Or could the guards have heard, besides the cries and crashings and yowls of the jungle folk, the man-made sounds which sped silently back and forth across the ranch within their tight and secret radio beams—then, too, the alarm would have clanged.
Had the beacon suddenly stretched its path outward another fifty yards, it would have fallen upon a massive, leafy watrari tree, taller than most: and the guards, looking close, might have caught in one notch of the tree's many limbs a glint of metal: might have seen, had the light held on that glint, a bloated monster of metal and fabric braced there, hiding behind a screen of leaves.
This giant, not native to the jungle, was posted due "north" from the ranch. Another waited to the "south," in a similarly large tree; and another to the "east."
Hawk Carse and his friends were abroad again and waiting to strike.
an Wilson, hot, itching and uncomfortable inside the heavy space-suit that he wore, and supremely aware of his consequent awkwardness, watched the ranch's beacon sweeping past him thirty or more yards away, and again sought relief from the tedium in conversation.
"Jupiter should be rising soon, Carse. It's the darkest hour—seems to me he'll come now if he comes at all. What do you think?"
He was the one posted in a watrari tree "south" of Tantril's ranch. Flung on the tight beam of his helmet-radio, which had been tuned and adjusted by Eliot Leithgow so as to reach only two other radios, the words rang simultaneously in the receivers of Friday, who was "east" of the ranch, and Carse, who was "north."
The Hawk responded curtly: