Still he did not move, even as the bird-girl struggled to a sitting position and gathered her feet under her. Dismay came into the blue gaze fixed on him; she half raised a hand as if in defense.
And Torcred's determination slipped again. "You are my prisoner," he announced in a hollow voice that did not sound at all like a victor's.
Without answering, the bird-girl sprang nimbly to her feet; then her mouth twisted with pain and she swayed dizzily, but her eyes never left Torcred's expressionless face.
"You are the terrapin?" she gasped. Her voice had the exotic accent of the bird-people's speech, and in her inflection of the word "terrapin" rang a contempt that was like a whip across the face. She glanced swiftly about, at the boat-shaped gray machine that crouched, purring, like a waiting animal on its six wheels some yards away, then at the broken wreck that had been her aero. Her eyes went wide with a blue flame of horror and regret, and her right hand darted to her side.
Torcred exploded from rigidity into action; his feet dug into the sand as he lunged, and his hand closed on the girl's slender wrist, halting the sharp point of her dagger an inch above her left breast.
Her free hand struck viciously at his hastily averted face. The Terrapin ground his teeth and twisted her wrist mercilessly until the long knife fell among their scuffling feet. Then he thrust the girl away and set his foot solidly on the weapon, pressing it into the sand. He glared at her deadwhite face.
"I said you're my prisoner. That means you'll live while I want you to!"
The bird-girl was trembling uncontrollably. "My ship is destroyed," she said in a stifled voice. "I am already dead. It is the law."
Torcred's black brows knitted in anger—at her and at himself for the impossible situation into which he had blundered. "Get yourself another aero," he growled unreasonably, knowing the truth of what she said. On land or in the air, the code was the same. With destruction of the fighting machine, the poor, soft being of flesh did best to perish too. He snapped, "Be quiet and do as I say. Come along!" He half-turned toward the waiting terrapin.