"They prefer him to me. Arek is better still. I miss her."
"Mijok rides, doesn't he?"
"Mijok and Elis. Surok's a bit skittish. I guess Pak thinks it's undignified—or else the damned witches disapprove."
"Hm ... We have, maybe, three days before Lantis hits us—"
"Lantis—I'd succeeded in forgetting her for three minutes." Sears drooped his head against the column of Mister Smith's foreleg; eyes closed, he cursed without humor. He dredged up almost forgotten words from the old years of Earth, from bars, docks, dissecting rooms, at least four major religions. He cursed Lantis root and branch, ancestry and posterity, heart, body, and brain. Regaining a trace of mirth, he outlined a program of correction that would have kept hell under forced draft for a thousand years. Still with closed eyes, he asked, "What's the point, Ed? What's the damned point?"
"How many of these critters have you tamed?"
"Five. There's another smelling around, not ready yet."
"And five riders—you ride 'em, don't you, Paul?" Paul nodded.
Abara and Mister Johnson returned in silence, under the trees behind Spearman, who was unaware of them. Sears said, "Paul's good. Good balance."
"So you have a rider for each mount.... Well, I talked it over with Doc—he says it's your department. What if a bunch of those animals, with armed riders—"