Jeff wrestled his eyes away to the Scoop that floated like a purple island in the bay.
"A proper monster," he said. "You got out just in time."
She looked at once startled and impatient. "Not the Scoop, you idiot. The owl."
It was Jeff's turn to stare. "Owl? There was one on the dock, but I thought—"
"So did I." She sounded relieved. "But if you saw one, too.... All of a sudden, it was standing there on deck beside me, right out of nowhere. I lost my head and grounded the Queen, and it vanished. The owl, I mean."
"So did mine," Jeff said.
While they stood marveling, the owls came back.
Chafis Three and Four were horribly shaken by the initial attempt at communication with the natives. Nothing in Ciriimian experience had prepared them for creatures intelligent but illogical, individually perceptive yet isolated from each other.
"Communication by audible symbol," Chafi Three said. He ruffled his feathers in a shudder. "Barbarous!"