Free Sandcats of Rhyl by Robert E. Vardeman Page B

intelligence as the sandcats understood it.
    Still, there had been a hint of positive contact with the humans in the other aircar. That would bear closer scrutiny. But a Watcher wasn’t advanced enough. An Old One would, have to make that determination, especially since the humans were approaching a place forbidden to them.
    The sandcat stirred a little, then settled down into the cradle of the burning sand. Eyelids moved until the proper combination brought the three humans into focus. The heat haze was corrected for. The trio might have been a few meters distant. The device held by one of them was familiar to the Watcher. The sandcat had seen humans use the fire stick before.
    It was a pitiful weapon. Even now, the Watcher could detect a desire to kill from the one holding the blasterifle. How such feeble creatures could think of invading the desert was a mystery to the sandcat. When even the Rulers had perished…
    It was simply inconceivable these creatures could pose any real threat.
    The sandcat felt a growing pressure in its brain. The one holding the fire stick had turned and somehow sighted it. The Watcher launched itself in a high arc over the top of the dune. It hit, running. Low, fast, it presented only a small profile for the distant marksman.
    The sand erupted in a molten fountain in front of the sandcat. It stopped, turned, and bolted for the rise to its right. Another blaster beam liquified the sand beside it.
    The Watcher was too fast, the distance too great and the blasterifle too limited. The Watcher slipped over the top of the dune and silently laughed at the consternation it felt bubbling out of the mind of the ineffectual human.
    Fierce
kill
emanations were liberally interspersed with
hate
and overwhelming both was
fear.
It was always this way.
Fear
betrayed the human; the sensation left the sandcat’s mind feeling unclean. A racial memory was stirred by this closeness to
fear —
a memory buried for eons.
    The Watcher would soon kill these intruders. It was disgusted and disturbed by telepathic contact with them. Yes, the Watcher would perform the ages-old duty. But cleanly, without
hate
or
fear.
    It would strike soon.

CHAPTER FIVE
    “WHAT DO YOU MEAN, hollow?” asked Richards. Nightwind was busily punching another series of parameters into the computer.
    Without looking up from his work, Nightwind said, “We were figuring on hitting something really big. Like a pile of solid osmium. But this is even better, if more mysterious. Why is Devil’s Fang hollow? It is artificial? Or is that a natural cavern under it?”
    “The entire thing looks strange anyway, Rod,” said Heuser. “It’s the only real hunk of rock to be seen. The tri-dimensional charts show a mountain range five hundred kilometers away, but this is the only upjutting in the entire region. The rest is hard desert.”
    “PR, do the sandcats show up around the Halz Mountains to the south? Or any of the other ranges? Or are they thickest around this single peak?”
    Richards looked surprised. “I don’t know. Never thought about it, I guess. Nobody’s ever reported seein’ them in any of the mountains. Always in the deep desert, then just seldom. But Devil’s Fang has a reputation going back to the first days of exploration.”
    “And like most planets,” Heuser ventured, “this one hasn’t been very widely explored except for the satellite recon.”
    “It’s expensive and every gram freighted in is precious. On Rhyl, just setting up the equipment to squeeze the water out of the planet’s crust cost a fortune. The only reason people stuck around was sheer perversity.” Richards laughed harshly. “And a few like my old man who liked it. Just too damn stubborn to leave. And me, of course, I’m just as bull-headed. This is home, even if it is a blast furnace in the day and an icebox at night. And a dusty one, to boot.”
    Heuser pulled out another metallic tape from their seismic integrator. Handing it over to Nightwind,