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Annoyed now, she poked her whittled stick at it a few more times, growling, "Get the bell out of my
house. Go on. Scot! Shoo! "
One thrust actually touched it. It didn't like that, started some growling of its own, and that clicking
sound again. Its teeth? The claws on its stubby arms? She couldn't tell, but decided one of them had to
leave. And if it wouldn't ...
She moved slowly to the front of the tent, forcing it to turn to keep its eyes on her. She hit her stick on
the floor a few times, trying to get the thing to move back away from the opening that it was blocking. It
did, but its growling increased. It was getting angry. It lowered its head nearly to the ground, raised it
again.
She was afraid it was getting ready to rush her. She would have liked to back it farther into the corner
before she exited, her hope being that if she made enough noise on that side of the tent from the outside,
it would turn in that direction rather than follow her, and trap itself in the tent long enough for her to get
away.
She ducked outside, screamed Dalden's name, ran her stick along the side of the tent as she raced
toward the back, then ran straight for the stream. Water. A scent masker. And she'd noticed a few
pockets deep enough where she could submerge if necessary. She just had to reach it while that thing
was still trying to find its way out of the tent.
It landed in front of her. It had leapt an incredible distance to land right in front of her! And there was no
stopping, as fast as she'd been running. She collided with it, tumbled over it, and rolled down the rest of
the bank, coming to rest half in, half out of the stream.
She was dazed, but too frightened now for that to stop her. She sat up. It was foremost in her mind that
she had to get to the other side of the water. It might be afraid of the water, or at least wary enough not
to cross it. That could be her only salvation.
It landed on top of her, breaking half of her rib cage, crushing
one lung. There was no breath left for screaming, no breath at all. She fainted for a moment, and woke
up to excruciating pain ... wet, warm, bloody, She wasn't dead yet, but wished she was. Its hands really
were useless. it was dragging her out of the water with its teeth, feeling like it was ripping off half her leg
in the process.
Her last thought before the pain sent her back into blessed nothing was that Dalden had brought her
across the universe to be eaten by a stupid beast. He wouldn't be pleased.
Chapter Forty-nine
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ARE THEY REALLY THAT STUPID?" TEDRA DEMANDED OF the computer link in her hand.
"To declare war on a League-protected planet is to declare war on the entire Confederation."
Not stupid," was Martha's placid reply. "Just too primitive to think that far ahead."
Tedra was furious, not over the audacity of the inhabitants of Century III who had arrived en masse, but
because Challen was taking this seriously and looking for-ward to a good old-fashioned war. But there'd
be nothing old-fashioned about it. The Centurians weren't planning on landing for any hands-on fighting.
They'd be bombarding from space.
Jorran had apparently done a lot of crying and complaining when he got home. That he hadn't been in
the best condition, left somewhat deformed by his mended injuries, had obviously enraged his relatives
enough to want revenge on his behalf You simply didn't treat a High King that way and expect to live to
tell about it.
The highest High King of the lot, Cayden, head of their royal family, had confiscated every visiting ship in
their star system, for a total of twenty-three ships, from common traders and swift privateers to
battleships. An impressive flotilla, which was probably why Cayden had sounded so confident. He
thought he had the upper hand.
Martha disagreed. "Rust buckets," she called his entire fleet, every one of them so ancient, they hadn't
been converted to crysillium, much less gaali power. Which was why she wasn't the least bit concerned
about this invasion. Still aboard the Androvia, she was just waiting for permission to blast the Centurians
back to where they came from.
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