The Space Guardian Read Online Free PDF Page B

would find out anything she desired to know. Meanwhile, she tried to close down the newly opened void. Her eyes rested absently on the men who were now loading until a peculiarity in the process drew her total attention.
    As far as Lahks could see, the men neither led nor signaled to the animals in any way, yet one by one they rose and moved forward so that the trade goods could be loaded on them. Even more remarkable, it grew increasingly clear that it was the animal who decided how much of a load it would carry. When a large and obviously heavy crate was dragged out, Lahks saw something that woke her deepest instincts. Two of the animals looked at each other, rose together, and went forward. Even the need to find Ghrey momentarily slipped into second place. Those bifocaled, grinning, two-humped reptiles—if that was what they were—could be intelligent.
    Before Ghrey, before the heartstone, before all else, this must be investigated. Nowhere in the records on Wumeera was a living, intelligent, indigenous species hinted at. Had intelligence developed in these most unlikely creatures, catalyzed by the presence of an imported thinking species? If so, it was Guardian business. Were minds trapped in a body that could give them no fulfillment? Lahks tried to remember whether such a case had ever been recorded and what, if anything, had been done about it. Her thoughts were interrupted by a soft nudge. She turned to find that one of the . . . people? . . . had inched up to her and was slyly prodding her with its snout.
    Having drawn her attention, its head turned toward the baggage and it began head-bobbing again. Lahks picked up a bag and thrust it into a pannier. The head-bobbing increased in intensity, as if to show approval. Lahks was more certain than ever that some thinking process was taking place in that ridiculous head, but whether it was true intelligence or high-level instinct acted upon by long and frequent repetition needed to be determined, and this was not the time or the place. By the time Lahks was finished loading, the other droms had started off in the direction from which they had come. Lahks was now poked tenderly by the snout of the drom carrying her baggage so that she was prodded in the direction the others were moving. Lahks moved but looked back, as if for guidance. Carefully, as one would explain to a rather dull child, she was shown, without words, exactly where and how to go.
    When they reached the spot from which the caravan had appeared so suddenly, Lahks saw that there was a narrow cut in the hill, a ravine-like cleft. It did not look like a natural feature to her, but she had no time to examine it because Hetman Vurn had dropped back and approached her.
    “You have no windsuit?” he questioned and then answered himself, “No, they are not sold off-planet. Well, there is no wind today, praise Be. I see you have a heavy cloak. Put it on and cover your face completely when we come out of the cut. We must pass a flat—a small one, thanks Be. Your drom will guide you and shield you as much as possible. I do not think you will have trouble. If the wind should begin—which Be prevented crawl in between the forefeet of the drom. It will do its best to protect you.”
    Lahks cocked her head at the Hetman. “They are not animals, are they?” she asked. She was curious to hear what a Wumeerite would say—on many worlds enslavement of one intelligent species by another was cloaked by calling the enslaved animals. But Hetman Vurn said nothing; only shrugged his shoulders expressively.
    “But you kill them for their skins to make the windsuits, don’t you?”
    Vurn burst out laughing. “Kill droms? How? Perhaps it might be possible by putting a fusion bomb down their throats. No one has tried that yet—I think. No, the windsuits are from a beast of another kind—a meeting with which Be prevented. Anything that lives here, except us, has the same kind of skin. Perhaps someday we will grow it,