At the point of the band walked a darkly furred figure with a long torso and stumpy legs which ended in round flat pads. The arms were slim and moved with a snakelike writhing. They ended in two-fingered hands, the fingers muscular, long and twining, as though designed to reach into strange places for mysterious reasons. The ears were motile, large and leathery under their thin coat of fur, pointing now one direction and now another. The head sat on a slender neck, presenting a markedly human face, although flattened and covered with that fine gauze of dark fur. The eyes were blue, heavy-lidded and bulging. They were glassy and appeared to focus on nothing.

The plain around them, out to the crags about ten kilometers distant, was devoid of motion now, marked only by scattered extrusions of black rock and the stiff-leaved plants making their slow phototropic adjustments to the passage of the red-orange sun.

The ears of the furred figure at the point suddenly stretched out, cupped and aimed at the crags directly ahead of the band.

Abruptly, a screeching cry echoed across the plain from that direction. The band stopped as a single organism, caught in fearful waiting. The cry had been terrifyingly loud to carry that far across the plain.

A near-hysterical voice called from within the band: "We have no weapons!"

"Rocks," Theriex said, waving an arm at the extruded black shapes all around.

"They're too big to throw," someone complained.

"The rocks of the Avata," Theriex said, and his voice carried the tone he had used while lulling his band with the story of Avata.

"Stay away from the plants," someone warned.

There was no real need for this warning. They all knew about the plants - most poisonous, all capable of slashing soft flesh. Three of the band already had been lost to the plants.

Again, that cry pierced the air.