32
STARTLING STORIES
mans they were near. Since they could not hear human speech unaided, it was not en-tirely clear why—the suspicion was that whatever field the Krex emitted to register each other’s presence, humans put out some-thing similar that scrambled their radar. That this Krex was still facing away from them was unique enough to issue comment.
Tesh looked flustered. He pulled the hu-man-to-Krex translator rig from his ruck-sack and stormed over to the alien, saying:
“Oh Jesus, who knows. With this festival coming up they’re acting like birds during a damn eclipse.”
The H2K translator consisted of a speaker hooked into a long, clear plastic tube which terminated in a thick, hollow needle. Tesh punctured the indifferent Krex’s flesh with the needle, pressed a button on the sp
