As they sat talking after their evening meal, which consisted of one of the last snapper eggs and some chunks of the cooked antelope which they had carried along, the Metz priest suddenly fell silent.
Very faintly, out at the edge of his mind, his psychic consciousness, he had felt something, a touch, a thought, plucking. It was hardly enough even to notice, but he was becoming more and more aware of his widening powers in this area. He now could “hear,” without even thinking about it, the “voices” of little birds and small, hiding animals they passed as they rode along. Luchare he did not probe, out of courtesy and decency, but he felt sure that he could do so if it should become necessary.
The dark girl noticed his intent look and started to speak, only to have him wave her into silence with a peremptory hand.
Concentrating very hard, he tried his best, using all his newfound (and hard-won) knowledge to pinpoint and identify what he was “hearing,” but it was useless. Yet he had a more than strong feeling that whatever it was, it was finding him, albeit very gently and subtly!
Hiero got quickly up and went over to the packs. Coming back, face set, he carried the strange metal antenna-spear of the dead S’nerg and, sitting down, opened the thing out to its fullest length and drew out the two forehead contact rods. With these on his head, he felt the power he possessed within himself expand suddenly, and almost felt something else!
Greeting, Enemy! came a surge of evil force. The priest felt at the same time a wave of power as the person or entity on the “sending end” tried to use his strength to pinion Hiero and enclose his mind with an intangible, yet very real, block. He had been incredibly lucky, he now knew, when he had first activated this thing. If the power on the other end of the communication band had then tried this trick at once, he would probably have been caught. But now, armed with his new-won strength and knowledge, it was easy to fend the other off, as a fencer wards a sword stroke, and at the same time keep open, the message level so that he could either listen, or talk.
You are strong, Enemy, came the next grudging thought. Are you a renegade brother of ours or perhaps a new mutation we know nothing about? We have continuously watched and guarded this wavelength since we realized that you had slain our brother and stolen his (indecipherable name or symbol)
