"They change color to match the surroundings. You find them always in tribes of nine: no one knows why."
"They probably can't count any higher," suggested Milo.
"It might well be," said Glawen.
"Their four-inch-thick hides are proof against most predators, who tire of chewing on them."
Milo asked: "What's going on over there, under that vamola tree?"
Glawen looked through the binoculars.
"It's a bull bardic ant and a big one. He's either sick, or dying, or just resting. The skid dits have found him, but can't decide what to do. They're taking counsel and now they're trying to get one of the pups to climb on top of the bardic ant The pup wisely runs away. Someone else tries. Aha! The tail skewers him and he's gone down the gullet. The other skid dits flee in all directions."
"Excuse me," said Julian.
"All this is vastly entertaining and speaks well for your training, certainly in the field of animal identification. But I am anxious to arrive at Mad Mountain Lodge, so that I can get my survey organized."
"Just as you like," said Glawen.
The flyer proceeded: over mountains and forests, lakes and wide rivers; majestic vistas unfolded, one after the other.
At noon the land rose to become a wide upland, dotted with small lakes. Far to the west a mountain range of twenty lofty peaks dwindled away to north and south.
Glawen pointed below, to wisps of smoke rising from beside a forest.
"There's a banjee camp now. The fires, incidentally, are neither for cooking nor for warmth, but to boil up the glue which they use to fabricate their helmets and armor."
"How far now to Mad Mountain?"
"You can see it ahead: that old volcano with the shattered peak. We're flying over the Plain of Moans. There's Lake Dimple, down to the right."
Five minutes later the flyer settled upon the landing pad to the side of the lodge. The four alighted and climbed a short flight of steps to| the terrace at the front of the lodge.
The four entered the lobby: a tall room with red, white and black rugs on the stone floor. Banjee artifacts were everywhere to be seen:
battle-axes arranged in a crescent pattern over the fireplace; a dozen weirdly beautiful helmets on a rack;
spheres and tablets of polished malachite, cinnabar, nephrite and milk opal, each about three inches in diameter, in a case at the registration desk. The clerk noticed Wayness' interest.
"Those are banjee magic stones. Don't ask me how to use them; I don't know."
"Are they for sale?"
"From a hundred sols for the cinnabar to five hundred for the nephrite to a thousand for the milk opal."
The four were assigned rooms; at the same time photographs were made of each.
The clerk explained: "The hall yonder leads to the dining room; it is also the gallery where we display pictures of guests who have been killed by the banjees. If you should be so unlucky, we prefer to hang the 'before' picture rather than the 'after' especially since the gallery is on the way to the dining room."
"Ridiculous!" said Julian.
"Shall we have lunch?"
"Give me time to wash my face," said Wayness.
The four met on the terrace, and went to stand by the balustrade which overlooked the Plain of Moans. Milo asked:
"Where is this notorious battlefield?"
"Just down there, almost below us," said Glawen.
"See those parallel mounds, or rows, running across the plain? They are detritus cast aside by banjee hordes over thousands and thousands of years. They mark the migration routes. One route goes east to west, another north to south, and they cross just below the lodge. When the hordes collide, they don't act like gentlemen, but hit each other with axes."
"For a fact, it does seem rather pointless," said Wayness.
"It's absurd and disgraceful, and it ought to be stopped," said Julian.
"An overpass should solve the problem nicely," said Milo.
"Although, I must say, the routes are remarkably wide."
"Easily a hundred yards across," said Glawen.
Julian stood frowning down at the battlefield. Wayness asked gently:
"Did you know that the routes were so wide?"
Julian gave his head a curt shake.
