The Felodon was becoming restless. It could hardly be hungry as yet; but it was on its feet, snarling silently as it had when the helicopter first entered its ken. For perhaps a minute it stood; then, with the same air of determination it had shown days before and scores of kilometers away, it began to thread its way through the underbrush toward the river—and the digging site.
"I'll stand where you suggested, and never take my eyes off the pit," Lampert promised.
"Then I'll come back to find you missing," replied the guide. "You're guarding yourself too, remember. Don't keep your eyes on anything. Keep them moving."
He finished distributing the little cylinders in the various pockets of his outer clothing, and moved off in the direction Lampert had indicated. He looked back frequently, but each time saw the scientist alert. When the underbrush finally cut off the view, he refused to worry too much.
Actually, McLaughlin had gone to considerable pains to make the jungles of Viridis sound more dangerous than they really are. His conscious motive was to make the inexperienced members of the party alert enough for their own safety. It was quite true that a man could be killed in quite a variety of ways in those rain forests. There was a distinct possibility, however, that he also wanted to impress them with the importance of his services.
He did not, therefore, suffer much from anxiety during his walk, though on the other hand he wasted no time. He had, of course, only a rough idea of the distance he had traveled, though he was able to keep his direction with a small impulse-compass tuned to the seismic apparatus and forming part of its regular equipment.
He dropped three of the cylinders at the required intervals, as nearly as he could guess, forcing each a little way into the ground as Lampert had shown him; then he turned at right angles, walked what he hoped was the right distance and started back toward the site, planting equipment as he went. Out again, in again; and the last of the dozen tubes was in the ground.
Mitsuitei's shovel scraped deeper.
Lampert, glancing up and around every few seconds, made minute adjustments to the controls of his seismic apparatus. Its little mole robot had started on its downward trip.