As she did so, she peered in the window, directly into the face of the Barzicon. Her eyes widened and her mouth opened slightly into a soft pleased smile. She walked forward to the front of the truck, and turned towards him. The sun flamed and sparkled through her sandy red hair framing her amazing face in clouds of fire. Her dark eyes reached through the windshield into his mind in soft waves of mist and sunbursts, and he knew. He knew!
She came to the driver’s window and he was as awed in her presence as he had been by her apparition in the sun. She smiled and said, “Hello, thank you for stopping. I knew you would be here this morning. I see you have the Barzicon.”
“You helped me…You…you caused me to have it?” he muttered shaking his head.
“Yes! Of course!” she smiled that soul-catching smile.
“But… Why?”
“Because… I have her!”
The Barzicon began a soft sound he had never heard before, but Harry-Wayne knew what it meant. He was chumfing. He was greeting a female! A Barzitrix! He turned to look at the agitated animal which was facing the woods on the passenger side of the truck. He stood quivering, with his crest erect and pulsing, both eye pairs were fixed on something moving in the trees. Then, the most amazing thing leaped from the woods; sprang across the small roadside ditch and into the sunlight in front of the truck.
She was huge; easily three times the size of the Barzicon! Her massive six legged body the same shade of brownish purple. But the crest! The crest was emerald green shot with tanzanite streaks and blotches. The front shoulders were broad and the retracted prey claspers bulged in their pouches. She was unbelievable, beautiful… a living, breathing terror!
She padded up to the girl’s side, her eyes nearly level with the window and looked up at him. She hepped and roumaled as the front eye pair stared at him, the eyes on the top of her head fixed on the girl. “Now, Beliciuscsne,” said the girl in mock disapproval “is that any way to greet a new friend? Isn’t she just full of herself, Harry-Wayne?”
“You know my name?” he gasped as he fought the desire to roll up the window between himself and the thing at her side.
“Of course!” she said laughing.
“But…?”
“You already know when you think about it correctly.”
“The meaning of the Barzicon’s sounds…?”
“Oh yes! and much more!”
“…and the names of things, the stories and…?”
“All of it!”
“But why, who are you? What…?”
“Ah…” she said.
She opened the door and motioned him to move over. He did so without thinking. She opened the rear half door, pushed the driver’s seat back against the wheel and before he could object, the giant beast had shouldered her bulk into the back seat. The Barzicon was crammed against the passenger side half door. The Barzitrix reached out a forepaw and pulled the cable from the Barzicon’s leg socket. “Yes!” breathed the girl, “Now he’s free!”
The Barzitrix turned her huge bulk around and eased into a reclining position, her head on the driver’s side. Her rump pressed against the Barzicon, her neck twisted so that her head lay across her back with her snout just inches from Harry-Wayne’s face.