The thing didn’t even make the attempt. Instead it just closed its eyes and produced water from them, threw its head back, opened its mouth wide and emitted an animal screech that hurt Vaintè’s skull.

Vaintè was beyond thought, her mind filled instead with blind hatred.

She leaned forward and sank her long rows of sharp conical teeth into the ustuzou’s throat, bit down hard, tearing out its life.

Hot blood spurted into her mouth and she gagged at the taste, throwing the corpse from her and harshly spitting out its blood. Stallan moved slightly, radiating silent approval.

There was a gourd of water before her face and she seized it from Enge and rinsed out her mouth, spitting and gagging, pouring the remainder over her face.

The blinding anger was gone, she could think now, and could feel as well the satisfaction in what she had done. But she was not finished. The other ustuzou remained alive—and with its death they would all be extinct. Turning swiftly she moved in front of Kerrick and glared down at him.

“Now you, the last,” she said, and reached out towards him. He could not retreat. His body moved and he spoke.

“. . .esekakurud—esekvilshan. . .elel leibeleibe. . .”

It made little sense at first and she stepped forward. Then stopped and looked more closely at the creature. There was a cower there, at least a clumsy attempt at a cower. But why was it moving from side to side like that? It made no sense. Then came realization—the thing of course had no tail so it could not do the lift correctly. But if that was really a tail lift, then it might be trying to communicate top-disgust-sensation as well as top-speech-volition. The bits and pieces were beginning to come together and in the end Vaintè cried aloud.

“Do you understand, Enge? See—it is doing it again.”

Clumsily, but clearly now, clear enough to understand, the ustuzou was speaking.

“I very much don’t want to die. I want very much to talk. Very long, very hard.”

“You did not kill it,” Enge said as they left the chamber and Stallan bolted the door behind them. “Yet you had no mercy at all for the other . . .”

“The other was worthless. You will now train this last one for it may be of use to us some day. Other packs of the creatures could be marauding out there. But you told me it never spoke?”

“Never. It must have been more intelligent than the other. It watched me all of the time, yet it never spoke.”

“You are a better teacher than you know, Enge.” Now sated, Vaintè was magnanimous. “Your only mistake was in teaching the wrong ustuzou.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN