Ama gestured toward the thread of river. "The Senzas—my people and my village—off that way beyond the little water. We go quickly. But we be careful, until we get beyond the water."
"Swim it?"
"We can. But I think I remember where there is a Senza boat hidden on this side."
She had already told me more of what happened to her. The Senzas, primitive obviously, yet with an orderly tribal civilization, were the dominant race here on little Vulcan. The savage Orgs—a far lower, more primitive type both mentally and physically—in nomadic fashion, roamed the metal deserts and little stunted forests which lay beyond the barren regions. They were, at times of religious frenzy, cannibalistic, with weird and gruesome festival rites which Ama only shudderingly sketched.
For the most part, the clumsy Orgs and their weird mime-creatures were kept from the Senza forests. But occasionally they raided, stealing the Senza women, and roaming the lush forests for food. There had been, in the Senza village, one Tahg, a wooer of Ama. An older man, but somehow well liked by the Senza tribal leader. Repulsed by Ama, he had threatened her—and then he had vanished from the village; gone hunting, and the Senzas considered that the Orgs might have killed him.
"But I think it was Org blood in him," Ama said. "I told the Captain Roberts that—I remember just before he and his men left us to finish the repairs of their ship—and then we found later that the Orgs had killed them all."
Tahg, Ama thought, had become the tribal leader of this group of the Orgs—indulging with them in their gruesome rites.... Then, just a few hours ago, two Orgs had crept upon Ama as she slept—with extraordinary daring for an Org, had successfully seized her and carried her off. Taking her into the Org country, past the Roberts' spaceship, where they had come upon me, and Torrence and Jan....
"We be careful now," she was telling me as we stood gazing out over the forested slope. "After a storm it is when the Orgs mostly roam—the hunting here is better when the little creatures are out after the water."
The little creatures! Best of the animal foods here on Vulcan.... The red-storm quite evidently had emptied torrential rain on the forest. The fantastic trees were heavy with it. Soddenly it dripped from the overhead branches. And now as we started down the slope, I saw the little creatures. Insect or animal, no one could have said. A myriad sizes and shapes of them, from a finger-length to the size of a cat. Before our advance they scurried, on the ground, scattering with weird little outcries. Some flew clumsily into the leaves overhead; others ran up there on the vines, peering down at us as we passed. We came suddenly upon a pool of rain-water. Greedily a hundred little orange-green things, seemingly almost all head and snout, were crowding at the pool, sucking up the water. With eerie, maniacal little voices they rolled and bounced away at our approach.