IV
All I could see was a green blur in the rain. I heard the crisp, wicked smacks of Jarin's tentacles on the tiger. It flopped over in mid-air, buried its face in the mud and came up yowling, like your Aunt Minnie's cat when you stepped on its tail.
It went away from there, fast, with its mate right behind it.
Jarin chuckled softly. "About the cansins," he hissed. "You had an idea?"
Somewhere, quite close to us, there was the familiar sound of a plastic shack going to pieces. I remembered hearing blasters rip occasionally. But only Melak's hoods were armed with anything heavy enough to do any good, and I guessed most of them had beat it to Beamish's yacht. A cansin has a hell of a tough hide, and their vitality is something you wouldn't believe if you hadn't seen it.
The familiar whistling screech went up, and the babel of human screams and the brute chorus from the rainy alleys. I think, right then, I began to get scared. The fear began to seep through my dopey calm, like pain in a new wound.
I shuddered and said, "No. No ideas."
There was a soft step in the mud behind me. I spun around, sweating. Ahra the Nahali woman stood there, red-eyed and laughing.
"You are frightened," she whispered.