Even in this crude state it had beauty. He
stopped the Salarik who had just brought in another armload of wood.
"This is what?" he spoke the Trade Lingo haltingly.
The native gazed somewhat indifferently at the branch. "Tansil," he
answered. "It grows on the islands--" He made a vague gesture to include
a good section of the western sea before he hurried away.
Weeks now went along the tide line on his own quest, Dane trailing him.
At the end of a quarter hour when a hail summoned them back to the site
of the now lighted fire, they had some ten pieces of the tansil wood
between them. The finds ranged from a three foot section some four
inches in diameter, to some slender twigs no larger than a writing
steelo--but all with high polish, the warm flame coloring. Weeks lashed
them together before he joined the group where Groft was outlining the
technique of gorp hunting for the benefit of the Terrans.
Some two hundred feet away a reef, often awash and stained with the
purple scum, angled out into the sea in a long curve which formed a
natural breakwater. This was the point of attack.
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