensitivity to the night, to the
world about him, was doubly acute.
He realized--and it worried him--that perhaps he had come to depend
too much on Sssuri's superior faculty of communication. It was time
that he tried to use his own weaker powers to the utmost extent. So,
while he climbed, Dalgard sent questing thoughts into the gloom. He
located a nest of duck-dogs, those shy waterline fishers living in
cliff holes. They were harmless and just settling down for the night.
But of higher types of animals from which something might be
learned--hoppers, runners--there were no traces. For all he was able
to pick up, they might be climbing into blank nothingness.
And that in itself was ominous. Normally he should have been able to
mind touch more than duck-dogs. The merpeople lived in peace with most
of the higher fauna of their world, and a colony of hoppers, even a
covey of moth birds, would settle in close by a mer tribe to garner in
the remnants of feasts and for protection from the flying dragons and
the other dangers they must face.
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