Something dark surged out of the surf behind him. Kerrick called out a horrified warning and Hastila spun about, spear ready. There was a snapping sound, like the breaking of a stout branch. The hunter dropped his spear and clutched at his midriff and fell face first into the water. Wet arms pulled him under and he vanished among the foam-flecked waves.

Kerrick screamed as he ran back to the encampment, met the others running towards him. He choked out what he had seen as he led them back along the beach, to the spot where the terrifying event had taken place.

The sands were empty, the ocean as well. Amahast bent and picked the hunter’s long spear out of the surf, then looked out to sea again.

“You could not see what it looked like?”

“Just the thing’s legs, the arms,” he said through his chattering teeth. “They reached up out of the sea.”

“Their color?”

“I couldn’t see. Wet, green perhaps. Could they have been green, father?”

“They could have been anything,” Amahast said grimly. “There are murgu of all kinds here. We will stay together now, one will be awake always while the others sleep. As soon as we can we return to the sammad. There is only death in these southern waters.”

Alaktenkèalaktèkan

olkeset esetakolesnta* tsuntesnalak

tsuntensilak satasat.

What happens now, and text to now, is of no importance as long as tomorrow’s-tomorrow is the same as yesterday’s-yesterday.

CHAPTER SIX

The storm had passed and the rain had stopped; the ground was steaming now in the heat of the fierce sunlight. Vaintè stood in the shade of the dead tree and looked on as the workers carefully planted the seedlings in neat rows. Vanalpè herself had marked the rows in the ground that the others were to follow. She came up to Vaintè now, moving slowly with her mouth gaping wide in the heat, to stand at her side in the shade.

“Are the seedlings dangerous to handle?” Vaintè asked. Vanalpè, still breathing heavily, signaled a negative.

“Only when the thorns begin to grow, and that is only after eighty days. Some of the animals will still graze them then, but not after the thorns begin to exude the toxins. The taste is bitter to the ruminants, deadly to anything smaller.”

“Is this one of your new modifications?” Vaintè asked, moving out into the sun.