"You mean Pubina?"
"This I said. Fuvina. He and other Heatwave men took man and girl from shif and placed them in own shif. Also took vig green vottle. Left one Heatwave man hidden here. Then flew that way in own shif." A fantastically large and fleshy wing gestured south. "Them I follow. Where Heatwave men stof, I see. Then I come vack."
The terry drew an immense swallow of air to compensate for his long speech and shook himself. The great fern trembled in sympathy.
Graff stepped forward from the rosebush and inspected his informant closely. "Thanks. But I don't see why you're interested."
The toothed beak, which was half as long as a man, opened uncertainly. "Vecause," the lizard-bird explained in a low voice, "Heatwave men have caftured my mate vefore attacking New Kalamazoo sky-shif. In cage they fut her for shivment to Earth. This I can do nothing about fy myself. Vut them I follow, hofing to find way to rescue her."
"And you figure that if you help me find my friends, I'll help you save your mate from the sideshows on Earth? Well, I will, if—"
A big, complex if, with as many tendrils as sucking ivy. If he lived long enough, and, if he did, if he would be sane enough—considering the agonizing last hour of Ricardo's Virus infection—to do anything constructive once he arrived at Pubina's jungle hideout. If a man, guided by a pterodactyl flying overhead, could pick his way on foot through a completely unexplored section of swamp and have enough juice left in him when he emerged to take the prize of the century away from the toughest collection of cutthroats on an extremely tough planet.
He clenched his fist as the cramps began in his left hand—the cramps that would spread slowly throughout his body until they ended in fatal convulsions some five hours from now. If a one-armed man could do all this, and do it with just one portable electroblast....
He cursed sharply, suddenly, as he realized he'd been holding the electroblast in his hand ever since he'd given the Heatwave thug that finishing jolt. That was after he'd been stabbed, after the man's first wild blast had burned Graff's antiseptic pouch into a mess of fused glass vials and blackened fabric. Without immediate application of the ten different antiseptic solutions.