He stopped after a moment and listened. The crashes behind him indicated he was being pursued. If he was afraid, the outlaws had evidently decided, he was weak enough to chase. Graff ran toward the Tuscany.
By the time he reached the river, he was weaving from side to side and sobbing. The exertion magnified his pain a thousandfold. His pursuers were getting closer. Desperately, he trotted downstream.
They were quite close now. He heard them chuckling and calling to each other triumphantly—but there was the Gridnik nest!
He waited just a moment, poised on the bank of the river, until they broke into the clear, almost within electroblast range. Then, as they caught sight of him and increased their speed, he hurled his useless weapon into the striped little dome—and jumped.
When he came threshing out of the water, twenty feet further down the bank, the hideous swarm of insects were still gorging themselves. Graff crept away, nauseated. He rubbed his eyes against the darkness welling within them.
"MacDuff!" he called, his voice crackling with agony. "MacDuff!"
The terry swept down to his side.
"Listen, pal, I haven't got much time left, so we'll have to hurry. No more fancy stuff. Think you can fly in the rear windows or something, by way of diversion? It'll give me time to cross the sandy stretch."
Without a word, the lizard-bird went away. Graff came to the edge of the arid soil surrounding the pre-fab and waited.