There was silence for a time between their thoughts, and then Nelson asked, "Why did Nsharra send you?"
"She will tell you that herself," Ei answered. "Wait."
The long still hours of the afternoon wheeled over them. The drooping forest brooded and, beneath the trees, the watching scouts of the Clans slept with sheathed claw and covered fang, a light and uneasy sleep. At sunset Ei flew off and at dusk he returned, guiding Nsharra. She rode the black stallion, Hatha, and Tark loped beside her, his lolling tongue dripping in the heat.
At sight of Tark, Nelson sprang up, bristling. But Tark flung himself down in the cool water and rolled, luxuriating.
"A long run from Vruun, in the dry season," came his thought. He snapped the water between his jaws, biting it like a puppy.
Nelson watched Nsharra as she slid from Hatha's back. Even now, when with his wolf's vision all her exquisite coloring was dulled to a monotony of black and gray and the pure white of her skin, he thought that she was the loveliest thing he had ever seen.
He had no anger for her now. All that was long burned out of him and he knew that, in Kree's place, he would have done the same or worse. All he remembered was that Nsharra had pleaded for him and that there had been tears on her cheeks.
The wild hope rose in him that she had come to take him back to Vruun to his own body.
She divined his thought and said, "Not yet, Eric Nelson."
Nelson's whole body drooped with the sickening shock of disappointment, and then he felt Nsharra's hand on his rough head and heard her thought.