This thing was larger by far than any flying creature the Felodon knew—incomparably larger than the Felodon itself. Its details were hard to make out through the hazy air, and would have meant little to the flesh-eater in any case. The most noticeable characteristic was the steady, whistling hum that proceeded from it. There was a suggestion of motion, too, which might have been wings or might not. Actually, the thing was little more than a dark dot against the purplish-blue sky. At the moment no sunlight was striking it directly, for it was in the shadow of the thunderhead. Perhaps this prevented the animal below from being bothered by another unusual feature it possessed, though even the appearance of this last characteristic produced no sign of fear when it finally came. This occurred shortly after the flying thing passed, while it was still quite close. It moved out of the shadow of the great cloud and, as the greenish sunlight struck it, the eyes of the watching creature were dazzled by a gleam of metal.
This was certainly something it had never seen, for native metal on Viridis is just about as common as it was on Earth before men began to pry it out of its ores. Viridis has an oxygen-rich atmosphere and plenty of moisture, and pure aluminum or chromium just doesn’t occur in that environment.
Strange or not, however, the gleam did not appear to affect the Felodon’s rudimentary sense of fear. For just an instant it paused as the flying thing hummed on into the northeast; just once it looked back toward the point in the jungle where it had left its kill—a point from which eloquent sounds were now coming, betraying the presence of carrion-eaters; just one step it took in that direction. Then it turned away as abruptly as it had from the meal a few minutes before. With the same purposeful air it had displayed on the way out of the jungle it headed down the beach in the direction taken by the flying piece of metal.
Though the animal’s speed was high, the humming soon faded out ahead of it.
However, this did not seem to cause any inconvenience; the Felodon moved on, with a gait that might have been called a fast walk or a slow run, never hesitating, never pausing. It remained silent. Smaller creatures which might have given it a wide berth had they heard the hunting call now sprang away almost from underfoot. It paid them no heed, but continued on its way while the green sun settled into the jungle behind and to its left. The fact that its recent kill was now little more than a skeleton did not seem to bother it. Perhaps it had forgotten.
CHAPTER II
The humming was a little more noticeable in the helicopter cabin, but not much. John McLaughlin, sprawled as comfortably as his two meters of height would permit in its confines, had noticed the sound only at first; and after remarking to himself that they seemed to be building better ion turbines since he had left Earth, had permitted his thoughts to wander in other directions. These did not concern Felodons; the interest there was not, at the moment, mutual. The rather crowded cabin offered material enough for consideration.
McLaughlin was not a scientist by training, but neither was he the sort of guide that might have been found in Yukon or Amazon territory a few centuries back. He did not despise people merely because they were, by his standards, greenhorns. He knew that each of the other men now sharing this cabin with him was an expert in his own field, even though none of them, in spite of his training, would have been able to survive for more than a day in the jungles of Viridis. After all, why should they have learned such an art? There were other things worth learning, and one could always hire McLaughlin if a need to visit the jungles developed. Since this particular party had done just that, they were evidently a fairly practical crew.
They were not talking very much, which from the guide’s viewpoint was an additional point in their favor. They already knew what they planned to do, and saw no point in repeating what had already been said. Of course, if they should fail to find the area they were seeking, there would be talk—all of it aimed at McLaughlin; but he had no fear on that score. There were few enough mountains on Viridis, and of those few by far the greater number were volcanic cinder cones. When these scientists had specified a region of tilted-block or folded mountains, the guide had been more than dubious at first. It had taken him time to recall that there was a small area meeting these specifications less than fifteen hundred miles from the spaceport at Emeraude. He was not himself a geologist, but pictures and diagrams had been used freely in explaining to him just what was wanted, and he was quite certain that the party would be satisfied with what he had to offer.
A slight rocking in the hitherto steady motion of the helicopter roused him from this line of reverie. They were already several hours from Emeraude, and McLaughlin realized that he should have been paying more attention to the course. He straightened up in his seat and looked out.
To the left and ahead was a huge thunderhead, whose satellite air currents had probably caused the variation on the helicopter’s flight path. More important, there was land in sight. McLaughlin knew that the long flight across Green Bay was over. He waited, however, before saying anything. He had given the pilot full instructions as to the route before take-off, and he wanted to see whether those had been clear enough.
Apparently they had. Without asking questions or even looking back at the guide, Lampert swung the aircraft from its northerly heading onto one which paralleled the shoreline, a turn of about forty-five degrees to the right, and the helicopter resumed its steady flight.
McLaughlin did not relax. From now on the route was a little more difficult to follow, and there were not too many more hours of daylight. The shadowless night glow which made vision relatively easy after sunset did not lend itself to aerial navigation over a very poorly mapped world. He kept his eyes on the shoreline, watching for the landmarks he had not seen for many months—and then not from above. He did not see the Felodon which became so intensely interested in the helicopter. If he had, he would have attached little importance to the creature’s presence, and he could not possibly have seen its actions in sufficient detail to catch any peculiarities in them.
* * * *
No one else saw the beast, either. The change in course had roused most of the party from whatever lines of thought they had been pursuing, as it had McLaughlin, and most of them were looking out the windows; but they were interested in what lay ahead, not below. Sometime soon the relative monotony of jungle and swamp should be relieved by rising ground, indicating the nearness of the mountains they sought; and the helicopter’s flight altitude of some two thousand feet was low enough to permit any significant rise of terrain to be visible. Sulewayo, the younger paleontologist, made a remark to that effect, which passed without comment. Real conversation did not start for some minutes.
“As I understand it, we have one more course change before we see the mountains. Isn’t there a river we have to follow for a time, String?” Lampert asked the question without looking back.
“That’s right,” McLaughlin replied. “It runs into Green Bay from almost straight north, and about a hundred miles inland makes a turn to the east. That’s general direction. It winds a lot.”
“It would, in country as nearly peneplaned as this,” muttered Lampert under his breath.
“The mountains you want start about sixty airline miles from the big bend. If you trust your gyro compass enough, you can head for them directly from the river mouth. If you have any doubt about being able to hold a line, though, follow the river. I doubt that there are any good landmarks otherwise. Of course, I’ve only seen the area from the surface and close to the river, but I’d be very surprised if there was anything around but the swamp-and-jungle mess we’re over now.”
“So would I. We’ll stay in sight of the river, but edge as far east as visibility lets us.” The guide approved this plan with