Her suggestion created consternation among the others.
"We must consult Komso," one suggested uneasily.
The girl frowned. "We do not consult Komso," she contradicted. "I take full responsibility."
The man shrugged. "Let us go before the torvaks come," he evaded.
Weapons were slung for carrying and the band leaped from the bottom and began swimming. Barry followed, keeping close beside the girl.
Although he relied more on power than skill he found himself able to maintain their fast pace. He soon caught the knack of using the webs between his fingers and toes.
And muscles trained under Earth gravity and without water support seemed superior to those of the Venusians.
The men talked as they swam, and Barry remembered where he had heard those particular combinations of sounds before.
A construction job had once taken him to an almost inaccessible mountain section of Mexico and there he had picked up a few words of the dialect used by the native Indian laborers. Aztec? Incan? Mayan? Something predating all three? He had no idea of its origin, but the similarity opened astounding trails of speculation.
The girl, he learned from hearing the others address her, was named Xintel.