Science fiction; Space and time -- Fiction; Time travel -- Fiction
"Who are _you_?" she parroted his question in a marked accent. English
was not her native tongue, he was sure.
Travis reached out, and again his hands closed on her shoulders. She
started to twist and then realized he was merely pulling her up to a
sitting position. Some of the fear had left her eyes, an intent interest
taking its place.
"You are not Sons of the Blue Wolf," she stated in her heavily accented
speech.
Travis smiled. "I am the Fox, not the Wolf," he returned. "And the
Coyote is my brother." He snapped his fingers at the shadows, and the
two animals came noiselessly into sight. Her gaze widened even more at
Naginlta and Nalik'ideyu, and she deduced the bond which must exist
between her captor and the beasts.
"This woman is also of our world." Tsoay spoke in Apache, looking over
their prisoner with frank interest. "Only she is not of the People."
Sons of the Blue Wolf? Travis thought again of the embroidery designs on
the jacket. Who had called themselves by that picturesque
title--where--and when in time?
"What do you fear, Daughter of the Blue Wolf?" he asked.
And with that question he seemed to touch some button activating terror.
She flung back her head so that she could see the darkening sky.
"The flyer!" Her voice was muted as if more than a whisper would carry
to the stars just coming into brilliance above them. "They will come ...
tracking. I did not reach the inner mountains in time."
There was a despairing note in that which cut through to Travis, who
found that he, too, was searching the sky, not knowing what he looked
for or what kind of menace it promised, only that it was real danger.
6
"The night comes," Tsoay spoke slowly in English. "Do these you fear
hunt in the dark?"
She shook her head to free her forehead from a coil of braid, pulled
loose in her struggle with Travis.
"They do not need eyes or such noses as those four-footed hunters of
yours. They have a machine to track--"
"Then what purpose is this brush pile of yours?" Travis raised his chin
at the disturbed hiding place.
"They do not constantly use the machine, and one can hope. But at night
they can ride on its beam. We are not far enough into the hills to lose
them. Bahatur went lame, and so I was slowed...."
"And what lies in these mountains that those you fear dare not invade
them?" Travis continued.
"I do not know, save if one can climb far enough inside, one is safe
from pursuit."
"I ask it again: Who are you?" The Apache leaned forward, his face in
the fast-fading light now only inches away from hers. She did not shrink
from his close scrutiny but met him eye to eye. This was a woman of
proud independence, truly a chief's daughter, Travis decided.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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