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The sailor waited, one hand on a rope to steady himself, the other with its
dagger held point-out at Green.
The Earthman began unwinding his turban.
"What are you doing?" said Ezkr, frowning with sudden anxiety.
Up to this point he had been master, because he knew what to expect. But if
something unconventional happened...
Green shrugged his shoulders and continued his very careful and slow
unwrapping of his headpiece.
"I don't want to spill this," he said.
"Spill what?"
"This!" shouted Green, and he whipped the turban upward towards Ezkr's
face.
The turban itself was too far from the sailor to touch him. But the sand
contained within it flew into his eyes before the wind could dissipate it. Amra,
following her husband's directions, had collected a large amount from the
fireplace's sand pile to wrap in it, and though it had made his head feel heavy
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it had been worth it.
Ezkr screamed and clutched at his eyes, releasing his dagger. At the same
time, Green slid forward and rammed his fist into the man's groin. Then, as Ezkr
crumpled toward him, he caught him and eased him down. He followed his first
blow with a chopping of the edge of his palm against the fellow's neck. Ezkr
quit screaming and passed out. Green rolled him over so that he lay on his
stomach across the yard, supported on one side by the mast, with his legs, arms
and head dangling. That was all he wanted to do for him. He had no intention of
carrying him down. His only wish was to get to the deck, where he'd be safe. If
Ezkr fell off now, too bad.
Amra and Inzax were waiting at the foot of the shrouds when Green slowly
climbed off. When he set foot on the deck, he thought his legs would give way,
they were trembling so. Amra, noticing this, quickly put her arms around him as
if to embrace the conquering hero but actually to kelp support him.
"Thanks," he muttered. "I need your strength, Amra."
"Anybody would who had done what you've done," she said. "But my strength
and all of me is at your disposal, Alan."
The children were looking at him with wide, admiring eyes and yelling,
"That's our daddy! Big blond Green! He's quick as a grass cat, bites like a dire
dog and'll spit poison in your eye, like a flying snake!"
Then, in the next moment, he was submerged under the men and women of the
Clan, all anxious to congratulate him for his feat and to call him brother. The
only ones who did not crowd around, trying to kiss him on the lips, were the
officers of the Bird and the wife and children of the unfortunate sailor, Ezkr.
These were climbing up the rigging to fasten a rope around his waist and lower
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him.
There was one other who remained aloof. That was the harpist, Grazoot. He
was still sulking at the foot of the mast.
Green decided that he'd better keep an eye on him, especially at night when
a knife could be slipped between a sleeper's ribs and the body thrown overboard.
He wished now that he'd not gone out of his way to insult the fellow's
instrument, but at the time that had seemed the only thing to do. Now he had
better try to find some way to pacify him.
13
TWO WEEKS of very hard work and little sleep passed as Green learned the duties
of a topsailman. He hated to go aloft, but he found that being up so high had
its advantages. It gave him a chance to catch a few winks now and then. There
were many crow's nests where musketmen were stationed during a fight. Green
would slip down into one of these and go to sleep at once. His foster son
Grizquetr would stand watch for him, waking him if the foretop captain was
coming through the rigging toward them. One afternoon Griz's whistle startled
Green out of a sound sleep.
However, the captain stopped to give another sailor a lecture. Unable to go
back to sleep, Green watched a herd of hoobers take to their hoofs at the
approach of the Bird. These diminutive equines. beautiful with their orange
bodies and black or white manes and fetlock, sometimes formed immense herds that
must have numbered in the hundreds of thousands. So thick were they that they
looked like a bobbing sea of flashing heads and gleaming hoofs stretching clear
to the horizon.
To stretch to the horizon was something on this planet. The plain was the
flattest Green had ever seen. He could scarcely believe that it ran unbroken for
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thousands of miles. But it did, and from his high point of view he could see in
a vast circle. It was a beautiful sight. The grass itself was tall and
thickbodied, about two feet high and a sixteenth of an inch through. It was a
bright green, brighter than earthly grass, almost shiny. During the rainy
season, he was told, it would blossom with many tiny white and red flowers and
give a pleasing perfume.
Now, as Green watched, something happened that startled him.
Abruptly, as if a monster mowing machine had come along the day before, the
high grass ended and a lawn began. The new grass seemed to be only an inch high. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]