He sat down on the ground to wait.
It was ten minutes before a movement caught his eye. Something had separated itself from a dark mass of stone, glided across a few yards of open ground to another shelter. Retief watched. Minutes passed. The shape moved again, slipped into a shadow ten feet distant. Retief felt the butt of the power pistol with his elbow. His guess had better be right this time....
There was a sudden rasp, like leather against concrete, and a flurry of sand as the Flap-jack charged.
Retief rolled aside, then lunged, threw his weight on the flopping Flap-jack—a yard square, three inches thick at the center and all muscle. The ray-like creature heaved up, curled backward, its edge rippling, to stand on the flattened rim of its encircling sphincter. It scrabbled with prehensile fringe-tentacles for a grip on Retief's shoulders. He wrapped his arms around the alien and struggled to his feet. The thing was heavy. A hundred pounds at least. Fighting as it was, it seemed more like five hundred.
The Flap-jack reversed its tactics, went limp. Retief grabbed, felt a thumb slip into an orifice—
The alien went wild. Retief hung on, dug the thumb in deeper.
"Sorry, fellow," he muttered between clenched teeth. "Eye-gouging isn't gentlemanly, but it's effective...."
The Flap-jack fell still, only its fringes rippling slowly. Retief relaxed the pressure of his thumb; the alien gave a tentative jerk; the thumb dug in.
The alien went limp again, waiting.
"Now we understand each other," said Retief. "Take me to your leader."