"Charterson and Von Elderman are following him?" I asked.
Bronoski nodded his bullet-shaped head. "Like a hawk."
"The Bird can follow him like a hawk. I want them to follow him like men."
"They are as good at the job as I am," Bronoski reassured me.
"I think," I said quickly, "that I had better go down to Communications and follow Baxter myself."
The Bird was an electronic device. It looked like a local life-form that was actually a flying mammal. Inside the thing was was a sensitive video camera and a self-propulsion unit.
The Bird homed in on Baxter's electroencephalograph waves.
The view on the screen in front of the lounging chairs was clear but monotonous.
Charlie made his way across the landscape, woods on this side of the continent, not jungle, without incident. He did fall down like a wet laundry bag every so often, but that, as you'd figure, amounted to traveling across country without incident. He'd have done the same on a smooth pavement.
I had a cigarette in my mouth, futilely pounding my pockets for the lighter I didn't have, when Charlie met the alien.