That's what I really am like, he decided, wondering when the pain would come shattering into him again. I am like the trill. I ought to lie down on the ground and start wriggling, instead of walking.
The pain found him then, and his brain was cleared briefly of the veil of the drug. The pain lasted longer this time. Drug wearing off, he thought, only now I don't want it to. And then he thought of the cats; the terrible cats, the horrible cats....
His brain spun and the veil dropped. What was I thinking about? he said to himself. Cats? Was it the cats? Why? Cats are pretty, especially grith cats. They are black, like the spots on a leopard. And what makes me think of a leopard? I'll ask the man behind me, he thought, and stopped.
"Go on, Caine," Fairchild whispered. "Go on, damn you."
Leopards? Leopards? Caine asked himself, and he pushed on through the growth, feeling the ground rising more steeply.
Razor plants licked at his skin, until his flesh was slit finely in a dozen places. The gauze around his arm became a fuzzy mass, like rags. If I see a cat, Caine promised himself, I'll take a splint off my arm and hit him over the head with it.
The mist hung around them like a hungry shroud, eager to cloak everything on the planet with its muggy wetness. Then the growth lessened a bit, and Caine saw bare rock here and there. It was easier to move and he did not jar his arm as much, but somewhere in his brain an old knowledge told him that this would be certain grith territory, and every step now was a step closer to the black face with the orange eyes and sharp teeth.
Caine felt himself growing weaker, and each motion was a building effort. The heat had risen, but there was no sweat on his face now, only a burning dryness. His head seemed to start its floating again, and he thought for a moment that it might drift up over the trees, like a balloon.
The idea was very funny to him, and laughter grew inside of him. He grinned, feeling his stomach move with it, until suddenly he was freezing his movement, laughing into the mist-filled air, staring straight into the orange eyes of a grith cat.
The laughter stopped in his mouth. He blinked once. The cat didn't move. Fairchild and the woman, Caine knew, had halted behind him. The cat's eyes shown through the mist like fiery globes. I'll pet him, Caine thought with great detachment, right on his black head, and then he'll go away.