Pakriaa flung up her arm across her eyes as if struck. Tejron muttered, "I can't restrain her much longer without hurting her." It was Nisana who gave the Vestoian the message in the pygmy tongue, a ripple of sound that must have conveyed some reassurance, for the struggling ceased.
"Look!" Paul dug his fingers in Wright's shoulder. "Over there—"
The dark spot under starlight was surely the floating shield; behind it, another purposeful splashing, rise and fall of a driving arm.
"Mijok!" Wright was on his feet. "This way! A little upstream—"
Both giants were bleeding from small double stab wounds of the kaksma teeth. There were four pygmies on Mijok's shield. Elis had carried Brodaa and another in his arms and one on his back; they had clung to his fur as he swam the river. Mijok plucked a sodden thing from his thigh; its jaws had clenched in flesh when he smashed its body. He flipped the ratty thing into the water and remarked like a Charin, "Damned if I could ever care for 'em."
"The others—"
"We tried to help them into the trees," said Elis. "Could be some safety in that if the swarm passes by. But most of them ran blindly, so—beyond that, Doc, don't ever ask us. We must forget some things. We've all done what we could, so—let's rest a while and go on."
"Oh, we go on," Wright said. "Chaos, or maybe a little bit of light from time to time. What—sixteen of us now...? Which way was the swarm going?"
"North. Our flight was west. I think this place is safe."
Abara called down: "Mister Johnson says it is safe."