Presently he said, "Look. Ahead."
The girl's eyes opened listlessly. They were dark-blue, opaque. But faint interest stirred them as she scanned the view ahead.
The flaming dust cloud had climbed to the very zenith; the smell of it was in the terrapin, its feel between the teeth. Miles ahead across the desert, a dim encarmined shimmer marked the waters of the Salt Sea.
Nearer, but still far ahead, a black stream was moving across the rippled plain at right angles to the terrapin's course. It was without beginning or end, pouring steadily from north to south. A distant vibration seemed to shake the earth beneath the sway and swoop of the moving vehicle.
"The trailer herd," said Torcred. "Thousands on thousands of them, moving south with the sun that feeds them. The fall migration is farther west this year, and they are coming in greater numbers than any of our troop can remember."
The girl said nothing. He added irritably, "You understand—there will be good hunting."
She shocked him by laughing. "Is that all you think of?" she inquired mockingly. "Good hunting—a full stomach and a full fuel tank. You crawlers lead poor, empty lives."
"We don't crawl," said Torcred shortly, eyes fixed on the speedometer that registered a hundred miles an hour.
The bird-girl laughed again. "You know so little, you earthbound creatures," she taunted. "You've never known the joy of flight—to climb up and into the clear bright stratosphere, and see the Earth with all its secrets unroll below you.... You creep from place to place and cower in your camps, but we range farther than you dream, and know the world and all its peoples that fly and swim and crawl and burrow. And we are the highest race of all."
"Higher than the buzzards?" asked Torcred.