It must have taken the Syssokans a long time to get this far. He wondered whether they had brought him an unusual distance into the desert, perhaps to avoid contaminating their own burial grounds, or whether they had simply indulged in some long-winded debate as to the proper course to pursue in regard to deceased aliens.
My God! he thought. What if they'd decided to dissect us? I never thought of that! I wonder if the joker that sent those pills did?
Whatever had gone wrong, he was well behind schedule. He could imagine the chagrin of the D.I.R. man watching the proceedings through his little flying spy-eye. Taranto hoped that the spacers hired for the pick-up were still standing by—at the worst, they would have water. Cautiously, he tried to move his tongue inside his mouth. It stuck against his teeth. He suspected that the taste would be terrible, if he could taste at all.
The heat! he thought. I've been soaking up heat all day and not sweating. Now it's jetting out of every pore.
Whatever the drug had done or failed to do, it must have nearly suspended most of the normal functions of the body. No wonder he was perspiring so heavily as he began to recover! Even so, he felt as if he had a fever. He began to hope that he had not been carried for very long. Unless he had been lying in the cell—or, better, in some examination room at ground level—for most of the elapsed time while disputes held up disposal of his body, some instinct told him, he was very likely to die.
Someone rubbed a hand roughly over his face, slipping through the film of sweat. At this demonstration, renewed exclamations broke out above him. One of the Syssokans shouted some gabble, as if to another some way off.
A moment later, Taranto heard a hoarse yelp that could have come only from a Terran throat. Then words began to form, and he realized that it must be Meyers.
That blew the pipes! he thought, and opened his eyes.
A Syssokan looking down at him hissed in astonishment. Others, who had been watching another group about twenty feet away, turned to stare down at Taranto. He was hauled to his feet by the first pair that thought of it. One, a minor officer by his red uniform, sputtered a question at the Terran, forgetting in his evident excitement that he was speaking Syssokan. Taranto wiped his face with his shirtsleeve. He was beginning to feel a trifle cooler as his perspiration evaporated in the dry air, but his surroundings seemed feverishly unreal.
He could not quite understand what Meyers was shouting now, but even in the hoarse voice could be detected a note of pleading. Taranto thought it must be something about water. The Syssokan before him gathered his wits and repeated his question in Terran.