Free Sandcats of Rhyl by Robert E. Vardeman Page A

of the difference in their weights.
    Slayton dropped to his belly atop a dune and unlimbered the blasterifle. Storra stayed a little behind and down the rise, but she could hear the crackling of the electronic discharge of the ‘scope. In principle, she knew how it worked. Light was focused using an intense electric field. But she couldn’t imagine why the device was internally arcing over unless it was turned to maximum magnification.
    She made her way up the slope and lay prone beside Slayton. The distance revealed the solitary pinnacle of Devil’s Fang. In the heat haze, it danced and wobbled before her eyes. She wondered what Slayton could possibly see with his magnified vision through that curtain of heat.
    “I got a possible on them. Looks like their aircar at the base of the rock,” he said. “But the image keeps bobbing around. They must be a good twenty kilometers away. Too far for any kind of shot.”
    “What do you mean?” Steorra demanded.
    “I was just saying they didn’t have a good shot at us.”
    “Don’t start anything, Slayton. I’m warning you. I hired you to follow my orders. You are
not
to start shooting unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
    “Don’t get so excited. Dhal knows what I mean, don’t you, Dhal?”
    “Sure. He’s just worried about them opening up on us. That Nightwind’s obviously a killer. A back shooter. As long as they’re too far away to do anything like that, we’re in good shape. In fact, I doubt if they even know we’re around. What’s it look like, Lane? You got the big eyepiece.”
    Slayton continued to scan the area. “Looks pretty quiet to me. The shimmery air’s making it hard to tell what they’re up to. Looks like they are sticking something into the base of the pinnacle. It’s too far away to tell what, but there are a lot of places where they’re stopping. I can make out the runty guy better than Nightwind.”
    “Are you sure it really is Nightwind?”
    “Who else would be out here? Besides, there’s no way I could mistake that scarecrow figure. Or the short, scrawny friend of his.” Bitterness tinged Slayton’s voice. Steorra shivered a little in spite of the desert heat. She didn’t like the way Slayton took the setback in the ship’s lounge as a personal affront. He should be satisfied with bringing Nightwind to justice for theft and possible murder.
    Somehow, she doubted that would be enough for the man. The steely bite of his words told her more than she really wanted to know.
    The Watcher silently padded across the dune, huge paws preventing the heavy beast from sinking into the soft sand. The dull throbs deep inside its head indicated the alien intruders were nearby. The faint touch at the buried recesses of its mind hadn’t returned. That fleeting telepathic contact must have been imagined, a specter born of the Great Wind blowing that night.
    The sandcat crouched down, head resting on crossed paws, powerful rear legs positioned to give the maximum acceleration should it prove necessary. A third set of legs — arms — remained curled up in pockets on the beast’s belly. This was a Watch duty, not a Builder’s task.
    In the distance lay three figures on the crest of another sand dune. In the deep valley between towering mounds of desert rested their machine. The earless head turned and studied both the humans and the aircar. Only three sources of telepathic white noise were detectable.
    Only three humans in this aircar. The Watcher was pleased. It would be easy to eliminate these feeble predators. The Old Ones told of fierce adversaries before the desert devoured the planet. They spun tales of water and dense vegetation — and swift, deadly opponents.
    Nothing at all like these humans. Even with their mechanical devices, they couldn’t match any cub’s strength or will to survive. The flame of life flickered so low in them, the Watcher could detect very little telepathic power. Enough to show life, not enough to indicate