To judge from the evidence, there was very little left on the planet but water. There wasn’t anything else in existence that was big enough or unusual enough.Ĭonan gave a little shake of his tawny head and slumped down on the platform, hugging his knees in sudden misery. Nothing else could cause such a stir among his friends. A whale? No, a school of whales, most likely. Something was out there, surely, but it was far beyond the islet and invisible from here. Conan watched until they were fading specks in the mist. The tern brushed his lean cheek with its pinions, wheeled high, and shot away in the direction of the eastern islet. What do you see, Tikki? he asked, as a slender-winged tern circled close, giving quick little twitterings as if trying to speak. Beyond them, and all around in the mist-haunted sea, nothing was visible, not even the horizon. A quick look around showed only emptiness, save for the two smaller islets of the group, dim in the distance on either side. He turned and ran up the steps to the highest point of his rocky islet, and climbed upon the stone platform he had built long ago. But the traps, he soon found, were empty-and still the gulls and terns wheeled about him, making a great racket. The birds always called him like this when fish had been caught. He crawled out eagerly and raced down to the narrow beach, sure that a school of fish had entered one of his tidal traps. THE SEABIRDS, CONAN’S ONLY FRIENDS, AROUSED HIM at dawn by screaming and dropping pebbles on his hut.
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