Time Traders II: The Defiant Agents Key Out of Time Read Online Free PDF

Spurred by that, the Apache gave only flicks of attention to the browsers while at the same time he studied the part of the landscape uncovered by mist.
    Without weapons or speed, they must conceive a trap. Again Travis sensed agreement from the ga-n , and with it a strong impression urging him to the right. He was making progress with skill he did not even recognize and which he had never been conscious of learning.
    The bushes and small, droop-limbed trees, had branches not clothed with leaves from proper twigs but with a reddish bristly growth protruding directly from their surfaces. The trees screened the pocket-sized meadow, reaching a rocky cleft where the mist curled in a long tongue through a wall twice Travis' height. If the browsers could be maneuvered into taking the path through that cleft . . .
    Travis searched about him, and his hands closed upon the oldest weapon of his species, a stone pulled from the earth and balanced neatly in the palm of his hand. It was a long chance but his best one.
    The Apache took the first step on a new and fearsome road. These ga-n had put their thoughts—or their desires—into his mind. Could he so contact them in return?
    With the stone clenched in his fist, his shoulders pressed against the wall not too far from the cleft opening, Travis strove to think out, clearly and simply, his poor plan. He did not know that he was reacting the way scientists light years away had hoped he might. Nor did Travis guess that at this point he had already traveled far beyond the expectations of the men who had bred and trained the two mutant coyotes. He only believed that he was obeying the wishes of two spirits he thought far more powerful than any man. So he pictured in his mind the cleft, the running creatures, and the part the ga-n could play if they so willed.
    Assent—in its way as loud and clear as if shouted. The man fingered the stone, weighed it. There would probably be just one moment when he could use it to effect, so he must be ready.
    From this point he could no longer see the small meadow where the grazers were. But Travis knew, as well as if he watched the scene, that the coyotes were creeping in, belly flat to earth, adding a feline stealth and patience to their own cunning.
    There! Travis' head jerked, the alert had come, the drive was beginning. He tensed, gripping his stone.
    A yapping bark was answered by a sound he could not describe, a noise midway between a cough and a grunt. Again a yap-yap . . .
    A toad-head burst through the screen of brush, the double horn on its nose festooned with grass torn up by the roots. Wide eyes—milky and seeming to be without pupils—fastened on Travis, but he could not be sure the thing saw him, for it kept on, picking up speed as it approached the cleft. Behind it ran the calf, and that guttural cry was bubbling from its broad flat lips.
    The long neck of the adult writhed, the frog-head swung closer to the ground so that the twin points of the horn were at a slant—aimed now at Travis. He had been right to suspect their deadliness, but he had only a fleeting chance to recognize that fact as the thing bore down, clearly intent on goring him.
    He hurled his stone and then flung his body to one side, tumbling and rolling into the brush where he fought madly to regain his feet, expecting at any moment to feel trampling hoofs and thrusting horns. There was a crash to his right, as the bushes and grass were wildly shaken.
    On his hands and knees the Apache retreated, his head turned to watch behind him. He saw the flirt of a triangular flap-tail in the mouth of the cleft. The calf had escaped. And now the threshing in the bushes stilled.
    Was the thing stalking him? He got to his feet, for the first time hearing clearly the continued yapping, as if a battle was in progress. Then the second of the adult beasts came into view, backing and turning, trying to keep its lowered head with menacing double horn always pointed to the coyotes as they