The Namura Stone (The Ammonite Galaxy, book 6)

Chapter 7

All heads followed the direction of her eyes. It was at that point that Six noticed who they were staring at and put his hands up in protest. "Here! Don't look at me! What have I done?"

It was too late. Already Ledin had moved in a cat-like manner to take up a position at Diva's left-hand side, and Bennel was looking businesslike on her right. Six turned on his heel and tracked along the beach at a high speed, throwing up thin streams of sand as his feet dug into the yielding surface. The rest threw themselves after him, yowling in glee. Raven was running on her own, and Ledin was bounding along with Temar on his shoulders, taking care not to jog the little boy too much.

Much to Raven's delight, it was she who finally managed to catch up with the new mole. The quarry appeared to get surprisingly confused at one stage and run back almost in her direction. She chortled and pushed with all her might to get the victim to fall on the blanket, insisting repeatedly when he resisted.

"Wait for us!" Ledin came to a thundering halt with Temar, who was so excited that he was flapping his arms. He looked like a Xianthan turkey bird unsuccessfully attempting to take off. Ledin picked him off his shoulders, lowered him to the ground and pushed his son's small hands against the mole, who teetered under such immense pressure and tumbled obligingly right into the centre of the sackcloth which Raven had laid out, causing Temar to shriek out in delight.

The others had reached them by then, and many hands helped to roll the mole in his hole. Everybody sat on the bundle when its contents showed signs of trying to escape.

Six, underneath three Coriolans and one Kwaidian, rolled his eyes. He felt particularly hard-done-to; his captors seemed to have forgotten about leaving a tubeway of air free above his head.

His muffled complaints percolated the blanket slowly, and it took quite some time before Diva realized that there was actually some basis in fact for the indignant voice. Giggling herself, she began to unwrap the package, a move which resulted in them all taking hold of one side and pulling.

Six shot out of the other side of the blanket, rolling over and over down towards the lake until a large rock stopped his progress. The children were clapping their hands with glee as he got to his feet and rubbed his side rather ruefully.

"Last time I ever suggest a game," he said, treating his wife to a you-haven't-heard-the-last-of-this look.

Raven didn't agree. "More! More! More!" She was jumping up and down on the spot, leaving a small dent in the beach, but Six shook his head.

"Not today, Raven. It's time to get something to eat."

That was acceptable, too. With general good humour, everybody made their way back along the beach to the cover of the tall trees, where they deployed the battle-scarred blanket in its more usual guise as a makeshift table. Tallen and Bennel went back along the track through the woods to bring the food out, their conversation carrying to the others only as small fragments. They were discussing the relative merits of their respective canths, the 14-year-old hotly defending his piebald as greatly superior. Bennel's gruff voice could be heard differing from this opinion before the two Coriolans walked out of range into the trees.

Six and Diva both looked down at the two children, who had quickly lost interest in the preparations for lunch and found other things to keep themselves busy.

Raven was building a spaceship out of sand. So far, she had only managed to make an oval-shaped hump, but that didn't appear to deter her. She was concentrating fiercely and making what she imagined were spaceship-type noises as she patted the sides of the vessel into submission. Temar was sitting upright nearby, wriggling his feet in the soft grains that made up the beach, crimping his toes up and down ecstatically and smiling his gap-toothed smile. He was sporting two front teeth at the bottom and the two top front teeth were just starting to peer through his gums.