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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Star Hunter, by Andre Alice Norton
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Star Hunter
+
+Author: Andre Alice Norton
+
+Release Date: August 21, 2006 [EBook #19090]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STAR HUNTER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Greg Weeks, Sankar Viswanathan, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                         Transcriber's Note:
+
+       Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the
+       copyright on this publication was renewed.
+
+
+
+                            [Illustration]
+
+
+                             STAR HUNTER
+
+
+                             ANDRE NORTON
+
+
+
+
+
+                           ACE BOOKS, INC.
+
+                     1120 Avenue of the Americas
+
+                         New York, N.Y. 10036
+
+
+
+                 Copyright, 1961, by Ace Books, Inc.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+STAR HUNTER
+
+I
+
+
+Nahuatl's larger moon pursued the smaller, greenish globe of its
+companion across a cloudless sky in which the stars made a speckled
+pattern like the scales of a huge serpent coiled around a black bowl.
+Ras Hume paused at the border of scented spike-flowers on the top
+terrace of the Pleasure House to wonder why he thought of serpents. He
+understood. Mankind's age-old hatred, brought from his native planet
+to the distant stars, was evil symbolized by a coil in a twisted,
+belly-path across the ground. And on Nahuatl, as well as a dozen other
+worlds, Wass was the serpent.
+
+A night wind was rising, stirring the exotic, half-dozen other worlds'
+foliage planted cunningly on the terrace to simulate the mystery of an
+off-world jungle.
+
+"Hume?" The inquiry seemed to come out of thin air over his head.
+
+"Hume," he repeated his own name calmly.
+
+A shaft of light brilliant enough to dazzle the eyes struck through
+the massed vegetation, revealing a path. Hume lingered for a moment,
+offering a counterstroke of indifference in what he had always known
+would be a test of wits. Wass was Veep of a shadowy empire, but that
+was apart from the world in which Ras Hume moved.
+
+He strode deliberately down the corridor illuminated between leaf and
+blossom walls. A grotesque lump of crystal leered at him from the
+heart of a tharsala lilly bed. The intricate carving of a devilish
+nonhuman set of features was a work of alien art. Tendrils of smoke
+curled from the thing's flat nostrils, and Hume sniffed the scent of a
+narcotic he recognized. He smiled. Such measures might soften up the
+usual civ Wass interviewed here. But a star pilot turned out-hunter
+was immunized against such mind clouding.
+
+There was a door, the lintel and posts of which had more carving, but
+this time Terran, Hume thought--old, very old. Perhaps rumor was
+right, Milfors Wass might be truly native Terran and not second,
+third, nor fourth generation star stock as most of those who reached
+Nahuatl were.
+
+The room beyond that elaborately carved entrance was, in contrast,
+severe. Rust walls were bare of any pattern save an oval disk of
+cloudy golden shimmer behind the chair at the long table of solid ruby
+rock from Nahuatl's poisonous sister planet of Xipe. Without a pause
+he walked to the chair and seated himself without invitation to wait
+in the empty room.
+
+That clouded oval might be a com device. Hume refused to look at it
+after his first glance. This interview was to be person to person. If
+Wass did not appear within a reasonable length of time he would leave.
+
+And Hume hoped to any unseen watcher he presented the appearance of a
+man not impressed by stage settings. After all he was now in the
+seller's space boots, and it was a seller's market.
+
+Ras Hume rested his right hand on the table. Against the polished glow
+of the stone, the substance of it was flesh-tanned brown--a perfect
+match for his left. And the subtle difference between true flesh and
+false was no hindrance in the use of those fingers or their strength.
+Save that it had pushed him out of command of a cargo-cum-liner and
+hurled him down from the pinnacle of a star pilot. There were bitter
+brackets about his mouth, set there by that hand as deeply as if
+carved with a knife.
+
+It had been four years--planet time--since he had lifted the Rigal
+Rover from the launch pad on Sargon Two. He had suspected it might be
+a tricky voyage with young Tors Wazalitz, who was a third owner of the
+Kogan-Bors-Wazalitz line, and a Gratz chewer. But one did not argue
+with the owners, except when the safety of the ship was concerned. The
+Rigal Rover had made a crash landing at Alexbut, and a badly injured
+pilot had brought her in by will, hope and a faith he speedily lost.
+
+He received a plasta-hand, the best the medical center could supply
+and a pension for life, forced by the public acclaim for a man who had
+saved ships and lives. Then--the sack because a crazed Tors Wazalitz
+was dead. They dared not try to stick Hume with a murder charge; the
+voyage record tapes had been shot straight through to the Patrol
+Council, and the evidence on those could be neither faked nor tampered
+with. They could not give him a quick punishment, but they could try
+to arrange a slow death. The word had gone out that Hume was off pilot
+boards. They had tried to keep him out of space.
+
+And they might have done it, too, had he been the usual type of pilot,
+knowing only his trade. But some odd streak of restlessness had always
+led him to apply for the rim runs, the very first flights to newly
+opened worlds. Outside of the survey men, there were few qualified
+pilots of his seniority who possessed such a wide and varied knowledge
+of the galactic frontiers.
+
+So when he learned that the ships' boards were irrevocably closed to
+him, Hume had signed up with the Out-Hunters' Guild. There was a vast
+difference between lifting a liner from a launching pad and guiding
+civ hunters to worlds surveyed and staked out for their trips into the
+wild. Hume relished the exploration part--he disliked the
+leading-by-the-hand of nine-tenths of the Guild's clients.
+
+But if he had not been in the Guild service he would never have made
+that find on Jumala. That lucky, lucky find! Hume's plasta-flesh
+fingers curved, their nails drew across the red surface of the table.
+And where was Wass? He was about to rise and go when the golden oval
+on the wall smoked, its substance thinning to a mist as a man stepped
+through to the floor.
+
+The newcomer was small compared to the former pilot, but he had
+breadth of shoulder which made the upper part of his torso overbalance
+his thin hips and legs. He was dressed most conservatively except for
+a jeweled plaque resting on the tightly stretched gray silk of his
+upper tunic at heart level. Unlike Hume he wore no visible arms belt,
+but the other did not doubt that there were a number of devices
+concealed in that room to counter the efforts of any assassin.
+
+The man from the mirror spoke with a flat, toneless voice. His black
+hair had been shaven well above his ears, the locks left on top of his
+skull trained into a kind of bird's crest. As Hume, his visible areas
+of flesh were deeply browned, but by nature rather than exposure to
+space, the pilot guessed. His features were harsh, with a prominent
+nose, a back-slanting forehead, eyes dark, long and large, with heavy
+lids.
+
+"Now--" He spread both his hands, palm down and flat on the table, a
+gesture Hume found himself for some unknown reason copying. "You have
+a proposition?"
+
+But the pilot was not to be hurried, any more than he was to be
+influenced by Wass' stage-settings.
+
+"I have an idea," he corrected.
+
+"There are many ideas." Wass leaned back in his chair, but he did not
+remove his hands from the table. "Perhaps one in a thousand is the
+kernel of something useful. For the rest, there is no need to trouble
+a man."
+
+"Agreed," Hume returned evenly. "But that one idea in a thousand can
+also pay off in odds of a million to one, when and if a man has it."
+
+"And you have such a one?"
+
+"I have such a one." It was Hume's role now to impress the other by
+his unshakable confidence. He had studied all the possibilities. Wass
+was the right man, perhaps the only partner he could find. But Wass
+must not know that.
+
+"On Jumala?" Wass returned.
+
+If that stare and statement was intended to rattle Hume it was a
+wasted shot. To discover that he had just returned from that frontier
+planet required no ingenuity on the Veep's part.
+
+"Perhaps."
+
+"Come, Out-Hunter Hume. We are both busy men, this is no time to play
+tricks with words and hints. Either you have made a find worth the
+attention of my organization or you have not. Let me be the judge."
+
+This was it--the corner of no return. But Wass had his own code. The
+Veep had established his tight control of his lawless organization by
+set rules, and one of them was, don't be greedy. Wass was never
+greedy, which is why the patrol had never been able to pull him down,
+and those who dealt with him did not talk. If you had a good thing,
+and Wass accepted temporary partnership, he kept his side of the
+bargain rigidly. You did the same--or regretted your stupidity.
+
+"A claimant to the Kogan estate--that good enough for you?"
+
+Wass showed no surprise. "And how would such a claimant be profitable
+to us?"
+
+Hume appreciated that "us"; he had an in now. "If you supply the
+claimant, surely you can claim a reward, in more ways than one."
+
+"True. But one does not produce a claimant out of a Krusha dream. The
+investigation for any such claim now would be made by a verity lab and
+no imposture will pass those tests. While a real claimant would not
+need your help or mine."
+
+"Depends upon the claimant."
+
+"One you discovered on Jumala?"
+
+"No." Hume shook his head slowly. "I found something else on
+Jumala--an L-B from Largo Drift intact and in good shape. From the
+evidence now in existence it could have landed there with survivors
+aboard."
+
+"And the evidence of such survivors living on--that exists also?"
+
+Hume shrugged, his plasta-flesh fingers flexed slightly. "It has been
+six planet years, there is a forest where the L-B rests. No, no
+evidence at present."
+
+"The Largo Drift," Wass repeated slowly, "carrying, among others,
+Gentlefem Tharlee Kogan Brodie."
+
+"And her son Rynch Brodie, who was at the time of the Largo Drift's
+disappearance a boy of fourteen."
+
+"You have indeed made a find." Wass gave that simple statement enough
+emphasis to assure Hume he had won. His one-in-a-thousand idea had
+been absorbed, was now being examined, amplified, broken down into
+details he could never have hoped to manage for himself, by the most
+cunning criminal brain in at least five solar systems.
+
+"Is there any hope of survivors?" Wass attacked the problem straight
+on.
+
+"No evidence even of there being any passengers when the L-B planeted.
+Those are automatic and released a certain number of seconds after an
+accident alarm. For what it's worth the hatch of this one was open. It
+could have brought in survivors. But I was on Jumala for three months
+with a full Guild crew and we found no sign of any castaways."
+
+"So you propose--?"
+
+"On the basis of my report Jumala has been put up for a safari choice.
+The L-B could well be innocently discovered by a client. Every one
+knows the story with the case dragging through the Ten Sector-Terran
+Courts now. Gentlefem Brodie and her son might not have been news ten
+years ago. Now, with a third of the Kogan-Bors-Wazalitz control going
+to them, any find linked with the Largo Drift would gain full galactic
+coverage."
+
+"You have a choice of survivor? The Gentlefem?"
+
+Hume shook his head. "The boy. He was bright, according to the stories
+since, and he would have the survival manual from the ship to study.
+He could have grown up in the wilds of an unopened planet. To use a
+woman is too tricky."
+
+"You are entirely right. But we shall require an extremely clever
+imposter."
+
+"I think not." Hume's cool glance met Wass'. "We only need a youth of
+the proper general physical description and the use of a conditioner."
+
+Wass' expression did not change, there was no sign that Hume's hint
+had struck home. But when he replied there was a slight change in the
+monotone of his voice.
+
+"You seem to know a great deal."
+
+"I am a man who listens," Hume replied, "and I do not always discount
+rumor as mere fantasy."
+
+"That is true. As one of the guild you would be interested in the root
+of fact beneath the plant of fiction," Wass acknowledged. "You appear
+to have done some planning on your own."
+
+"I have waited and watched for just such an opportunity as this," Hume
+answered.
+
+"Ah, yes. The Kogan-Bors-Wazalitz combine incurred your displeasure. I
+see you are also a man who does not forget easily. And that, too, I
+understand. It is a foible of my own, Out-Hunter. I neither forget
+nor forgive my enemies, though I may seem to do so and time separates
+them from their past deeds for a space."
+
+Hume accepted that warning--both must keep any bargain. Wass was
+silent for a moment, as if to leave time for the thought to root
+itself, then he spoke again.
+
+"A youth with the proper physical qualifications. Have you any such in
+mind?"
+
+"I think so." Hume was short.
+
+"He will need certain memories; those take time to tape."
+
+"Those dealing with Jumala, I can supply."
+
+"Yes. You will have to provide a tape beginning with his arrival on
+that world. For such family material as is necessary I shall have
+ready. An interesting project, even apart from its value to us. This
+is one to intrigue experts."
+
+Expert psycho-techs--Wass had them. Men who had slipped over the
+border of the law, had entered Wass' organization and prospered there.
+There were some techs crooked enough to enjoy such a project for its
+own sake, indulging in forbidden experimentation. For a moment, but
+only for a moment, something in Hume jibbed at the intent of carrying
+through his plan. Then he shrugged that tinge aside.
+
+"How soon do you wish to move?"
+
+"How long will preparation take?" Hume asked in return, for the second
+time battling a taste of concern.
+
+"Three months, maybe four. There's research to be done and tapes to be
+made."
+
+"It will be six months probably before the Guild sets up a safari for
+Jumala."
+
+Wass smiled. "That need not worry us. When the time comes for a
+safari, there shall also be clients, impeccable clients, asking for it
+to be planned."
+
+There would be, too, Hume knew. Wass' influence reached into places
+where the Veep himself was totally unknown. Yes, he could count on an
+excellent, well above suspicion, set of clients to discover Rynch
+Brodie when the time came.
+
+"I can deliver the boy tonight, or early tomorrow morning. Where?"
+
+"You are sure of your selection?"
+
+"He fulfills the requirements, the right age, general appearance. A
+boy who will not be missed, who has no kin, no ties, and who will
+drop out of sight without any questions to be asked."
+
+"Very well. Get him at once. Deliver him here."
+
+Wass swept one hand across the table surface. On the red of the stone
+there glowed for seconds an address. Hume noted it, nodded. It was one
+in the center of the port town, one which could be visited at an odd
+hour without exciting any curiosity. He rose.
+
+"He will be there."
+
+"Tomorrow, at your convenience," Wass added, "you will come to this
+place." Again the palm moved and a second address showed on the table.
+
+"There you will begin your tape for our use. It may take several
+sessions."
+
+"I'm ready. I still have the long report to make to the Guild, so the
+material is still available on my note tapes."
+
+"Excellent. Out-Hunter Hume, I salute a new colleague." At last Wass'
+right hand came up from the table. "May we both have luck equal to our
+industry."
+
+"Luck to equal our desires," Hume corrected him.
+
+"A very telling phrase, Out-Hunter. Luck to equal our desires. Yes,
+let us both deserve that."
+
+
+
+
+2
+
+
+The Starfall was a long way down scale from the pleasure houses of the
+upper town. Here strange vices were also merchandise, but not such
+exotics as Wass provided. This was strictly for crewmen of the star
+freighters who could be speedily and expertly separated from a
+voyage's pay in an evening. The tantalizing scents of Wass' terraces
+were reduced here to simply smells, the majority of which were not
+fragrant.
+
+There had already been two fatal duels that evening. A tubeman from a
+rim ship had challenged a space miner to settle a difference with
+those vicious whips made from the tail casings of Flangoid flying
+lizards, an encounter which left both men in ribbons, one dead, one
+dying. And a scarred, ex-space marine had blaster-flamed one of the
+Star-and-Comet dealers into charred human ash.
+
+The young man who had been ordered to help clear away the second loser
+retired to the stinking alley outside to lose the meal which was part
+of his meager day's pay. Now he crawled back inside, his face
+greenish, one hand pressed to his middle section.
+
+He was thin, the fine bones of his face tight under the pallid skin,
+his ribs showing even through the sleazy fabric of the threadbare
+tunic with its house seal. When he leaned his head back against the
+grime encrusted wall, raising his face to the light, his hair had the
+glint of bright chestnut, a gold which was also red. And for his
+swamper's labor he was almost fastidiously clean.
+
+"You--Lansor!"
+
+He shivered as if an icy wind had found him and opened his eyes. They
+seemed disproportionately large in his skin and bone face and were of
+an odd shade, neither green nor blue, but somewhere between.
+
+"Get going, you! Ain't paying out good credits for you to sit there
+like you was buying on your own!" The Salarkian who loomed above him
+spoke accentless, idiomatic Basic Space which came strangely from
+between his yellow lips. A furred hand thrust the handle of a mop-up
+stick at the young man, a taloned thumb jerked the direction in which
+to use that evil-smelling object. Vye Lansor levered himself up the
+wall, took the mop, setting his teeth grimly.
+
+Someone had spilled a mug of Kardo and the deep purple liquid was
+already patterning the con-stone floor past any hope of cleaning. But
+he set to work slapping the fringe of the noisome mop back and forth
+to sop up what he could. The smell of the Kardo uniting with the
+general effluvia of the room and its inhabitants heightened his
+queasiness.
+
+Working blindly in a half stupor, he was not aware of the man sitting
+alone in the booth until his mop spattered the ankle of one of the
+drinking girls. She struck him sharply across the face with a
+sputtering curse in the tongue of Altar-Ishtar.
+
+The blow sent him back against the open lattice of the booth. As he
+tried to steady himself another hand reached up, fingers tightened
+about his wrist. He flinched, tried to jerk away from that hold, only
+to discover that he was the other's prisoner.
+
+And looking down at his captor in apprehension, he was aware even then
+of the different quality of this man. The patron wore the tunic of a
+crewman, lighter patches where the ship's badges should have been to
+show that he was not engaged. But, though his tunic was shabby, dirty,
+his magnetic boots scuffed and badly worn, he was not like the others
+now enjoying the pleasures of the Starfall.
+
+"This one--he makes trouble?" The vast bulk of the Vorm-man who was
+the Starfall's private law moved through the crowd with serene
+confidence in his own strength, which no one there, unless blind,
+deaf, and out-of-the-senses drunk, could dispute. His scaled,
+six-fingered, claw hand reached out for Lansor and the boy cringed.
+
+"No trouble!" There was the click of authority in the voice of the man
+in the booth. His face, moments earlier taut and sharp with
+intelligence, was suddenly slack, his tone slurred as he answered:
+"Looks like an old shipmate. No trouble, just want a drink with an old
+shipmate."
+
+But the grip which had pulled Vye forward, swung him around and down
+on the other bench in the booth, was anything but slack. The Vorm-man
+glanced from the patron of the Starfall to its least important
+employee and then grinned, thrusting his fanged jaws close to
+Lansor's.
+
+"If the master wants to drink, you dirt-rat, you drink!"
+
+Vye nodded vigorously, and then put his hand to his mouth, afraid his
+stomach was about to betray him again. Apprehensive, he watched the
+Vorm-man turn away. Only when that broad, green-gray back was lost in
+the smoky far reaches of the room did he expel his breath again.
+
+"Here--" The grip was gone from his wrist, but fingers now put a mug
+into his hand. "Drink!"
+
+He tried to protest, knew it was hopeless, and used both hands to get
+the mug to his lips, mouthing the stinging liquid in dull despair.
+Only, instead of bringing nausea with it, the stuff settled his
+stomach, cleared his head, with an after glow with which he managed
+to relax from the tense state of endurance which filled his hours in
+the Starfall.
+
+Half of the mug's contents inside him and he dared to raise his eyes
+to the man opposite him. Yes, this was no common crewman, nor was he
+drunk as he had pretended for the Vorm-man. Now he watched the milling
+crowd with a kind of detachment, though Vye was sure he was aware of
+every move he himself made.
+
+Vye finished the liquid. For the first time since he had come into
+this place two months earlier he felt like a real person again. And he
+had wits enough to guess that the potion he had just swallowed
+contained some drug. Only now he did not care at all. Anything which
+could wipe out in moments all the shame, fear, and sick despair the
+Starfall had planted in him was worth swallowing. Why the other had
+drugged him was a mystery, but he was content to wait for
+enlightenment.
+
+Lansor's companion once more applied that compelling pressure to the
+younger man's bony forearm. Linked by that hold they left the
+Starfall, came into the cooler, far more pleasant atmosphere of the
+street. They were a block away before Vye's guide halted, though he
+did not release his prisoner.
+
+"Forty names of Dugor!" he spat.
+
+Lansor waited, breathing in the air of early morning. The confidence
+of the drug still held. At the moment he was certain nothing could be
+as bad as the life behind him, he was willing to face what this
+strange patron of the Starfall had in mind.
+
+The other slapped his hand down on an air-car call button, stood
+waiting until one of the city flitters landed on beam before them.
+
+From the seat of the air-car Vye noted they were heading into the
+respectability of the upper city, away from the stews ringing the
+launch port. He tried to guess their destination or purpose, not that
+either mattered much. Then the car descended on a landing stage.
+
+The stranger waved Lansor through a doorway, down a short corridor
+into a room of private quarters. Vye sat down gingerly on the foam
+seat extending from the wall as he neared. He stared about. Dimly he
+could just remember rooms which had this degree of comfort, but so
+dimly now he could not be sure they did not exist only in his vivid
+imagination. For Vye's imagination had buoyed him first through the
+drab existence in a State Child's Crèche, then through a state-found
+job which he had lost because he could not adapt to the mechanical
+life of a computer tender, and had been an anchor and an escape when
+he had sunk through the depths of the port to the last refuge in the
+Starfall.
+
+Now he pressed both his hands into the soft stuff of the seat and
+gaped at a small tri-dee on the wall facing him, a miniature scene of
+life on some other planet wherein a creature enveloped in short black
+and white striped fur crept belly flat, to stalk long-legged,
+short-winged birds making blood-red splotches against yellow reed
+banks under a pale violet sky. He feasted on its color, on the sense
+of freedom and off-world wonders which it raised in him.
+
+"Who are you?"
+
+The stranger's abrupt question brought him back, not only to the room
+but to his own precarious position. He moistened his lips, no longer
+quite so aglow with confidence.
+
+"Vye--Vye Lansor." Then he added his other identification, "S. C. C.
+425061."
+
+"State child, eh?" The other had pushed a button for a refresher cup,
+then was sipping its contents slowly. He did not ring for a second to
+offer Vye. "Parents?"
+
+Lansor shook his head. "I was brought in after the Five-Hour Fever
+epidemic. They didn't try to keep records, there were too many of us."
+
+The man was watching him levelly over the rim of that cup. There was
+something cold in that study, something which curbed Vye's pleasant
+feeling of only moments earlier. Now the other set down his drink,
+crossed the room. Cupping his hand under Lansor's chin, he brought up
+his head in a way which stirred a sullen resentment in the younger
+man, yet something told him resistance would only bring trouble.
+
+"I'd say Terran stock--not more than second generation." He was
+talking to himself more than to Vye. He loosed his hold on the boy's
+chin, but he still stood there surveying him from head to foot. Lansor
+wanted to squirm, but he fought that impulse, and managed to meet the
+other's gaze when it reached his face again.
+
+"No--not the usual port-drift. I was right all the way." Now he
+looked at Vye again as if the younger man did have a brain, emotions,
+some call on his interest as a personality. "Want a job?"
+
+Lansor pressed his hand deeper into the foam seat. "What--what kind?"
+He was angry and ashamed at that small betraying break in his voice.
+
+"You have scruples?" The stranger appeared to think that amusing. Vye
+reddened, but he was also more than a little surprised that the man in
+the worn space uniform had read hesitancy right. Someone out of the
+Starfall should not be too particular about employment, and he could
+not tell why he was.
+
+"Nothing illegal, I assure you." The man crossed to set his refresher
+cup in the empty slot. "I am an Out-Hunter."
+
+Lansor blinked. This had all taken on some of the fantastic aura of a
+dream. The other was eyeing him impatiently, as if he had expected
+some reaction.
+
+"You may inspect my credentials if you wish."
+
+"I believe you," Vye found his voice.
+
+"I happen to need a gearman."
+
+But this wasn't happening! Of course, it couldn't happen to him, Vye
+Lansor, state child, swamper in the Starfall. Things such as this did
+not happen, except in a thaline dream, and he wasn't a smoke eater! It
+was the kind of dream a man didn't want to wake from, not if he was
+port-drift.
+
+"Would you be willing to sign on?"
+
+Vye tried to clutch reality to himself, to remain level-headed. A
+gearman for an Out-Hunter! Why five men out of six would pay a large
+premium for a chance at such rating. The chill of doubt cut through
+the first hazy rosiness. A swamper from a port-side dive simply did
+not become a gearman for a Guild Hunter.
+
+Again it was as if the stranger read his thoughts. "Look here," he
+spoke abruptly. "I had a bad time myself, years ago. You resemble
+someone to whom I owe a debt. I can't repay him, but I can make the
+scales a little even this way."
+
+"Make the scales even." Vye's fading hope brightened. Then the
+Out-Hunter was a follower of the Fata Rite. That would explain
+everything. If you could not repay a good deed to the one you owed,
+you must balance the Eternal Scales in another fashion. He relaxed
+again, a great many of his unasked questions so answered.
+
+"You will accept?"
+
+Vye nodded eagerly. "Yes, Out-Hunter." He still could not believe that
+this was happening.
+
+The other pressed the refresher button, and this time he handed Lansor
+the brimming cup. "Drink on the bargain." His words had the ring of
+command.
+
+Lansor drank, gulping down the contents of the cup, and suddenly was
+aware of being tired. He leaned back against the wall, his eyes
+closed.
+
+Ras Hume took the cup from the lax fingers of the young man. So far,
+very good. Chance appeared to be playing on his side of the board. It
+had been chance which had steered him into the Starfall just three
+nights ago when he had been in quest of his imposter. And Vye Lansor
+was better than he dared hope to find. The boy had the right coloring,
+he had been batted around enough to fall for the initial story, he was
+malleable now. And after Wass' techs worked on him he would be Rynch
+Brodie--heir to one-third of Kogan-Bors-Wazalitz!
+
+"Come!" He touched Vye on the shoulder. The boy opened his eyes but
+his gaze did not focus as he got slowly to his feet. Hume glanced at
+his planet-time watch. It was still very early; the chance he must run
+in getting Lansor out of this building was small if they went at once.
+Guiding the younger man with a light hold above the elbow, he walked
+him out back to the flitter landing stage. The air-car was waiting.
+Hume's sense of being a gambler facing a run of good luck grew as he
+shepherded the boy into the flitter, punched a cover destination and
+took off.
+
+On another street he transferred himself and his charge into a second
+air-car, set the destination to within a block of the address Wass had
+given him. Not much later he walked Vye into a small lobby with a
+discreet list of names posted in its rack. No occupations attached to
+those colored streamers Hume noted. This meant either that their
+owners represented luxury trades, where a name signified the
+profession or service, or that they were covers--perhaps both. Wass'
+world fringed many different circles, intermingled with some quite
+surprising professions dedicated to the comfort, pleasure or health of
+the idle rich, off-world nobility, and the criminal elite.
+
+Hume fingered the right call button, knowing that the thumb pattern
+he had left on Wass' conference table would have already been relayed
+as his symbol of admission here. A flicker of light winked below the
+name, the wall to the right shimmered, and produced a doorway.
+Steering Vye to it, Hume nodded to the man waiting there. He was a
+flat-faced Eucorian of the servant caste, and now he reached out to
+draw Lansor over the threshold.
+
+"I have him, gentlehomo." His voice was as expressionless as his face.
+There was another shimmer and the door disappeared.
+
+Hume brushed his hand down the outer side of his thigh, wiping flesh
+against the coarse stuff of the crew uniform. He left the lobby
+frowning at his own thoughts.
+
+Stupid! A swamper from one of the worst rat holes in the port. Like as
+not that youngster would have had his brains kicked out in a brawl, or
+been fried to a crisp when some drunk got wild with a blaster, before
+the year was out. He'd done him a real kindness, given him a chance at
+a future less than one man in a billion ever had the power to even
+dream about. Why, if Vye Lansor had known what was going to happen to
+him, he would have been so willing to volunteer, that he would have
+dragged Hume here. There was no reason to have any regrets over the
+boy, he had never had it so good--never! There was only one small
+period of risk for Vye to face. Those days he would have to spend
+alone on Jumala between the time Wass' organization would plant him
+there and the coming of Hume's party to "discover" him. Hume himself
+would tape every possible aid to cover that period. All the knowledge
+of a Guild Out-Hunter, added to the information gathered by the
+survey, would be used to provide Rynch Brodie with the training
+necessary for wilderness survival. Hume was already listing the items
+to be included as he strode down the street, his tread once more
+assured.
+
+
+
+
+3
+
+
+His head ached dully, of that he was conscious first. As he turned,
+without opening his eyes, he felt the brush of softness against his
+cheek, and a pungent odor fill his nostrils.
+
+He opened his eyes, stared up past a rim of broken rock toward the
+cloudless, blue-green sky. A relay clicked into proper place deep in
+his mind.
+
+Of course! He had been trying to lure a strong-jaws out of its
+traphole with hooked bait, then his foot had slipped. Rynch Brodie sat
+up, flexed his bare thin arms, and moved his long legs experimentally.
+No broken bones, anyway. But still he frowned. Odd--that dream which
+jarred with the here and now.
+
+Crawling to the side of the creek, he dipped head and shoulders into
+the water, letting the chill of the stream flush away some of his
+waking bewilderment. He shook himself, making the drops fly from his
+uncovered torso and arms, and then discovered his hunting tackle.
+
+He stood for a moment fingering each piece of his scanty clothing,
+recalling every piece of labor or battle which had added pouch, belt,
+strip of fabric to his equipment. Yet--there was still that odd sense
+of strangeness, as if none of this was really his.
+
+Rynch shook his head, wiped his wet face with his arm. It was all his,
+that was sure, every bit of it. He'd been lucky, the survival manual
+on the L-B had furnished him with general directions and this was a
+world which was not unfriendly--not if one was prepared for trouble.
+
+He climbed up and loosened the net, coiling its folds into one hand,
+taking the good spear in his other. A bush stirred ahead, against the
+pull of the light breeze. Rynch froze, then the haft of his spear slid
+into a new hand grip, the coils of his net spun out. A snarl cut over
+the purr of water.
+
+The scarlet blot which sprang for his throat was met with the flail of
+the net. Rynch stabbed twice at the creature he had so swept off
+balance. A water-cat, this year's cub. Dying, its claws, over-long in
+proportion to its paws, drew inch deep furrows in the earth and
+gravel. Its eyes, almost the same shade as its long, burr-entangled
+body fur, glared up at him in deathly enmity.
+
+As Rynch watched, that feeling that he was studying something strange,
+utterly alien, came to him once again. Yet he had hunted water-cats
+for many seasons. Fortunately they were solitary, evil-tempered beasts
+that marked out a roaming territory to defend it from others of their
+kind, and not too many were to be encountered in cross-country travel.
+
+He stooped to pull his net from the now still paws. Some definite
+place he must reach. The compulsion to move on in that sudden flash
+shook him, raised the dull ache still troubling his temples into a
+punishing throb. Going down on his knees, Rynch once more turned to
+the stream water; this time after splashing it onto his face, he drank
+from his cupped hands.
+
+Rynch swayed, his wet hands over his eyes, digging fingertips into the
+skin of his forehead to ease that pain bursting in his skull. Sitting
+in a room, drinking from a cup--it was as if a shadow picture fitted
+over the reality of the stream, rocks and brush about him. He had sat
+in a room, had drank from a cup--that action had been important!
+
+A sharp, hot pain made him lose contact with that shadow. He looked
+down. From the gravel, from under rocks, gathered an army of
+blue-black, hard-shelled things, their clawed forelimbs extended, blue
+sense organs raised on fleshy stalks well above their heads, all
+turned towards the dead feline.
+
+Rynch slapped out vigorously, stumbled into the water loosening the
+hold of two vicious scavengers on the torn skin of his ankle when he
+waded out knee-deep. Already that black tongue of small bodies licked
+across the red-haired side of the hunter. Within minutes the corpse
+would be only well-cleaned bones.
+
+Retrieving his spear and net, Rynch immersed both in the water to
+clean off attackers, and hurried on, splashing through the creek until
+he was well away from the vicinity of the kill. A little later he
+flushed a four-footed creature from between two rocks and killed it
+with one blow from his spear haft. He skinned his kill, feeling the
+substance of the skill. Was it exceedingly rough hide, or rudimentary
+scales? And knew a return of that puzzlement.
+
+He felt, he thought painfully as he toasted the dry looking, grayish
+meat on a sharpened stick, as if a part of him knew very well what
+manner of animal he had killed. And yet, far inside him, another
+person he could not understand stood aloof watching in amazement.
+
+He was Rynch Brodie, and he had been traveling on the Largo Drift with
+his mother.
+
+Memory presented him automatically with a picture of a thin woman with
+a narrow, rather unhappy face, a twist of elaborately dressed hair in
+which jeweled lights sparkled. There had been something bad--memory
+was no longer exact but chaotic. And his head ached as he tried to
+recall that time with greater clarity. Afterwards the L-B and a man
+with him in it--
+
+"Simmons Tait!"
+
+An officer, badly hurt. He had died when the L-B landed here. Rynch
+had a clear memory of himself piling rocks over Tait's twisted body.
+He had been alone then with only the survival manual and some of the
+L-B supplies. The important thing was that he must never forget he was
+Rynch Brodie.
+
+He licked grease from his fingers. The ache in his head made him
+drowsy. He curled up on a patch of sun-warmed sand and slept.
+
+Or did he? His eyes were open again. Now the sky above him was no
+longer a bowl of light, but rather a muted halo of evening. Rynch sat
+up, his heart pounding as if he had been racing to outdistance the
+rising wind now pushing against his half-naked body.
+
+What was he doing here? Where _was_ here?
+
+Panic, carried through from that awakening, dried his mouth, roughened
+his skin, made wet the palms of the hands he dug into the sand on
+either side of him. Vaguely, a picture projected into his mind--he had
+sat in a room, and watched a man come to him with a cup. Before that,
+he had been in a place of garish light and evil smells.
+
+But he was Rynch Brodie, he had come here on an L-B when he was a boy,
+he had buried the ship's officer under a pile of rocks, managed to
+survive by himself because he had applied the aids in the boat to
+learn how. This morning he had been hunting a strong-jaw, tempting it
+out of its hiding by a hook and line and a bait of fresh killed
+skipper.
+
+Rynch's hands went to his face, he crouched forward on his knees. That
+all was true, he could prove it--he would prove it! There was the
+strong-jaw's den back there, somewhere on the rise where he had left
+the snapped haft of the spear he had broken in his fall. If he could
+find the den, then he would be sure of the reality of everything else.
+
+He had only had a very real dream--that was it! Only, why did he
+continue to dream of that room, that man, and the cup? Of the place of
+lights and smells, which he hated so much that the hate was a sour
+taste in his fright-dried mouth? None of it had ever been a part of
+Rynch Brodie's world.
+
+Through the dusk he started back up the stream bed, towards the narrow
+little valley where he had wakened after that fall. Finally, finding
+shelter within the heart of a bush, he crouched low, listening to the
+noises of another world which awoke at night to take over the stage
+from the day dwellers.
+
+As he plodded back, he fought off panic, realizing that some of those
+noises he could identify with confidence, while others remained
+mysteries. He bit down hard on the knuckles of his clenched fist,
+attempting to bend that discovery into evidence. Why did he know at
+once that that thin, eerie wailing was the flock call of a
+leather-winged, feathered tree dweller, and that a coughing grunt from
+downstream was just a noise?
+
+"Rynch Brodie--Largo Drift--Tait." He tasted the blood his teeth drew
+from his own skin as he recited that formula. Then he scrambled up.
+His feet tangled in the net, and he went down again, his head cracking
+on a protruding root.
+
+Nothing tangible reached him in that brush shelter. What did venture
+out of hiding to investigate was a substance none of his species could
+have named. It was neither body, nor mind--perhaps it was closest to
+alien emotion.
+
+Making contact stealthily, but with confidence, it explored after its
+own fashion. Then, puzzled, it withdrew to report. And since that to
+which it reported was governed by a set pattern which had not been
+altered for eons, its only answer was a basic command reaffirmed.
+Again it made contact, strove to carry out that order fruitlessly.
+Where it should have found easy passage, a clear channel to carry
+influence to the sleeper's brain, it found a jumble of impressions,
+interwoven until they made a protective barrier.
+
+The invader strove to find some pattern, or meaning--withdrew baffled.
+But its invasion, as ghostly as that had been, loosened a knot here,
+cleared a passage there.
+
+Rynch awoke at dawn, slowly, dazedly, sorting out sounds, smells,
+thoughts. There was a room, a man, trouble and fear, then there was
+he, Rynch Brodie, who had lived in this wilderness on an unmapped
+frontier world for the passage of many seasons. That world was about
+him now, he could feel its winds, hear its sounds, taste, smell. It
+was not a dream--the other was the dream. It had to be!
+
+Prove it. Find the L-B, retrace the trail of yesterday past the point
+of the fall which had started all this. Right there was the slope down
+which he must have tumbled. Above, he would find the den he had been
+exploring when the accident had occurred.
+
+Only--he did not find it. His mind had produced a detailed picture of
+that rounded depression, at the bottom of which the strong-jaw lurked.
+But when he reached the crown of the bluff, nowhere did he sight the
+mounded earth of the pit's rim. He searched carefully for a good
+length, both north and south. No den--no trace of one. Yet his memory
+told him that there had been one here yesterday.
+
+Had he fallen elsewhere and stumbled on, dazed, to fall a second time?
+
+Some disputant inside him said no to that. This was where he had
+regained consciousness yesterday and there was no den!
+
+He faced away from the river, breathing fast. No den--was there also
+no L-B? If he had passed this way dazed from a former fall, surely he
+would have left some trace.
+
+There was a crushed, browned plant flattened by weight. He stooped to
+finger the wilted leaves. Something had come in this direction. He
+would back-track. Rynch gave a hunter's attention to the ground.
+
+A half-hour later he found nothing but some odd, almost obliterated
+marks on grass too resilient to hold traces very long. And from them
+he could make nothing.
+
+He knew where he was, even if he did not know how he got here. The
+L-B--if it did exist--was to the west. He had a vivid mental picture
+of the rocket shape, its once silvery sides dulled by exposure, canted
+crookedly amid trees. And he was going to find it!
+
+Beyond the edge of any conscious sense there was a new stir. He was
+contacted again, tested. A forest called delicately in its alien way.
+Rynch had a fleeting thought of trees, was not aware of more than a
+mild desire to see what lay in their shade.
+
+For the present his own problem held him. That which beckoned was
+defeated, repulsed by his indifference. While Rynch started at a
+steady distance to trot towards the east, far away a process akin to a
+relay clicked into a second set of impulse orders.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Well above the planet Hume spun a dial to bring in the image of the
+wide stretches of continents, the small patches of seas. They would
+set down on the western land mass. Its climate, geographical features
+and surface provided the best site. And he had the very important
+co-ordinates for their camp already taped in the directo.
+
+"That's Jumala."
+
+He did not glance around to see what effect that screen view had on
+the other four men in the control cabin of the safari ship. Just now
+he was striving to master his impatience. The slightest hint could
+give birth to a suspicion which would blast their whole scheme. Wass
+might have had a hand in the selection of the three clients, but they
+would certainly be far from briefed on the truth of any discovery made
+on Jumala--they had to be for the safety of the whole enterprise.
+
+The fourth man, serving as his gearman for this trip, was Wass' own
+insurance against any wrong move on Hume's part. And the Out-Hunter
+respected him as being man enough to be wary of giving any suspicion
+of going counter to the agreed plan.
+
+Dawn was touching up the main points of the western continent, and he
+must set this spacer down within a day's journey of the abandoned L-B.
+Exploration in that direction would be the first logical move for his
+party. They could not be openly steered to the find, but there were
+ways of directing a hunt which would do as well.
+
+Two days ago, according to schedule, their castaway had been deposited
+here with a sub-conscious command to remain in the general area. There
+had been a slight element of risk in leaving him alone, armed only
+with the crude weapons he could manipulate, but that was part of the
+gamble.
+
+They were down--right on the mark. Hume saw to the unpacking and
+activating of those machines and appliances which would protect and
+serve his civ clients. He slapped the last inflate valve on a bubble
+tent, watched it critically as it billowed from a small roll of fabric
+into a weather resistant, one-room, air-conditioned and heated
+shelter.
+
+"Ready and waiting for you to move in, Gentlehomo," he reported to the
+small man who stood gazing about him with a child's wondering interest
+in the new and strange.
+
+"Very ingenious, Hunter. Ah--now just what might that be?" His voice
+was also eager as he pointed a finger to the east.
+
+
+
+
+4
+
+
+Hume glanced up alertly. There was a bare chance that "Brodie" might
+have witnessed their arrival and might be coming in now to save them
+all a great amount of time and trouble by acting the overjoyed,
+rescued castaway.
+
+But he could sight nothing at all in that direction to excite any
+attention. The distant mountains provided a stark, dark blue
+background. Up their foothills and lower slopes was a thick furring
+of trees with foliage of so deep a green as to register black from
+this distance. And on the level country was the lighter blue-green of
+the other variety of wood edging the open country about the river. In
+there rested the L-B.
+
+"I don't see anything!" he snapped, so sharply the little man stared
+at him in open surprise. Hume forced a quick smile.
+
+"Just what did you sight, Gentlehomo Starns? There is no large game in
+the woodlands."
+
+"This was not an animal, Hunter. Rather a flash of light, just about
+there." Again he pointed.
+
+Sun, Hume thought, could have been reflected from some portion of the
+L-B. He had believed that small spacer so covered with vines and
+ringed in by trees that it could not have been so sighted. But a storm
+might have disposed of some of nature's cloaking. If so Starns'
+interest must be fed, he would make an ideal discoverer.
+
+"Odd." Hume produced his distance glasses. "Just where, Gentlehomo?"
+
+"There." Starns obligingly pointed a third time.
+
+If there had been anything to see it was gone now. But it did lie in
+the right direction. For a second or two Hume was uneasy. Things
+seemed to be working too well; his cynical distrust was triggered by
+fitting so smoothly.
+
+"Might be the sun," he observed.
+
+"Reflected from some object you mean, Hunter? But the flash was very
+bright. And there could be no mirror surface in there, surely there
+could not be?"
+
+Yes, things were moving too fast. Hume might be overly cautious but he
+was determined that no hint of any pre-knowledge of the L-B must ever
+come to these civs. When they would find the Largo Drift's life boat
+and locate Brodie, there would be a legal snarl. The castaway's
+identity would be challenged by a half dozen distant and unloving
+relatives, and there would be an intense inquiry. These civs must be
+the impartial witnesses.
+
+"No, I hardly believe in a mirror in an uninhabited forest,
+Gentlehomo," he chuckled. "But we are on a hunting planet and not all
+its life forms have yet been classified."
+
+"You are thinking of an intelligent native race, Hunter?" Chambriss,
+the most demanding of the civ party, strode up to join them.
+
+Hume shook his head. "No native intelligence on a hunting world,
+Gentlehomo. That is assured before the planet is listed for a safari.
+However, a bird or flying thing, perhaps with metallic plumage or
+scales to catch the sunlight, might under the right circumstances seem
+a flash of light. That has happened before."
+
+"It was _very_ bright," Starns said doubtfully. "We might look over
+there later."
+
+"Nonsense!" Chambriss spoke briskly as one used to overriding the
+conflicting wishes in any company. "I came here for a water-cat, and a
+water-cat I'm going to have. You don't find those in wooded areas."
+
+"There will be a schedule," Hume announced. "Each of you has signed
+up, according to contract, for a different trophy. You for a
+water-cat, Gentlehomo. And you, Gentlehomo Starns, want to make
+tri-dees of the pit-dragons. While Gentlehomo Yactisi wishes to try
+electo fishing in the deep holes. To alternate days is the fair way.
+And, who knows, each of you may discover your own choice near the
+other man's stake out."
+
+"You are quite right, Hunter," Starns nodded. "And since my two
+colleagues have chosen to try for a water creature, perhaps we should
+start along the river."
+
+It was two days, then, before they could work their way into the
+woods. One part of Hume protested, the more cautious section of his
+mind was appeased. He saw, beyond the three clients now turning over
+and sorting space bags, Wass' man glanced at the woods and then back
+to Starns. And, being acutely aware of all undercurrents here, Hume
+wondered what the small civ had actually seen.
+
+The camp was complete, a cluster of seven bubble tents not too far
+from the ship. At least this crowd did not appear to consider that the
+Hunter was there to do all the serious moving and storing of supplies.
+All three of the clients pitched in to help, and Wass' man went down
+to the river to return with half a dozen silver-fins cleaned and
+threaded on a reed, ready to broil over the cook unit.
+
+A fire in the night was not needed except to afford the proper stage
+setting. But it was enjoyed. Hume leaned forward to feed the flames,
+and Starns pushed some lengths of driftwood closer.
+
+"You have said, Hunter, that hunting worlds never contain intelligent
+native life. Unless the planet is minutely explored how can your
+survey teams be sure of that fact?" His voice bordered on the
+pedantic, but his interest was plain.
+
+"By using the verifier." Hume sat crosslegged, his plasta-hand resting
+on one knee. "Fifty years ago, we would have had to keep rather a
+lengthy watch to be sure of a free world. Now, we plant verifiers at
+suitable test points. Intelligence means mental activity of some
+sort--any of which would be recorded on the verifier."
+
+"Amazing!" Starns extended his plump hands to the flames in the
+immemorial gesture of a human attracted not only to the warmth of the
+burning wood, but to its promise of security against the forces of the
+dark. "No matter how few, or how scattered your native thinkers may
+be, you record them without missing any?"
+
+Hume shrugged. "Maybe one or two," he grinned, "might get through such
+a screening. But we have yet to discover a planet with such a sparse
+native life as that at the level of intelligence."
+
+Yactisi juggled a cup in and out of the firelight. "I agree, this is
+most interesting." He was a thin man, with scanty drab gray hair and
+dark skin, perhaps the result of the mingling of several human races.
+His eyes were slightly sunken, so that it was difficult in this light
+to read their expression. He was, Hume had already decided, a class
+one brain and observant to a degree, which could either be a help or a
+menace. "There have been no cases of failure?"
+
+"None reported," Hume returned. All his life he had relied on machines
+operating, of course, under the competent domination of men trained to
+use them properly. He understood the process of the verifier, had seen
+it at work. At the Guild Headquarters there were no records of its
+failure; he was willing to believe it was infallible.
+
+"A race residing in the sea now--could you be sure your machine would
+discover its presence?" Starns continued to question.
+
+Hume laughed. "Not to be found on Jumala, you may be sure of that--the
+seas here are small and shallow. Such, not to be picked up by the
+verifier, would have to exist at great depths and never venture on
+land. So we need not fear any surprises here. The Guild takes no
+chances."
+
+"As it always continues to assure one," Yactisi replied. "The hour
+grows late. I wish you rewarding dreams." He arose to go to his own
+bubble tent.
+
+"Yes, indeed!" Starns blinked at the fire and then scrambled up in
+turn. "We hunt along the river, then, tomorrow?"
+
+"For water-cat," Hume agreed. Of the three, he believed Chambriss the
+most impatient. Might as well let him pot his trophy as soon as
+possible. The ex-pilot deduced there would be little cooperation in
+exploration from that client until he was satisfied in his own quest.
+
+Rovald, Wass' man, lingered by the fire until the three civs were safe
+in their bubbles.
+
+"River range tomorrow?" he asked.
+
+"Yes. We can't rush the deal."
+
+"Agreed." Rovald spoke with a curtness he did not use when the civs
+were present. "Only don't delay too long. Remember, our boy's roaming
+around out there. He might just be picked off by something before
+these stumble-footed civs catch up with him."
+
+"That's the chance we knew we'd have to take. We don't dare raise any
+suspicion. Yactisi, for one, is no fool, neither is Starns. Chambriss
+just wants to get his water-cat, but he could become nasty if anyone
+tried to steer him."
+
+"Too long a wait might run us into trouble. Wass doesn't like
+trouble."
+
+Hume spun around. In the half light of the fire his features were set,
+his mouth grim. "Neither do I, Rovald, neither do I!" he said softly,
+but with an icy promise beneath the words.
+
+Rovald was not to be intimidated. He grinned. "Set your fins down,
+fly-boy. You need Wass--and I'm here to hold his stakes for him. This
+is a big deal, we won't want any misses!"
+
+"There won't be any--not from my side." Hume stepped away from the
+fire, approached a post which gleamed with a dull, red line of fire
+down either side. He pressed a control button. That red line flared
+into a streak of brilliance. Now encircling the bubble tents and the
+space ship was a force field: routine protection of a safari camp on a
+strange world and one Hume had set as a matter of course.
+
+He stood for a long moment staring through that invisible barrier
+toward the direction of the wood. It was a dark night, there were
+scudding clouds to hide the stars, which meant rain probably before
+morning. This was no time to be plagued by uncertain weather.
+
+Somewhere out there Brodie was holed up. He hoped the boy had long ago
+reached the "camp" so carefully erected and left for his occupancy.
+The L-B, that stone covered "grave" showing signs of several years'
+occupancy, was all assembled and constructed to the last small detail.
+Far less might have deceived the civs in this safari. But as soon as
+the story of their find leaked, there would be others on the scene,
+men trained to assess the signs of a castaway's fight for survival.
+His own Guild training and the ability of Wass' renegade techs should
+bring them through that test.
+
+What had Starns seen? The glint of sun on the tail of the L-B, tilted
+now to the sky? Hume walked slowly back to the fire, when he saw
+Rovald going up the ramp into the spacer. He smiled. Did Wass think he
+was stupid enough not to guess that the Veep's man would be in com
+touch with his employer? Rovald was about to report along some channel
+of the shadow world that they had landed and that the play was about
+to begin. Hume wondered idly how far and through how many relays that
+message would pass before it reached its destination.
+
+He stretched and yawned, moving to his sleeping pad. Tomorrow they
+must find Chambriss a water-cat. Hume shoved Brodie into the back of
+his mind to center his thoughts on the various ways of delivering, to
+the waiting sportsman, a fair-sized alien feline.
+
+The lights in the bubbles went out one by one. Within the circle
+barrier of the force field men slept. And by midnight the rain began
+to fall, streaming down the sides of the bubbles, soaking the ashes of
+the fire.
+
+Out of the dark crept that which was not thought, not substance, but
+alien to the off-world men. But the barrier, meant to deter
+multi-footed creatures, with wings or no visible limbs at all, proved
+to be a better protection than its creators had hoped. There was no
+penetration--only a baffled butting of one force against another. And
+then the probe withdrew as undetected as it had come.
+
+Only, the thing which had no intelligence, as humankind rated
+intelligence, did possess the ability to fathom the nature of that
+artificial barrier. The force field was examined, its nature digested.
+First approach had failed. The second was now ready--ready as it had
+not been months before when the first coming of these creatures had
+alerted the very ancient watchdog on Jumala.
+
+Deep in the darker woods on the mountain sides there was a stirring.
+Things whimpered in their sleep, protested subconsciously commands
+they could never understand, only obey. With the coming of dawn there
+would be a marshaling of hosts, a new assault--not on the camp, but on
+any leaving its protection. And also on the boy now sleeping in a
+shallow cave formed by the swept roots of a tree--a tree which had
+crashed when the L-B landed.
+
+Again, fortune favored Hume. With the dawn the rain was over. There
+was a cloudy sky overhead, but he believed the day would clear. The
+roily, rushing water of the river would aid Chambriss' quest.
+Water-cats holed up in the banks, but rising water often forced them
+out of such dens. A course parallel to the stream bed could well show
+them the tracks of one of the felines.
+
+They started off in a group, Hume leading, with Chambriss treading
+briskly behind him, Rovald bringing up the rear in the approved trail
+technique. Chambriss carried a needler, Starns was unarmed except for
+a small protection stunner, his tri-dee box slung on his chest by
+well-worn carrying straps. Yactisi shouldered an electric pole, wore
+its control belt buckled about his middle, though Hume had warned him
+that the storm would prevent any deep hole fishing.
+
+Only a short distance from the campsite they came upon the
+unmistakable marks of a water-cat's broad paws, pressed in so heavy
+and distinct a pattern that Hume knew the animal could not be far
+ahead. The indentations were deep, and he measured the distance
+between them with the length of his hand.
+
+"Big one!" Chambriss exclaimed in satisfaction. "Going away from the
+river, too."
+
+That point puzzled Hume slightly. The red coated felines might be
+washed out of their burrows, but they did not willingly head so
+sharply away from the water. He squatted on his heels and surveyed the
+stretch of countryside between them and the distant wood with care.
+
+The grass was this season's, still growing, not tall enough to afford
+cover for an animal with paws as large as these prints. There were two
+clumps of brush. It could have holed up in either, waiting to attack
+any trailer--but why? It had not been wounded, nor frightened by their
+party, there was no reason for it to set an ambush on its back trail.
+
+Starns and Yactisi dropped back, though Starns was fussing with his
+tri-dee. Rovald caught up. He had drawn his ray tube in answer to
+Hume's hand wave. Any action foreign to the regular habits of an
+animal was to be mistrusted.
+
+Getting to his feet Hume paced along the line of marks. They were
+fresh--hot fresh. And they still led in a straight line for the woods.
+With another wave of his hand he stopped Chambriss. The civ was
+trained in spite of his eagerness and obeyed. Hume left the tracks,
+made a detour which brought him to a point from which he could study
+those clumps of brush. No sign except that line of prints pointed to
+the woods. And if the party kept on, they might well come upon the
+L-B!
+
+He decided to risk it. But when they were less than a couple of yards
+from the tree fringe his hand shot up to direct Chambriss to fire
+towards the quivering bush.
+
+Only, that formless half seen thing, hardly to be distinguished in
+color from the vegetation, was no water-cat. There was a thin, ragged
+cry. Then the creature plunged backward, was gone.
+
+"What in the name of nine Gods was that?" Chambriss demanded.
+
+"I don't know." Hume went forward, jerked the needler dart from a tree
+trunk. "But don't shoot again--not unless you are sure of what you are
+aiming at!"
+
+
+
+
+5
+
+
+Moisture from the night's rain hung on the tree leaves, clung in
+globules to Rynch's sweating body. He lay on a wide branch trying to
+control the heavy panting which supplied his laboring lungs. And he
+could still hear the echoes of the startled cries which had come from
+the men who had threaded through the woods to the up-pointed tail fins
+of the L-B.
+
+Now he tried to reason why he had run. They were his own kind, they
+would take him out of the loneliness of a world heretofore empty of
+his species. But that tall man--the one who had led the party into the
+irregular clearing about the life boat--
+
+Rynch shivered, dug his nails into the wood on which he lay. At the
+sight of that man, dream and reality had crashed together, sending him
+into panic-stricken flight. That was the man from the room--the man
+with the cup!
+
+As his heart quieted he began to think more coherently. First, he had
+not been able to find the strong-jaws's den. Then the marks on the
+ground at the point from which he had fallen and the L-B were here,
+just as he remembered. But not far from the small ship he had
+discovered something more--a campsite with a shelter fashioned out of
+spalls and vines, containing possessions a castaway might have
+accumulated.
+
+That man would come, Rynch was sure of that, but he was too spent to
+struggle on.
+
+No, the answer to every part of the puzzle lay with that man. To go
+back to the ship clearing was to risk capture--but he had to know.
+Rynch looked with more attention at his present surroundings. Deep
+mold under the trees here would hold tracks. There might just be
+another way to move. He eyed the spread of limbs on a neighbor tree.
+
+His journey through those heights was awkward and he sweated and
+cringed when he disturbed vocal treetop dwellers. He was also to
+discover that close to the site of the L-B crash others waited.
+
+He huddled against the bole of a tree when he made out the curve of a
+round bulk holding tight to the tree trunk aloft. Though it was balled
+in upon itself he was sure the creature was fully as large as he, and
+the menacing claws suggested it was a formidable opponent.
+
+When it made no move to follow him Rynch began to hope it had only
+been defending its own hiding place, for its present attitude
+suggested concealment.
+
+Still facing that featureless blob in the tree, the man retreated,
+alert for the first sign of advance on the part of the creature above.
+None came, and he dared to slip around the bole of the tree under
+which he stood, listening intently for any corresponding movement
+overhead. Now he was facing that survivor's camp.
+
+Another object crouched in the dark of the lean-to shelter, just as
+its fellow was on sentry duty in the tree! Only this one did not have
+the self-color of the foliage to disguise it. Four-limbed, its long
+forearms curved about its bent knees, its general outline almost that
+of a human--if a human went clothed in a thick fuzz. The head hunched
+right against the shoulders as if the neck were very short, or totally
+lacking, was pear-shaped, with the longer end to the back, and the
+sense organs of eyes and nose squeezed together on the lower quarter
+of the rounded portion, with a line of wide mouth to split the blunt
+round of the muzzle. Dark pits for eyes showed no pupil, iris, or
+cornea. The nose was a black, perfectly rounded tube jutting an inch
+or so beyond the cheek surface. Grotesque, alien and terrifying, it
+made no hostile move. And, since it had not turned its head, he could
+not be sure it had even sighted him. But it knew he was there, he was
+certain of that. And was waiting--for what? As the long seconds
+crawled by Rynch began to believe that it was not waiting for him.
+Heartened, he pulled at the vine loop, climbed back into the tree.
+
+Minutes later he discovered that there were more than two of the
+beasts waiting quietly about the camp, and that their sentry line ran
+between him and the clearing of the L-B. He withdrew farther into the
+wood, intent upon finding a detour which would bring him out into the
+open lands. Now he wanted to join forces with his own kind, whether
+those men were potential enemies or not.
+
+As time passed the beasts closed about the clearing of the camp.
+Afternoon was fading into evening when he reached a point several
+miles downstream near the river. Since he had come into the open he
+had not sighted any of the watchers. He hoped they did not willingly
+venture out of the trees where the leaves were their protection.
+
+Rynch went flat on the stream bank, made a worm's progress up the
+slope to crouch behind a bush and survey the land immediately ahead.
+There stood an off-world spacer, fins down, nose skyward, and grouped
+not too far from its landing ramp, a collection of bubble tents. A
+fire burned in their midst and men were moving about it.
+
+Now that he was free from the wood and its watchers and had come so
+near to his goal, Rynch was curiously reluctant to do the sensible
+thing, to rise out of concealment and walk up to that fire, to claim
+rescue by his own kind.
+
+The man he sought stood by the fire, shrugging his arms into a webbing
+harness which brought a box against his chest. Having made that fast
+he picked up a needler by its sling. By their gestures the others were
+arguing with him, but he shook his head, came on, to be a shadow
+stalking among other shadows. One of the men trailed him, but as they
+reached a post planted a little beyond the bubble tents he stopped,
+allowed the explorer to advance alone into the dark.
+
+Rynch went to cover under a bush. The man was heading to the stream
+bed. Had they somehow learned of his own presence nearby, were they
+out to find him? But the preparations the tall man had made seemed
+more suited to going on patrol. The watchers! Was the other out to spy
+on them? That idea made sense. And in the meantime he would let the
+other past him, follow along behind until he was far enough from the
+camp so that his friends could not interfere--then, they would have a
+meeting!
+
+Rynch's fingers balled into fists. He would find out what was real,
+what was a dream in this crazy, mixed up mind of his! That other would
+know, and would tell him the truth!
+
+Alert as he was, he lost sight of the stranger who melted into the
+dusky cover of the shadows. Then came a quiet ripple of water close to
+his own hiding place. The man from the spacer camp was using the
+stream as his road.
+
+In spite of his caution Rynch was close to betrayal as he edged around
+a clump of vegetation growing half in, half out of the stream. Only a
+timely rustle told him that the other had sat down on a drift log.
+
+Waiting for him? Rynch froze, so startled that he could not think
+clearly for a second. Then he noted that the outline of the other's
+body was visible, growing brighter by the moment.
+
+Minute particles of pale-greenish radiance were gathering about the
+other. The dark shadow of an arm flapped, the radiance swirled, broke
+again into pinpoint sparks.
+
+Rynch glanced down at his own body--the same sparks were drifting in
+about him, edging his arms, thighs, chest. He pushed back into the
+bushes while the sparks still flitted, but they no longer gathered in
+strength enough to light his presence. Now he could see they drifted
+about the vegetation, about the log where the man sat, about rocks and
+reeds. Only they were thicker about the stranger as if his body were a
+magnet. He continued to keep them whirling by means of waving hand and
+arm, but there was enough light to show Rynch the fingers of his other
+hand, busy on the front panel of the box he wore.
+
+That fingering stopped, then Rynch's head came up as he heard a very
+faint sound. Not a beast's cry--or was it?
+
+Again those fingers moved on the panel. Was the other sending a
+message by that means? Rynch watched him check the webbing, count the
+equipment at his belt, settle the needler in the crook of his arm.
+Then the stranger left the stream, headed towards the woods.
+
+Rynch jumped to his feet, a cry of warning shaping, but not to be
+uttered. He padded after the other. There was plenty of time to stop
+the man before he reached the danger which might lurk under the trees.
+
+However the other was as wary of that dark as if he suspected what
+might lie in wait there. He angled along northward, avoiding clumps of
+scattered brush, keeping in the open where Rynch dared not tail him
+too closely.
+
+Their course, parallel to the woods, brought them at last to a second
+stream, the size of a river, into which the first creek emptied. Here
+the other settled down between two rocks with every indication of
+remaining there for a period.
+
+Thankfully Rynch found his own lurking place from which he could keep
+the other in sight. The light points gathered, hung in a small
+luminous cloud over the rocks. But Rynch had prudently withdrawn under
+a bush, and the scent of its aromatic leaves must have discouraged the
+sparks, for no such crown came to his sentry post.
+
+Drugged with fatigue, the younger man slept, awaking to full day, a
+fog of bewilderment and disorientation. To open his eyes to this
+blue-green pocket instead of to four dirty walls, was wrong.
+
+Remembering, he started up and slunk down the slope, angry at his
+failure. He found the other's track, not turning back as he had half
+feared, cleanly printed on level spots of wet earth--eastward now.
+What was the purpose of the other's expedition? Was he going to use
+the open cut through which the river ran as a way of penetrating the
+wooded country?
+
+Now Rynch considered the problem from his own angle. The man from the
+spacer had made no effort to conceal his trail, in fact it would
+almost seem that he had deliberately gone out of his way to leave boot
+prints on favorable stretches of ground. Did he guess that Rynch
+lurked behind, was now leading him on for some purpose of his own? Or
+were those traces left to guide another party from the camp?
+
+To advance openly up the stream bed was to invite discovery. Rynch
+surveyed the nearer bank. Clumps of small trees and high growing
+bushes dotted that expanse, an ideal cover.
+
+He was hardly out of sight of the bush which had sheltered him when he
+heard the coughing roar of a water-cat. And the feline was attacking
+an enemy, enraged to the pitch of vocal frenzy. Rynch ran a zigzag
+course from one clump of bush to the next. That sound of snarling,
+spitting hate ended in mid-cry as Rynch crawled to the river bank.
+
+The man from the spacer camp had been the focus of a three-prong
+attack from a female and her cubs. Three red bodies were flat and
+still on the gravel as the off-worlder leaned back against a rock
+breathing heavily. As Rynch sighted him, he stooped to recover the
+needler he had dropped, lurched away from the rock towards the water,
+and so blundered straight into another Jumalan trap.
+
+His unsteady foot advancing for another step came down on a slippery
+surface, and he fell forward as his legs were engulfed in the trap
+burrow of a strong-jaws. With a startled cry the man dropped the
+needler again, clawed at the ground about him. Already he was buried
+to his knees, then his mid-thighs, in the artificial quicksand. But he
+had not lost his head and was jerking from side to side in an effort
+to pull free.
+
+Rynch got to his feet, walked with slow deliberation down to the
+river's brink. The trapped prisoner had shied halfway around,
+stretching out his arms to find a firmer grip on some rock large and
+heavy enough to anchor him. After his first startled cry he had made
+no sound, but now, as he sighted Rynch, his eyes widened and his lips
+parted.
+
+The box on his chest caught on a stone he had dragged to him in a
+desperate try for support. There was a spitting of sparks and the
+stranger worked frantically at the buckle of the webbing harness to
+loosen it and toss the whole thing from him. The box struck one of the
+dead water-cats, flashed as fur and flesh were singed.
+
+Rynch watched dispassionately before he caught the needler, jerking it
+away from the prisoner. The man eyed him steadily, and his expression
+did not alter even when Rynch swung the off-world weapon to center its
+sights on the late owner.
+
+"Suppose," Rynch's voice was rusty sounding in his own ears, "we talk
+now."
+
+The man nodded. "As you wish, Brodie."
+
+
+
+
+6
+
+
+"Brodie?" Rynch squatted on his heels.
+
+Those gray eyes, so light in the other's deeply tanned face, narrowed
+the smallest fraction, Rynch noted with an inner surge of triumph.
+
+"Were you looking for me?" he added.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"We found an L-B--we wondered if there were survivors."
+
+Slowly Rynch shook his head. "No--you knew I was here. Because you
+brought me!" He fashioned his suspicions into one quick thrust.
+
+This time there was not the slightest hint of self-betrayal from the
+other.
+
+"You see," Rynch leaned forward, but still well out of reach from the
+captive, "I remember!"
+
+Now there was a faint flicker of answer in the man's eyes. He asked
+quietly:
+
+"What do you remember, Brodie?"
+
+"Enough to know that I am not Brodie. That I did not get here on the
+L-B, did not build that camp."
+
+He ran one hand over the stock of the needler. Whatever motive lay
+behind this weird game into which he had been unwillingly introduced,
+he was now sure that it was serious enough to be dangerous.
+
+"You have no cup this time."
+
+"So you do remember." The other accepted that calmly. "All right. That
+need not necessarily spoil our plans. You have nothing to return to on
+Nahuatl--unless you _liked_ the Starfall." His voice was icy with
+contempt. "To play our roles will be for your advantage, too." He
+paused, his gaze centering on Rynch with the intensity of one willing
+the desired answer out of his inferior.
+
+Nahuatl. Rynch caught at that. He had been on or in Nahuatl--a planet?
+a city? If he could make this man believe he remembered everything
+clearly, more than just the scattered patches that he did....
+
+"You had me planted here, then came back to hunt me. Why? What makes
+Rynch Brodie so important?"
+
+"Close to a billion credits!" The man from the spacer leaned well back
+in the hole, his arms spread flat out on either side to keep his body
+from sinking deeper. "A billion credits," he repeated softly.
+
+Rynch laughed. "You'll have to think of a better one than that,
+fly-boy."
+
+"The stakes would have to be high, wouldn't they, for us to go to all
+this staging? You've been conditioned, Brodie, illegally
+brain-channeled!"
+
+To Rynch the words meant nothing. If they ever had, that was gone,
+lost in the maze of other things which had been blotted out of his
+mind by the Brodie past. But he would not give the other the advantage
+of knowing his uncertainty.
+
+"You need a Brodie for a billion credits. But you don't have a Brodie
+now!"
+
+To his surprise the prisoner in the earth trap laughed. "I'll have a
+Brodie when he's needed. Think about a good share of a billion
+credits, boy, keep thinking of that hard."
+
+"I will."
+
+"Thoughts alone won't work it, you know." For the first time there was
+a hint of some emotion in the man's voice.
+
+"You mean I need you? I don't think so. I've stopped being a plaque
+for someone to play across the board." That expression brought another
+momentary flash of hazy memory--a smoky, crowded room where men slid
+counters back and forth across tables--not one of Brodie's edited
+recalls, but his own.
+
+Rynch stood up, started for the rise of the slope, but before he
+topped that he glanced back. The damaged com box still smoked where
+its wearer had flung it. Now the man was already straining forward
+with both arms, trying to reach a rock just a finger space beyond.
+Lucky for him the burrow was an old one, uninhabited. In time he
+should be able to work his way out. Meanwhile there was the whole of a
+wide countryside in which Rynch could discover a hideout--no one would
+find him now against his will.
+
+He tried, as he strode along, to piece together more of his memories
+and the scanty information he had had from the Nahuatl man. So he had
+been "brain-channeled," given a set of false memories to fit a Rynch
+Brodie whose presence on this world meant a billion credits for
+someone. He could not believe that this was the spaceman's game alone,
+for hadn't he spoken of "we"?
+
+A billion credits! The sum was fantastic, the whole story
+unbelievable.
+
+There was a hot stab of pain on his instep. Rynch cried out, stamped
+hard. One of the clawed scavengers was crushed. The man leaped back in
+time to avoid another step into a swarming mass of them at work on
+some unidentifiable carrion. Staring down at the welter of scaled,
+segmented bodies and busy claws, he gasped.
+
+Three dead water-cats were near the man trapped in the pit. Bait to
+draw these voracious eaters straight to the prisoner. Rynch's empty
+stomach heaved. He swung around, ran across the grassy verge of the
+upper bank, hoping he was not too late.
+
+As he half fell, half slid down to the water, he saw that the man had
+managed to hook the webbing of the smouldering box to him, was casting
+it out and dragging it back patiently, aiming at the nearest rock of
+size, fruitlessly attempting to hitch its straps over the round of
+stone.
+
+Rynch dashed on, caught at that loop of webbing, and dug his heels
+into the loose gravel as he began a steady pull. With his aid the
+other crawled out, lay panting. Rynch grabbed the man's shoulder,
+jerked him away from the body of the female water-cat. He was sure he
+had seen a telltale scurrying around the smaller of the dead cubs.
+
+The man straightened, glanced toward Rynch who was backing off, the
+needler up and ready between them.
+
+"My turn to ask why?"
+
+Then his gaze followed Rynch's. The smallest cub twitched from side to
+side. Not with any faint trace of life, but under the attack of the
+scavengers. More scuttled towards the second cub.
+
+"Thanks!" The stranger was on his feet. "My name is Ras Hume. I don't
+think I told you that when we last met."
+
+"This doesn't make any difference. I'm not your man, not Brodie!"
+
+Hume shrugged. "You think about it, Brodie, think about it with care.
+Come back to camp with me and--"
+
+"No!" Rynch interrupted. "You go your way, I go mine from here on."
+
+Again the other laughed. "Not so simple as all that, boy. We've
+started something which can't just be turned off as easily as you snap
+down a switch." He took a step or two in Rynch's direction.
+
+The younger man brought up the needler. "Stay right where you are!
+Your game, Hume? All right, you play it--but not with me."
+
+"And what are you going to do, take to the woods?"
+
+"What I do is my business, Hume."
+
+"No, my business, too, very much so. I'm giving you a warning, boy, in
+return for your help here." He nodded at the pit. "There's something
+in that woods--something which didn't show up when the Guild had their
+survey exploration here."
+
+"The watchers." Rynch retreated step by step, keeping the needler
+ready. "I saw them."
+
+"You've seen them!" Hume was eager. "What do they look like?"
+
+In spite of his desire to be rid of Hume, Rynch found himself
+answering that in detail, discovering that on demand he could recall
+minutely the description of the animal hiding in the tree, the one who
+had waited in the shelter, and those he had glimpsed drawing in about
+the L-B clearing.
+
+"No intelligence." Hume turned his head to survey the distant wood.
+"The verifier reported no intelligence."
+
+"These watchers--you don't know them?"
+
+"No. Nor do I like what you've seen of them, Brodie. So I'm willing to
+call a truce. The Guild believed Jumala an open planet, our records
+accredited it so. If that is not true we may be in for bad trouble. As
+an Out-Hunter I am responsible for the safety of three civs back there
+in the safari camp."
+
+Hume made sense, much as Rynch disliked admitting it. And the Hunter
+must have read something of his agreement in his face for now he
+nodded and added briskly:
+
+"Best place now is the safari camp. We'll head back at once."
+
+Only time had run out. A noise sounded with a metallic ring. Rynch
+whirled, needler cocked. A glittering ball about the size of his fist
+rolled away from contact with a boulder, came to rest in the deep
+depression of one of Hume's boot tracks. Then another flash through
+the air, a clatter as a second ball spun across a patch of gravel.
+
+The balls seemed to appear out of the air. Displaying rainbow glints
+they rolled in a semicircle about the two men. Rynch stooped, then
+Hume's fingers latched about his wrist, dragging his hand away from
+the globe. It was only then that he realized that sharp action had
+detached his attention from that ball he had wanted to take up.
+
+"Don't touch!" Hume barked. "And don't look at that too closely! Come
+along!" He pulled Rynch forward through the yet unclosed arc of the
+globe circle.
+
+Hume detoured around the feasting scavengers and brought Rynch with
+him at a trot. They could hear behind them the plop and tinkle of more
+globes. Glancing back Rynch saw one fall close to the bodies of the
+water-cats.
+
+"Wait a minute!" He pulled back against Hume's hold. Here was a chance
+to see what effect that crystal had on the clawed carrion eater.
+
+There was a change in the crystal: Yellow now, then red--red as the
+few scraps of fur remaining on the rapidly disappearing body.
+
+"Look!"
+
+The pulsating carpet which had covered the dead feline ceased to move.
+But towards that spot rolled two more of the globes, approaching the
+scavengers. Now the clawed things were stirring, dropping away from
+their prey. They spread out in a patch, moved purposefully forward.
+Behind them, as guardians might head a flock, rolled three globes,
+flushing scarlet, then more.
+
+Hume's hand came up. From the cone tip of the ray tube spat a lance of
+fire, to strike the middle crystal. The beam was reflected into the
+block of scavengers. Scaled bodies, twisted, crisped, were ash. But
+the crystal continued to roll at the same pace.
+
+"Move!" Hume's other hand hit Rynch's shoulder, knocked him forward in
+an impetuous shove which nearly took him off his feet. Both men began
+to run.
+
+"What--what are those things?" Rynch appealed between panting breaths.
+
+"I don't know--and I don't like their looks. They're between us and
+the safari camp if we keep to the river--"
+
+"Between us and the river now." Rynch saw that glittering swoop
+through the air, marked the landing of a ball near the water's edge.
+
+"Might be trying to box us in. But that's not going to work.
+See--ahead there where that log's caught between two rocks? Run out on
+that when we reach there and take to the water. I don't think those
+things can float and if they sink to the bottom that ought to fix them
+as far as we are concerned."
+
+Rynch ran, still holding the needler. He balanced along the drift log
+Hume had pointed out and a jump sent him floundering in the brown
+stream thigh deep. Hume joined him, his face grim.
+
+"Downstream--"
+
+Rynch looked. One shape--two--three--Clearly detailed where matching
+vegetation gave them no covering camouflage, the watchers had come out
+of the woods at last. A line of them were walking quietly and upright
+towards the humans, their blue-green fuzz covering like a mist under
+the direct rays of the sun. Quiet as they seemed at present, the
+things out of the Jumalan forest were a picture of sheer brute
+strength as they moved.
+
+"Let's get out of here--fast!"
+
+The men kept moving, and always after them padded that silent line of
+green-blue, pushing them farther and farther away from the safari
+camp, on towards the rising mountain peaks. Just as the globes had
+shaken the scavengers loose from their meal and sent them marching on,
+so were the humans being herded for some unknown purpose.
+
+At least, once the march of the beasts began, they saw and heard no
+more of the globes. And as they reached a curve in the river, Hume
+stopped, swung around, stood studying the line of decorously pacing
+animals.
+
+"We can pick them off with the needler or the ray."
+
+The Hunter shook his head. "You don't kill," he recited the credo of
+his Guild, "not until you are sure. There is a method behind this, and
+method means intelligence."
+
+Handling of X-tee creatures and peoples was a part of Guild training.
+In spite of his devious game here on Jumala, Hume was Guild educated
+and Rynch was willing to leave such decisions to him.
+
+The other held out the ray tube. "Take this, cover me, but don't use
+it until I say so. Understand?"
+
+He waited only for Rynch's nod before he started, at a deliberate pace
+which matched that of the beasts, back through the river shallows to
+meet them. But that advancing line halted, stood waiting in silence.
+Hume's hands went up, palm out, he spoke slowly in Basic-X-Tee clicks:
+
+"Friend." This was all Rynch could make out of that sing-song of
+syllables Rynch knew to be a contact pattern.
+
+The dark eye pits continued to stare. A light breeze ruffled the fuzz
+covering of wide shoulders, long muscular arms. Not a head moved, not
+one of those heavy, rounded jaws opened to emit any answering sound.
+Hume halted. The silence was threatening, a portending atmosphere
+spread from the alien things as might a tangible wave.
+
+For perhaps two breaths they stood so, man facing alien. Then Hume
+turned, walked back, his face set. Rynch offered him the ray tube.
+
+"Fight our way out?"
+
+"Too late. Look!"
+
+Moving lines of blue-green coming down to the river. Not five or six
+now--a dozen--twenty. There was a small trickle of moisture down the
+side of the Hunter's brown face.
+
+"We're penned--except straight ahead."
+
+"But we're going to fight!" Rynch protested.
+
+"No. Move on!"
+
+
+
+
+7
+
+
+It was some time before Hume found what he wanted, an islet in
+midstream lacking any growth and rising to a rough pinnacle. The sides
+were seamed with crevices and caves which promised protection for
+one's back in any desperate struggle. And they had discovered it none
+too soon, for the late afternoon shadows were lengthening.
+
+There had been no attack, just the trailing to herd the men to the
+northeast. And Rynch had lost the first tight pinch of panic, though
+he knew the folly of underestimating the unknown.
+
+They climbed with unspoken consent, going clear to the top, where they
+huddled together on a four-foot tableland. Hume unhooked his distance
+lenses, but it was toward the rises of the mountains that he aimed
+them, not along the back trail.
+
+Rynch wriggled about, studied the river and its banks. The beasts
+there were quiet, blue-green lumps, standing down on the river bank or
+squatting in the grass.
+
+"Nothing." Hume lowered the lenses, held them before his broad chest
+as he still watched the peaks.
+
+"What did you expect?" Rynch snapped. He was hungry, but not hungry
+enough to abandon the islet.
+
+Hume laughed shortly. "I don't know. Only I'm sure they are heading us
+in that direction."
+
+"Look here," Rynch rounded on him. "You know this planet, you've been
+here before."
+
+"I was one of the survey team that approved it for the Guild."
+
+"Then you must have combed it pretty thoroughly. How is it that you
+didn't know about them?" He gestured to their pursuers.
+
+"That is what I would like to ask a few assorted experts right about
+now," Hume returned. "The verifiers registered no intelligent native
+life here."
+
+"No native life." Rynch chewed that over, came up with the obvious
+explanation. "All right--so then maybe our blue-backed friends are
+imported. Suppose someone's running a private business of his own here
+and wants to get rid of visitors?"
+
+Hume looked thoughtful. "No." He did not enlarge upon his negative.
+Sitting down he pulled a cylinder container from a belt loop and shook
+out four tablets, handing two to Rynch, mouthing the others.
+
+"Vita-blocks--good for twenty-four hours sustenance."
+
+The iron rations depended upon by all exploring services did not have
+the satisfying taste of real food. However Rynch swallowed them
+dutifully before he descended with Hume to river level. The Hunter
+splashed water from the stream into a depression in the rock and
+dropped a pinch of clarifying powder into it.
+
+"With the dark," he announced, "we might be able to get through their
+lines."
+
+"You believe that?"
+
+Hume laughed. "No--but one doesn't overlook the factor of sheer luck.
+Also, I don't care to finish up at the place they may have chosen for
+us." He tilted his chin to study the sky. "We'll take watches and rest
+in turn. No use trying anything until it is dark--unless they start to
+move in. You take the first one?"
+
+As Rynch nodded, Hume edged back into a crevice as a shelled creature
+withdrawing to natural protection, going to sleep as easily as if he
+could control that state by will. Rynch, watching him curiously for a
+second or two before climbing up to a position from which he judged he
+could see all sides of their refuge, determined not to be surprised.
+
+The watchers were crouched down, waiting with that patience which had
+impressed him from his first sight of the camp sentries back in the
+forest. There was no movement, no sound. They were simply there--on
+guard. And Rynch did not believe that the darkness of night would
+bring any relaxation of that vigilance.
+
+He leaned back, feeling the grit of the rocky surface against his bare
+back and shoulders. Under his hand was the most efficient and
+formidable weapon known to the frontier worlds, from this post he
+could keep the enemy under surveillance and think.
+
+Hume had had him planted here, in the first place, provided with the
+memory of Rynch Brodie--the reward for him was to be a billion
+credits. Too much staff work had gone into his conditioning for just a
+small stake.
+
+So Rynch Brodie was on Jumala, and Hume had come with witnesses to
+find him. Another part of his mind stood aloof now, applauding the
+clearness of his reasoning. Rynch Brodie was to be discovered a
+castaway on Jumala. Only, matters had not worked out according to
+Hume's plan. In the first place he was certain he had not been
+intended to know that he was not Rynch Brodie. For a fleeting second
+he wondered why that conditioning had not completely worked, then went
+back to the problem of his relationship with Hume.
+
+No, the Out-Hunter had expected a castaway who would be just what he
+ordered. Then this affair of the watchers--creatures the Guild men had
+not found here a few months ago--Rynch felt a small cold chill along
+his spine. Hume's game was one thing, something he could understand,
+but the silent beasts were another and somehow far more disturbing
+threat.
+
+Rynch edged forward, watching the mist on the water, his brain
+striving to solve this other puzzle as neatly as he thought he had
+discovered the reason for his scrambled memories and his being on
+Jumala.
+
+The mist was an added danger. Thick enough and those watchers could
+move in under its curtain. A needler was efficient, yes, but it could
+wipe out only an enemy at which it was aimed. Blind cross sweeping
+with its darts would only exhaust the clip without results, save by
+lucky chance.
+
+On the other hand, suppose they could turn that same gray haze to
+their own advantage--use it to blanket their withdrawal? He was about
+to go to Hume with that suggestion when he sighted the new move in
+their odd battle with the aliens.
+
+A wink of light--two more--blinking, following the erratic course by
+the pull of the stream. All bobbing along toward the rugged coastline
+of the islet. Those had appeared out of nothingness as suddenly as the
+globes when this chase had begun.
+
+The globes and the winking lights on the water connected in his mind,
+argued new danger. Rynch took careful aim, fired a dart at one which
+had grounded on the pointed tip of the rocks where the river current
+came together after its division about the island. For the first time
+Rynch realized those things below were moving _against_ the
+current--they had come upstream as if propelled.
+
+He had fired and the light was still there, two more coming in behind
+it, so that now there was an irregular cluster of them. And there was
+activity on the water-washed rocks before them. Just as the scavengers
+had moved ahead of the globes on land, so now aquatic creatures had
+come out of the river, were flopping higher on the islet. And those
+lights were changing color--from white to reddish-yellow.
+
+Rynch scrabbled with one hand in a rock crevice, found a stone he had
+noted earlier. He hurled that at the cluster of lights. There was a
+puff of brilliant red, one was gone. Something flopping on the rocks
+gave a mewling cry and somersaulted back into the water. Then a finger
+of mist drew between Rynch and the lights which were now only faint,
+glowing patches. He swung down from his perch, shook Hume awake.
+
+The Out-Hunter made that instant return to full consciousness which
+was another defense for the men who live long on the rim of wild
+worlds.
+
+"What--?"
+
+Rynch pulled him forward. The mist had thickened, but there were more
+of those ominous lights at water level, spreading down both sides of
+the point, forming a wall. Dark forms moved out of the water ahead of
+them, flopping on the rocks, pressing higher, towards the ledge where
+the men stood.
+
+"Those globes--I think they're moving in the river now." Rynch found
+another stone, took careful aim, and smashed a second one. "The
+needler has no effect on them," he reported. "Stones do--but I don't
+know why."
+
+They searched about them in the crevices for more ammunition, laying
+up a line of fist-sized rocks, while the lights gathered in, spreading
+farther and farther down the shores of the islet. Hume cried out
+suddenly, and aimed his ray tube below. The lance of its blast cut the
+dark as might a bolt of lightning.
+
+With a shrill squeal, a blot shadow detached from the slope
+immediately below them. A vile, musky scent, now mingled with the
+stench of burning flesh, set them coughing.
+
+"Water spider!" Hume identified. "If they are driving those out and up
+at...."
+
+He fumbled at his equipment belt and then tossed an object downward to
+disintegrate in a shower of fiery sparks. Wherever those sparks
+touched rock or ground they flared up in tall thin columns of fire,
+lighting up the nightmare on the rocks and up the ledges.
+
+Rynch fired the needler, Hume's ray tube flashed and flashed again.
+Things squealed, or grunted, or died silently, while clawing to reach
+the upper ledges. He could not be sure of the nature of some of those
+things. One, armed and clawed as the scavengers, was nearly as large
+as a water-cat. And a furry, man-legged creature, with a double-jawed
+head, bore also a ring of phosphorescent eyes set in a complete circle
+about its skull. They were alien life routed out of the water.
+
+"The lights--smash the lights!" Hume ordered.
+
+Rynch understood. The lights had driven these attackers out of the
+river. Put out the lights and the boiling broth of water dwellers
+might conceivably return to their homes. He dropped the needler, took
+up stones and set about the business of finishing off as many of the
+lights as he could.
+
+Hume fired into the crawling mass, pausing only once to send another
+of those flame bombs crashing to illuminate the scene. The water
+creatures bewildered, clumsy out of their element, were so far at his
+mercy. But their numbers, in spite of the piling dead, were still a
+dangerous threat.
+
+Rynch tore gapping holes in that line of lights. But he could see,
+through the mist, more floating sparks, gathering to take their
+places, perhaps herding before them more water things to attack.
+Except for those few gaps he had wrought, the islet was now completely
+enveloped.
+
+"Ahhhh--" Hume's voice arose in a roar of anger and defiance. He
+stabbed his ray down at a spot just below their ledge. A huge
+segmented, taloned leg kicked, caught on the edge of the stone at the
+level of their feet, twisted aloft again and was gone.
+
+"Up!" Hume ordered. "To the top!"
+
+Rynch caught up two handsful of stones, holding them to his chest with
+his left arm as he made a last cast to see one light puff out in
+answer. Then they both scrambled on to that small platform at the top
+of the islet. By the aid of the burning flame-torches the Hunter had
+set, they could see that most of the rocky slopes below them now
+squirmed with a horrible mass of water life.
+
+Where Hume had fired his ray there was fierce activity, as the living
+feasted on the slain and quarreled over the bounty. But from other
+quarters the crawling advance pressed on.
+
+"I have only one more flame flare," Hume stated.
+
+One more flare--then they would be in the dark with the mist hiding
+the forward-moving enemy.
+
+"I wonder if they are watching out there?" Rynch scowled into the
+dark.
+
+"They--or what sent them. They know what they are doing."
+
+"You mean they must have done this before?"
+
+"I think so. That L-B back there--it made a good landing, and there
+are supplies missing from its lockers."
+
+"Which you removed--" Rynch countered.
+
+"No. There might have been real castaways landed here. Not that we
+found any trace of them. Now I can guess why--"
+
+"But you Guild men were here, and you didn't run into this!"
+
+"I know." Hume sounded baffled. "Not a sign then."
+
+Rynch threw the last of his stones, heard it clink harmlessly against
+a rock. Hume balanced an object on the palm of his hand.
+
+"Last flare!"
+
+"What's that? Over there?"
+
+Rynch had sighted the flashing out of the dark from the river bank,
+making a pattern of flickers which bore no relation to the infernal
+lights at the water's edge.
+
+Hume's ray tube pointed skyward as he answered with a series of short
+bursts.
+
+"Take cover!" The call came weirdly out over the water, the tone
+dehumanized. Hume cupped his mouth with one hand, shouted back:
+
+"We're on top--no cover."
+
+"Then flatten down--we're blasting!"
+
+They flattened, lay almost in each other's arms, curled on that narrow
+space. Even through his closed eyelids Rynch caught the flash of
+vivid, man-made lightning crashing first on one side of the islet and
+then on the other, and sweeping every crawling horror out of life,
+into odorous ash. The backlash of that blast must have caught the
+majority of the lights also. For when Rynch and Hume cautiously sat
+up, they saw only a handful of widely scattered and dulling globes
+below.
+
+They choked, coughed, rubbed watering eyes as the fumes from the
+scorched rocks wreathed up about their perch.
+
+"Flitter with life line--above you!"
+
+That voice had come out of what should have been empty air over their
+heads. A gangling line trailed across their bodies, a line with a
+safety belt locked to it, and a second was uncoiling in a slow loop as
+they watched.
+
+In unison they grabbed for those means of escape, buckled the belts
+about them.
+
+"Haul away!" Hume called. The lines tightened, their bodies swung up
+clear of the blasted river island, as their unseen transport headed
+for the eastern shore.
+
+
+
+
+8
+
+
+A subdued but steady light all around him issued from stark gray
+walls. He lay on his back in an empty cell-room. And he'd better be on
+the move before Darfu comes to enforce a rising order with a powerful
+kick or one of these backhanded blows which the Salarkian used to
+reduce most humans to helpless obedience.
+
+Vye blinked again. But this wasn't his cubby hole at the Starfall, his
+nose as well as his eyes told him that. There was no hint of
+uncleanliness or corruption here. He sat up stiffly, looked down at
+his own body in dull wonder. The only covering on his bare, brown self
+was a wide, scaled belt and a loin cloth. Clumsy sandals shod his
+feet, and his legs, up to thigh level, were striped with healing
+scratches and blotched with bruises.
+
+Painfully, with mental processes as stiff as his arms and his legs, he
+tried to think back. Sluggishly, memory associated one picture with
+another.
+
+Last night--or yesterday--Rynch Brodie had been locked in here. And
+"here" was one of the storage compartments of a spacer belonging to a
+man named Wass. It had been Wass' pilot in the flitter which snaked
+them from the river islet where the monsters had besieged them.
+
+This was a concealed, fortified camp--Wass' hideout. And he was a
+prisoner with a very uncertain future, depending upon the will of the
+Veep and a man named Hume.
+
+Hume, the Out-Hunter, had shown no surprise when Wass stood up in the
+lamplight to greet the rescued. "I see you have been hunting." His
+eyes had moved from Hume to Rynch and back again.
+
+"Yes--but that does not matter!" the Hunter had returned impatiently.
+
+"No? Then what does?"
+
+"This is not a free world, I have to report that. Get my civs off
+planet before something happens to them!"
+
+"I thought all safari worlds were certified as free," Wass countered.
+
+"This one isn't. I don't know how or why. But that fact has to be
+reported and the civs lifted--"
+
+"Not so fast." Wass' voice had been quiet, almost gentle. "Such a
+report would interest the Patrol, would it not?"
+
+"Of course--" Hume began and then stopped abruptly.
+
+Wass smiled. "You see--complications already. I do not wish to explain
+anything to the Patrol. Nor do you either, my young friend, not when
+you stop to think about what might result from such explanations."
+
+"There wouldn't have been any trouble if you'd kept away from Jumala."
+Hume's control had returned; both voice and manner were under tight
+rein. "Weren't Rovald's reports explicit enough to satisfy you?"
+
+"I have risked a great deal on this project," Wass replied. "Also, it
+is well from time to time for a Veep to check upon his field
+operatives. Men do not grow careless when personal supervision is ever
+in mind. And it is well that I did arrive here, is it not, Hunter? Or
+would you have preferred remaining on that island? Whether any of our
+project may be salvaged is a point we must consider. But for the
+moment we make no moves. No, Hume, your civs will have to take their
+chances for a time."
+
+"And if there is trouble?" Hume challenged him. "A report of an alien
+attack will bring in the Patrol quickly enough."
+
+"You forget Rovald," Wass corrected. "The chance that one of your civs
+can activate and transmit from the spacer is remote, and Rovald will
+see that it is impossible. You have picked up Brodie, I see."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"No!" What had possessed him at that moment to contradict? He had
+realized the folly of his outburst the moment Wass had looked at him.
+
+"This becomes more interesting," the Veep had remarked with that
+deceptive gentleness. "You are Rynch Brodie, castaway from the Largo
+Drift, are you not? I trust that Out-Hunter Hume has made plain to you
+our concern with your welfare, Gentlehomo Brodie."
+
+"I'm not Brodie." Having taken the leap into the dangerous truth he
+was stubborn enough to continue swimming.
+
+"I find this enlightening indeed. If you are not Brodie--then who are
+you?"
+
+That had been it. At that moment he couldn't have told Wass who he
+was, explain that his patchwork of memories had gaping holes.
+
+"And you, Out-Hunter," Wass' reptilian regard had moved again to Hume,
+"perhaps you have an adequate explanation for this discovery."
+
+"None of his doing," he burst out, "I remembered--"
+
+Some inexplicable emotion made Rynch defend Hume then.
+
+Hume laughed, and there was a reckless edge to that sound. "Yes, Wass,
+your techs are not as good as they pretend to be. He didn't follow the
+pattern of action they set for him."
+
+"A pity. But there are always errors when one deals with the human
+factor. Peake!" One of the other three men moved towards them. "You
+will escort this young man to the spacer, see him safely stowed for
+the present. Yes, a pity. Now we must see just how much can be
+salvaged."
+
+Then Vye had been brought into the shop, supplied with a ration
+container, and left to himself within this bare-walled cabin to
+meditate upon the folly of talking too freely. Why had he been so
+utterly stupid? Veeps of Wass' calibre did not swim through the murky
+channels of the Starfall, but their general breed had smaller but just
+as vicious representatives there, and he knew the man for what he was,
+ruthless, powerful and thorough.
+
+A sound, slight, but easily heard in the silent vacuum of the storage
+cabin, alerted him. The crack of the sliding panel door opened and Vye
+crouched, his hand cupping the only possible weapon, the ration
+container. Hume edged through, shut the door behind him. He stood
+there, his head turned so his ear rested against the wall; obviously
+he was listening.
+
+"You brain-smoothed idiot!" The Hunter's voice was a thread of
+whisper. "Why couldn't you have kept that swinging jaw of yours closed
+last night? Now listen and listen good. This is a slim try, but it's
+one we have to take."
+
+"We?" Vye was startled into asking.
+
+"Yes, we! By rights I ought to leave you right here to do the rest of
+your big, brave speechmaking for Wass' benefit. If I didn't need you,
+that's just what I would do! If it weren't for those civs--" His head
+snapped back, cheek to panel, he was listening again. After a long
+moment his whisper came once more. "I don't have time to repeat this.
+In about five minutes Peake'll be here with rations. I'll leave this
+door unlatched. There's another storage cabin across the corridor--see
+if you can hide there, then trick him into getting in here and lock
+him in. Got it?"
+
+Vye nodded.
+
+"Then--make for the exit port. Here." He snapped a packet loose from
+his belt. "This is a flare pak, you saw how they worked on the island.
+When you get on the ramp beyond the atom lamp, throw this. It should
+hit the camp force barrier. And the result ought to hold their
+attention. Then you head for the flitter. Understand?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+The flitter, yes, that was the perfect escape. With a camp force
+barrier on, any fugitive could only break out by going straight up.
+
+Hume gazed at him soberly, listened once more, and then went. Vye
+counted a slow five before he followed. The cabin across the corridor
+was open, just as Hume had promised. He slipped inside, waited.
+
+Peake was coming now, the metallic plates on his spaceboots clicking
+in regular pattern of sound. He earned another ration container and
+crooked it in his arm as he snapped up the lock bar on the other
+cabin.
+
+There was an exclamation of surprise. Vye went into action. His hand,
+backed by all the strength of his thrusting arm, thumped between
+Peake's shoulders, sending him staggering into the prison compartment.
+Before the other could recover either his balance or his wits, Vye had
+the panel shut, the bar locked into place.
+
+He ran down the corridor to the well ladder, swung down its rungs with
+an agility born of necessity. Then he was in the air lock, getting his
+bearings. The flitter stood to his left, the flashing atom lamp, where
+the men were gathered, to his right.
+
+Vye stepped out on the ramp. He wiped his sweating hand across his
+thigh. There had to be no failures in the tossing of the flare pak.
+
+Choosing a spot, not directly in line with the lamp but near enough to
+dazzle the men, he hurled it with all the force he could muster. Then
+he was running down the ramp, forward to the area of the ship.
+
+There was a flash--shouting--Vye curbed the impulse to look back,
+darted for the flitter. He jerked open the cabin compartment,
+scrambled into the cramped space behind the pilot's seat, leaving that
+free for Hume's quick entrance. More shouting--now he saw the lines of
+fire wavering from earth to sky along the barrier.
+
+A black shape put on a burst of speed, was silhouetted against that
+flaming wall, then passed the spacer, grabbed at the open cockpit, and
+slid in behind the controls. Hume pulled the levers with flying
+fingers. They arose vertically at a pace which practically slapped
+Vye's stomach up into the lower regions of his throat.
+
+The searing line of at least one blaster reached after them--too
+slowly, too low. He heard Hume grunt, and they again leaped higher.
+Then the Hunter spoke:
+
+"Half an hour at the most--"
+
+"The safari camp?
+
+"Yes."
+
+They no longer climbed. The flitter was boring forwards on a
+projectile flight, into the dark of the night.
+
+"What're those?" Vye suddenly leaned forward.
+
+Had some of the stars across the space void broken free from their
+fixed orbits? Flecks of light, moving in an arc, headed towards the
+speeding flitter.
+
+Hume hit a button. Again they arose in a violent leap above those
+wandering lights. But ahead on this new level more such dots flocked,
+moving fast to close in on the flyer.
+
+"A straight ram course," Hume muttered, more to himself than Vye.
+
+Again the flyer drove forward in a rising thrust of speed. Then the
+smooth purr of the propulsion unit faltered, broke into protesting
+coughs. Hume worked over the controls, beads of sweat showing on his
+forehead and cheek in the gleam of the cabin light.
+
+"Deading--deading out!"
+
+He brought the flitter around in a wide circle, the purr smoothed out
+once more in a steady reassuring beat.
+
+"Out run them!"
+
+But Vye feared they were back again on the losing side of a struggle
+with the unknown alien power. As they had been herded along the river,
+so now they were being pushed across the sky, towards the mountains.
+The enemy had followed them aloft!
+
+Some core of stubborn will in Hume would not yet allow him to admit
+that. Time and time again he climbed higher--always to meet climbing,
+twisting, spurting lines of lights which reacted on the engine of the
+flitter and threatened it with complete failure.
+
+Where they were now in relation to Wass' camp or that of the safari,
+Vye had no idea, and he guessed that Hume could not be too certain.
+
+Hume switched on the flitter's com unit, tried a channel search until
+he picked up a click of signal--the automatic reply of the safari
+camp. His fingertip beat out in return the danger warning, then the
+series of code sounds to give an edited version of what must be
+guarded against.
+
+"Wass has a man in your camp. His skin is in just as much danger as
+the rest. He may not relay it to the Patrol, but he'll keep the force
+barrier up and the civs inside--anything else would be malicious
+neglect and a murder charge when the Guild check tape goes in. This
+call is on the spacer tape now and will be a part of that--he can't
+possibly alter such a report and he knows it. This is the best we can
+do now--"
+
+"We're close to the mountains, aren't we?"
+
+"Do you know much about this part of the country?" Vye persisted.
+Hume's knowledge might be their only hope.
+
+"Flew over the range twice. Nothing to see."
+
+"But there has to be something there."
+
+"If there is, it didn't show up during our survey." Hume's voice was
+dull with fatigue.
+
+"You're a Guild man, you've dealt with alien life forms before--"
+
+"The Guild doesn't deal with intelligent aliens. That's X-Tee Patrol
+business. We don't land on any planet with unknown intelligent life
+forms. Why should we court trouble--couldn't run a safari in under
+those conditions. X-Tee certified Jumala as a wild world, our survey
+confirmed that."
+
+"Someone or something landed here after you left?"
+
+"I don't believe so. This is too well organized an action. And since
+we have a satellite guard in space, any ship landing would be taped
+and recorded. No such record appeared on the Guild screens. One small
+spacer--such as Wass'--could slip through by knowing procedure--just
+as he did. But to land all those beasts and equipment they'd need a
+regular transport. No--this must be native." Hume leaned forward
+again, flipped a switch.
+
+A small red light answered on the central board.
+
+"Radar warn-off," he explained.
+
+So they wouldn't end up smeared against some cliff face anyway. Which
+was only small comfort amid terrifying possibilities.
+
+Hume had taken the precaution just in time. The light blinked faster,
+and the speed of the flyer was checked as the automatic control
+triggered by the warn-off came into command. Hume's hands were still
+on the board, but a system of relays put safety devices into action
+with a speed past that which a human pilot could initiate.
+
+They were descending and had to accept that, since the warn-off,
+operating for the sake of the passengers, had ruled that move best.
+The directive would glide the flitter to the best available landing.
+It was only moments before the shock gear did touch surface. Then the
+engine was silent.
+
+"This is it," Hume observed.
+
+"What do we do now?" Vye wanted to know.
+
+"Wait--"
+
+"Wait! For what?"
+
+Hume consulted his planet-time watch in the light of the cabin.
+
+"We have about an hour until dawn--if dawn arrives here at the same
+time it does in the plains. I don't propose to go out blindly in the
+dark."
+
+Which made sense. Except that to sit here, quietly, in their cramped
+quarters, not knowing what might be waiting outside, was an ordeal Vye
+found increasingly harder to bear. Maybe Hume guessed his discomfort,
+maybe he was following routine procedure. But he turned, thumbed open
+one of the side panels in Vye's compartment, and dug out the emergency
+supplies.
+
+
+
+
+9
+
+
+They sorted the crash rations into small packs. A blanket of the
+water-resistant, feather-heavy Ozakian spider silk was cut into a
+protective covering for Vye. That piece of tailoring occupied them
+until the graying sky permitted them a full picture of the pocket in
+which the flitter had landed. The dark foliage of the mountain growth
+was broken here by a ledge of dark-blue stone on which the flyer
+rested.
+
+To the right was a sheer drop, and a land slip had cut away the ledge
+itself a few feet behind the flitter. There was only a steadily
+narrowing path ahead, slanting upward.
+
+"Can we take off again?" Vye hoped to be reassured that such a feat
+was possible.
+
+"Look up!"
+
+Vye backed against the cliff wall, stared up at the sky. Well above
+them those globes still swam in unwearied circles, commanding the air
+lanes.
+
+Hume had cautiously approached the outer rim of the ledge, was using
+his distance glasses to scan what might lie below.
+
+"No sign yet."
+
+Vye knew what he meant. The globes were overhead, but the blue beasts,
+or any other fauna those balls might summon, had not yet appeared.
+
+Shouldering their packs they started along the ledge. Hume had his ray
+tube, but Vye was weaponless, unless somewhere along their route he
+could pick up some defensive and offensive arm. Stones had burst the
+lights of the islet, they might prove as effective against the blue
+beasts. He kept watch for any of the proper size and weight.
+
+The ledge narrowed, one shoulder scraped the cliff now as they
+rounded a pinnacle to lose sight of the flitter. But the globes
+continued to hover over them.
+
+"We are still traveling in the direction they want," Vye speculated.
+
+Hume had gone to hands and knees to negotiate an ascent so steep he
+had to search for head and toe holds. When they were safely past that
+point they took a breather, and Vye glanced aloft again. Now the sky
+was empty.
+
+"We may have arrived, or are about to do so," said Hume.
+
+"Where?"
+
+Hume shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine. And both of us can be
+wrong."
+
+The steep ascent did not quite reach the top of the cliff around the
+face of which the ledge curled. Instead their path now leveled off and
+began to widen out so that they could walk with more confidence. Then
+it threaded into a crevice between two towering rock walls and sloped
+downward.
+
+A path unnaturally smooth, Vye thought, as if shaped to funnel
+wayfarers on. And they came out on the rim of a valley, a valley
+centered with a wood-encircled lake. They stepped from the rock of the
+passage onto a springy turf which gave elastically to their tread.
+
+Vye's sandal struck a round stone. It started from its bed in the
+black-green vegetation, turned over so that round pits stared
+eyelessly up at him. He was faced by the fleshless grin of a human
+skull.
+
+Hume went down on one knee, examined the ground growth, gingerly
+lifted the lace of vertebrae forming a spine. That ended in a crushed
+break which he studied briefly before he laid the bones gently back
+into the concealing cover of the mossy stuff.
+
+"That was done by teeth!"
+
+The cup of green valley had not changed, it was the same as it had
+been when they had emerged from the crevice. But now every clump of
+trees, every wind-rippled mound of brush promised cover.
+
+Vye moistened his lips, diverted his eyes from the skull.
+
+"Weathered," Hume said slowly, "must have been here for seasons, maybe
+planet years."
+
+"A survivor from the L-B?" Yet this spot lay days of travel from that
+clearing back in the plains.
+
+"How did he get here?"
+
+"Probably the same way we would have, had we not holed up on that
+river island."
+
+Driven! Perhaps the lone human on Jumala herded up into this dead-end
+valley by the globes or the blue beasts. "This process must have been
+in action for some time."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I can give you two reasons." Hume studied the nearest trees narrowly.
+"First--for some purpose, whatever we are up against wants all
+interlopers moved out of the lowlands into this section, either to
+imprison them, or to keep them under surveillance. Second--" He
+hesitated.
+
+Vye's own imagination supplied a second reason, a revolting one he
+tried to deny to himself even as he put it into words:
+
+"That broken spine--food...." Vye wanted Hume to contradict him, but
+the Hunter only glanced around, his expression already sufficient
+answer.
+
+"Let's get out of here!" Vye was fighting down panic with every ounce
+of control he could summon, trying not to bolt for the crevice. But he
+knew he could not force himself any farther into that sinister valley.
+
+"If we can!" Hume's words lingered direly in his ears.
+
+Stones had smashed the globes by the river. If they still waited out
+there Vye was willing to try and break them with his bare hands,
+should escape demand such action. Hume must have agreed with those
+thoughts, he was already taking long strides back to the cliff
+entrance.
+
+But that door was closed. Hume's foot, raised for the last step toward
+the crevice corridor, struck an invisible obstruction. He reeled back,
+clutching at Vye's shoulder.
+
+"Something's there!"
+
+The younger man put out his hand questingly. What his fingers
+flattened against was not a tight, solid surface, but rather an unseen
+elastic curtain which gave a little under his prodding and then drew
+taut again.
+
+Together they explored by touch what they could not see. The crevice
+through which they had entered was now closed with a curtain they
+could not pierce or break. Hume tried his ray tube. They watched thin
+flame run up and down that invisible barrier, but not destroy it.
+
+Hume relooped the tube. "Their trap is sprung."
+
+"There may be another way out!" But Vye was already despondently sure
+there was not. Those who had rigged this trap would leave no bolt
+holes. But because they were human and refused to accept the
+inevitable without a fight, the captives set off, not down into the
+curve of the cup, but along its slope.
+
+Tongues of brush and tree clumps brought about detours which forced
+them slowly downward. They were well away from the crevice when Hume
+halted, flung up a hand in silent warning. Vye listened, trying to
+pick up the sound which had alarmed his companion.
+
+It was as Vye strained to catch a betraying noise that he was first
+conscious of what he did not hear. In the plains there had been
+squeaking, humming, chitterings, the vocalizing of myriad grass
+dwellers. Here, except for the sighing of the wind and a few insect
+sounds--nothing. All inhabitants bigger than a Jumalan fly might have
+long ago been routed out of the land.
+
+"To the left." Hume faced about.
+
+There was a heavy thicket there, too stoutly grown for anything to be
+within its shadow. Whatever moved must be behind it.
+
+Vye looked about him frantically for anything he could use as a
+weapon. Then he grabbed at the long bush knife in Hume's belt sheath.
+Eighteen inches of tri-fold steel gleamed wickedly, its hilt fitting
+neatly into his fist as he held it point up, ready.
+
+Hume advanced on the bush in small steps, and Vye circled to his left
+a few paces behind. The Hunter was an expert with ray tube; that, too,
+was part of the necessary skill of a safari leader. But Vye could
+offer other help.
+
+He shrugged out of the blanket pack he had been carrying on his back,
+tossed that burden ahead.
+
+Out of cover charged a streak of red, to land on the bait. Hume
+blasted, was answered by a water-cat's high-pitched scream. The feline
+writhed out of its life in a stench of scorched fur and flesh. As Vye
+retrieved his clawed pack Hume stood over the dead animal.
+
+"Odd." He reached down to grasp a still twitching foreleg, stretched
+the body out with a sudden jerk.
+
+It was a giant of its species, a male, larger than any he had seen.
+But a second look showed him those ribs starting through mangy fur in
+visible hoops, the skin tight over the skull, far too tight. The
+water-cat had been close to death by starvation; its attack on the men
+probably had been sparked by sheer desperation. A starving carnivore
+in a land lacking the normal sounds of small birds and animal life, in
+a valley used as a trap.
+
+"No way out and no food." Vye fitted one thought to another out loud.
+
+"Yes. Pin the enemy up, let them finish off one another."
+
+"But why?" Vye demanded.
+
+"Least trouble that way."
+
+"There are plenty of water-cats down on the plains. All of them
+couldn't be herded up here to finish each other off; it would take
+years--centuries."
+
+"This one's capture may have been only incidental, or done for the
+purpose of keeping some type of machinery in working order," Hume
+replied. "I don't believe this was arranged just to dispose of
+water-cats."
+
+"Suppose this was started a long time ago, and those who did it are
+gone, so now it goes on working without any real intelligence behind
+it. That could be the answer, couldn't it?"
+
+"Some process triggers into action when a ship sets down on this
+portion of Jumala, maybe when one planet's under certain conditions
+only? Yes, that makes sense. Only why wasn't the first Patrol explorer
+flaming in here caught? And the survey team--we were here for months,
+cataloguing, mapping, not a whisper of any such trouble."
+
+"That dead man--he's been here a long time. And when did the Largo
+Drift disappear?"
+
+"Five--six years ago. But I can't give you any answers. I have none."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It began as a low hum, hardly to be distinguished from the distant
+howling of the wind. Then it slid up scale until the thin wail became
+an ululating scream torturing the ears, dragging out of hiding those
+fears of a man confronting the unknown in the dark.
+
+Hume tugged at Vye, drew the other by force back into the brush.
+Scratched, laced raw by the whip of branches, they stood in a small
+hollow with the drift of leaves high about their ankles. And the
+Hunter pulled into place the portions of growth they had dislodged in
+their passage into the thicket's heart. Through gaps they could see
+the opening where lay the body of the water-cat.
+
+The wail was cut off short, that cessation in itself a warning. Vye's
+body, touching earth with knee and hand as he crouched, picked up a
+vibration. Whatever came towards them walked heavily.
+
+Did the smell of death draw it now? Or had it trailed them from the
+closed gate? Hume's breath hissed lightly between his teeth. He was
+sighting the ray tube through a leaf gap.
+
+A snuffling, heavier than a man's panting. A vast blot, which was
+neither clearly paw nor hand, swept aside leaves and branches on the
+other side of the small clearing, tearing them casually from the
+shrubs.
+
+What shuffled into the open might be a cousin of the blue beasts. But
+where they had given only an impression of brutal menace, this was
+savagery incarnate. Taller than Hume, but hunched forward in its
+neckless outline, the thing was a monster. And over the round of the
+lower jaw, tusks protruded in ugly promise.
+
+Being carnivorous and hungry, it scooped up the body of the water-cat
+and fed without any prolonged ceremony. Vye, remembering the crushed
+spine of the human skeleton, was sickened.
+
+Done, it reared on hind feet once again, the pear-shaped head swung in
+their direction. Vye was half certain he had seen that tube-nose
+expand to test the air and scent them.
+
+Hume pressed the button of the ray tube. That soundless spear of death
+struck in midsection of that barrel body. The thing howled, threw
+itself in a mad forward rush at their bush. Hume snapped a second
+blast at the head, and the fuzz covering it blackened.
+
+Missing them by a precious foot, the creature crashed straight on
+through the thicket, coming to its knees, writhing in a rising chorus
+of howls. The men broke out of cover, raced into the open where they
+took refuge behind a chimney of rock half detached from the parent
+cliff. Down the slope the bushes were still wildly agitated.
+
+"What was that?" Vye got out between sobbing breaths.
+
+"Maybe a guardian, or a patrol stationed to dispose of any catch.
+Probably not alone, either." Hume fingered his ray tube. "And I am
+down to one full charge--just one."
+
+Vye turned the knife he held around in his fingers, tried to imagine
+how one could face up to one of those tusked monsters with only this
+for a weapon. But if that thing had companions, none were coming in
+answer to its dying wails. And after it had been quiet for a while
+Hume motioned them out of hiding.
+
+"From now on we'll keep to the open, better see trouble like that
+before it arrives. And I want to find a place to hole up for the
+night."
+
+They trailed along the steep upper slope and in time found a place
+where a now dried stream had once formed a falls. The empty
+watercourse provided an overhang, not quite a cave, but shelter.
+Gathering brush and stones, they made a barricade and settled behind
+it to eat sparingly of their rations.
+
+"Water--a whole lake of it down there. The worst of it is that a water
+supply in a dry country is just where hunters congregate. That lake's
+entirely walled in by woodland and provides cover for a thousand
+ambushes."
+
+"We might find a way out before our water bulbs fail," Vye offered.
+
+Hume did not answer directly. "A man can live for quite a while on
+very thin rations, and we have tablets from the flitter emergency
+supplies. But he can't live long without water. We have two bulbs.
+With stretching that is enough for two days--maybe three."
+
+"We ought to get completely around the cliffs in another day."
+
+"And if we do find a way out, which I doubt, we're still going to need
+water for the trek out. It's right down there waiting until our need
+is greater than either our fear or our cunning."
+
+Vye moved impatiently, his blanket-clad shoulders scraping the rock at
+their backs. "You don't think we have a chance!"
+
+"We aren't dead. And as long as a man is breathing, and on his feet,
+with all his wits in his skull, he always has a chance. I've blasted
+off-world with odds stacked high on the other side of the board." He
+flexed that plasta-flesh hand which was so nearly human and yet not by
+the fraction which had changed the course of his life. "I've lived on
+the edge of the big blackout for a long time now--after a while you
+can get used to anything."
+
+"One thing I would like--to get at the one who set this trap,"
+commented Vye.
+
+Hume laughed with dry humor. "After me, boy, after me. But I think we
+might have to wait a long time for that meeting."
+
+
+
+
+10
+
+
+Vye crawled weakly from the area of a rock outcrop. The sun, reflected
+from the cliff side, was a lash of fire across his emaciated body. His
+swollen tongue moved a pebble back and forth in his dry mouth. He
+stared dimly down the slope to that beckoning platter of water open
+under the sun, rimmed with the deadly woodland.
+
+What had happened? They had gone to sleep that first night under the
+ledge of the dried waterfall. And all of the next day was only a haze
+to him now. They must have moved on, though he could remember nothing,
+save Hume's odd behavior--dull-eyed silence while stumbling on as a
+brainless servio-robot, incoherent speech wherein all the words came
+fast, running together unintelligibly. And for himself--patches of
+blackout.
+
+At some time they had come to the cave and Hume had collapsed, not
+rousing in answer to any of Vye's struggles to awaken him. How long
+they had been there Vye could not tell now. He had the fear of being
+left alone in this place. With water perhaps Hume could be returned to
+consciousness, but that was all gone.
+
+Vye believed he could scent the lake, that every breeze up slope
+brought its compelling enticement. Just in case Hume might awake to a
+state of semi-consciousness and wander off, Vye tethered him with
+blanket bonds.
+
+Vye fingered Hume's knife, which had been painstakingly lashed to a
+trimmed shaft of wood. Since he had emerged from that clouding of mind
+which still gripped the Hunter, he had done what he could to prepare
+for another attack from any roving beast. And he also had Hume's ray
+tube--its single charge to be used only in dire need.
+
+Water! His cracked lips moved, ejected the pebble. Their four empty
+water bulbs were in the front of his blanket tunic, pressing against
+his ribs. It was now--or die, because soon he would be too weak to
+make the attempt at all. He darted for the first stand of bush
+downhill.
+
+As the brooding silence of the valley continued, he reached the edge
+of the wood unhindered, intent on his mission with a concentration
+which shut out everything save his need and the manner of satisfying
+it.
+
+He squatted in the bush, eyeing the length of woodland ahead. Then he
+tried the only action he had been able to think out. That beast Hume
+had killed had been too heavy to swing up in trees. But Vye's own
+weight now did not prohibit that form of travel.
+
+With spear and ray tube firmly attached to him, Vye climbed into the
+first tree. A slim chance--but his only defense against a possible
+ambush. A wild outward swing brought him, heart-thudding, to the next
+set of limbs. Then he had a piece of luck, a looped vine tied together
+a whole group of branches from one treetop to the next.
+
+Hand grips, balance, sometimes a walk along a branch--he threaded
+towards the lake. Then he came to a gap. With hands laced into
+tendrils, Vye hunched to look down on a beaten ribbon of gray earth--a
+trail well used by the evidence of its pounded surface.
+
+That area had to be crossed on foot, but his passage through the brush
+below would leave traces. Only--there was no other way. Vye checked
+the lashings of his weapons again before leaping. Almost in the same
+instant his sandals hit the packed earth he was running. His palms
+skinned raw on rough bark as he somehow scrambled aloft once more.
+
+No more vines, but broad limbs shooting well out. He dropped from one
+to another-stopped for breath--listened.
+
+The dark gloom of the wood was broken by sunlight. He was at the final
+ring of trees. To get to the water he must descend again. A dead trunk
+extended over the water. If he could run out on that and lower the
+bulb, it could work.
+
+Eerie silence. No flying things, no tree dwelling reptiles or animals,
+no disturbance of any water creature on the unruffled surface of the
+lake. Yet the sensation of life, inimical life, lurking in the depths
+of the wood, under the water, bore in upon him.
+
+Vye made the light leap to the bole of the dead tree, balanced out on
+it over the water, moving slowly as the trunk settled a little under
+his weight. He hunkered down, brought out the first bulb tied fast to
+a blanket string.
+
+The water of the river had been brown, opaque. But here the liquid was
+not so cloudy. He could see snags of dead branches below its surface.
+
+And something else!
+
+Down in those turgid depths he made out a straight ridge running with
+a trueness of line which could not be nature's unassisted product.
+That ridge joined another in a squared corner. He leaned over,
+strained his eyes to follow through the murk the farther extent of
+those two ridges. Looked along both pointed protuberances aimed at the
+surfaces of the lake, like fangs in an open jaw. Down there was
+something--something artificially fashioned which might be the answer
+to all their questions. But to venture into the lake himself--he could
+not do it! If he could bring the Out-Hunter to his senses the other
+might find the solution to this puzzle.
+
+Vye filled his bulbs, working speedily, but still studying what he
+could see of the strange erection under the lake. He thought it was
+curiously free of silt, and its color, as far as he could distinguish,
+allowing for the dark hue of the water, was light gray--perhaps even
+white. He lowered his last bulb.
+
+Down in the bleached forest of dead branches, well to one side of the
+mysterious walls, there was movement, a slow rolling of a shadow so
+hidden by a stirring of bottom mud that Vye could not make out its
+true form. But it was rising to the bulb.
+
+Vye hated to lose a single precious drop. Once he might have the luck
+to make this journey unmolested, a second time the odds could be too
+high.
+
+A flash--the slowly rising shadow was transformed into a whizzing
+spear of attack. Vye snapped the bulb out of the water just as a
+nightmarish, armored head arose on a whiplash of coiled, scaled neck,
+and a blunt nose thudded against the tree trunk with a hollow boom.
+Vye clung to his perch as the thing flopped back into deeper water
+from a froth of beaten foam, leaving a patch of odorous scum and slime
+to bracelet the waterlogged wood.
+
+He ran for the shelter of the trees to get away. This time there was
+no rear, no thump of feet in warning. Out of the ground itself, or so
+it seemed to Vye's startled terror, reared one of the tusked beasts.
+To reach his tree and its dubious safety he had to wind past that
+chimera. And the creature waited with a semblance of ease for him to
+come to it.
+
+Vye brought around his spear. The length of the haft might afford him
+a fighting chance if he could send the point home in some vulnerable
+spot. Yet he knew that the beasts were hard to kill.
+
+The mouth opened in a wide grin of menace. Vye noted a telltale
+tightening of shoulder muscles. It was going to rush for him now with
+those clawed forepaws out to rip.
+
+To wait was to court disaster. Vye shouted, his battle cry piercing
+the silence of the lake and wood. He sprang, aiming the spear point at
+the beast's protuberant belly, and then swerved to the side as the
+knife bit home, raking his weapon to open a gaping wound.
+
+The spear was jerked from Vye's hold as both those taloned paws closed
+on it. Then the creature pulled it free, snapped the haft in two. Vye
+fired a short blast from the ray tube before it could turn on him, saw
+fur-fuzz afire, as he ran for the tree.
+
+Beneath its branches he looked back. The beast was pawing at the
+burning fur on its head, and he had perhaps a second or two. He jumped
+and his fingers caught on the low hanging branch, then he made a
+superhuman effort, was up out of the path of the thing which rushed
+blindly for the tree, shrieking in frenzied complaint.
+
+The huge body crashed against the trunk with force which nearly shook
+Vye from his hold. As the giant forepaws belabored the wood, strove to
+lift the body from the ground, Vye worked his way out on another
+branch. In the end it was the shaking of that limb under him which
+aided his swing to the next tree. And from there he traveled
+recklessly, intent only on getting out of the woods as fast as he
+could.
+
+By the noise the beast was still assaulting the tree, and Vye marveled
+at its vitality, for the belly wound would long ago have killed any
+creature he knew. Whether it could trace his flight aloft, or whether
+its howls would bring more of its kind, he could not guess, but every
+second he could gain was all important now.
+
+At the gap over the trail he hesitated. That path ran in the direction
+of the open, and to go on foot meant the possibility of greater speed.
+Vye slipped from the bough, hit the ground, and ran. His ragged
+lungsful of air came in great gasps and he doubted if he could take
+the exertion of more tree travel now. He raced down the path.
+
+Those mewling cries were louder, he was sure of it. Now he heard the
+thump of the beast's blundering pursuit behind him. But its bulk and
+hurts slowed it. In the open he could find cover behind a rock, use
+the ray again.
+
+The trees began to thin. Vye summoned power for a last burst of speed,
+came out of the shadow of the wood as might a dart expelled from a
+needler. Before him, up slope, was the closed door of the valley. And
+moving in from the left was another of the blue beasts.
+
+He could not retreat to the trees. But the newcomer was moving with
+the same ponderous self-confidence its fellow had shown earlier. Vye
+dodged right, headed for the rocks by the gap. As he pulled himself
+into that temporary fortification, the wounded beast dragged out of
+the woods below. He thought it was blind, yet some instinct drove it
+after him.
+
+Shaking from fatigue, Vye steadied his forearm on the top of the rock,
+brought up the ray tube. Less than two yards away now was the
+deceptively open mouth of the gap. If he threw himself at that, would
+the elasticity of the unseen curtain hurl him back into the claws of
+the enemy?
+
+He fired his blast at the head of the unwounded beast. It screeched,
+threw out its arms, and one of those paws struck against its wounded
+fellow. With a cry, that one flung itself at its companion in the
+hunt, and they tangled in a body-to-body battle terrible in its utter
+ferocity. Vye edged along the cliff determined to reach the cave and
+Hume. And the two blue things seemed intent on finishing each other
+off.
+
+The one from the wood was done, the fangs of the other ripping out its
+throat. Tearing viciously the victor made sure of its kill, then its
+seared head came up, swung about to face Vye. He guessed it was aware
+of his movements whether it could see or not.
+
+But he was not prepared for the speed of its attacking lunge.
+Heretofore the creatures had given the impression of brute strength
+rather than agility. And he had been almost fatally deceived. He
+jumped backwards, knowing he must elude that attack, for he could not
+survive hand-to-hand combat with the alien thing.
+
+There was a moment of dazed disorientation, a weird sensation of
+falling through unstable space in which there had never been and never
+would be firm footing again. He was rolling across rock--outside the
+curtain of the gap.
+
+He sat up, the feeling of being adrift in unmeasurable nothingness
+making him sick, to watch mistily as the blue beast came to a halt.
+Whimpering it turned, but before it reached the level of the woods, it
+sagged to its knees, fell face forward and was still, a destructive
+machine no longer controlled by life.
+
+Vye tried to understand what had happened. He had somehow broken
+through that barrier which made the valley a prison. For a moment all
+that mattered was his freedom. Then he looked apprehensively behind
+him along the road to the open, more than half expecting to see a
+gathering of the globes, or of the less impressive lowland beasts that
+acted as herders. But there was nothing.
+
+Freedom! He dragged himself to his feet. Free to go! He slipped Hume's
+ray tube back into his belt. Hume was still in the valley!
+
+Vye rubbed his shaking hands across his face. Through the barrier and
+free--but Hume was back there, without a weapon, defenseless against
+any questing beast able to nose him out. Sickly, without water and
+protection, he was a dead man even while he still breathed.
+
+Keeping one hand against the wall of the gap in support, Vye started
+to walk, not out of the gap towards the distant lowlands, but back
+into the valley, forcing himself to that by his will alone and
+screaming inside against such suicidal folly. He put out his hand
+tentatively when he reached the two points of rock where that curtain
+had hung. There was no obstruction--the barrier was down! He must get
+back to Hume.
+
+Still keeping his wall hold, Vye lurched through the gate, was once
+more in the valley. He stood swaying, listening. But once again there
+was silence, not even the wind moved through trees or bushes. Placing
+one foot carefully before the other he went on towards Hume's cave.
+The haze which had clouded his thinking processes since that first
+morning's awakening in this bowl was gone now. Except for the physical
+weakness that weighted his body, he felt once more entirely alive and
+alert.
+
+Wriggling in the cave's entrance was the Hunter. He had freed the
+bonds Vye had put on his legs, but his hands were still tied. His
+face, grimy, sweat-covered, was turned up to the sunlight, and his
+eyes were again bright with reason.
+
+Vye found the strength to run the last few feet between them. He was
+fumbling with those ties about Hume's wrists as he blurted out the
+news. The barrier was out--they could go.
+
+Then he was bringing one of those precious bulbs, raising it to Hume's
+eager mouth, squeezing a portion of its contents between the man's
+cracked and bleeding lips.
+
+Somehow they made that trip back to the valley gate. When they saw
+their goal, Hume broke from Vye's hold, tottered forward with a cry
+not far removed from a sob. He rebounded to slip full length to the
+ground and lie there. Sobbing dryly, his gaunt face, eyes closed,
+turned up to the sky. The trap had snapped shut once again.
+
+"Why--why?" Vye found he was repeating the same words over and over,
+his gaze blank, unfocussed, yet turned to the woods of the lake.
+
+"Tell me what happened again."
+
+Vye's head came around. Hume had pulled himself up so that his
+shoulders rested against the rock wall. His plasta-hand was out-flung,
+slipping up and down what seemed empty air, but which was the barrier
+against freedom. And now his eyes seemed entirely sane.
+
+Slowly, hesitating between words, Vye went over the full account of
+his visit to the lake, his retreat before the beasts, his fortunate
+stumble through the gap.
+
+"But you came back."
+
+Vye flushed. He was not going to try to explain that. Instead he said:
+
+"If it went away once, it can again."
+
+Hume did not press the subject of his return. Rather he fastened upon
+the end of that action with the wounded beast, made Vye go through it
+verbally a third time.
+
+"There is just this," he said when the other was done. "When you fell
+you were not thinking of the barrier at all--and your wits were
+working again. You had come out of the daze we both had."
+
+Vye tried to remember, decided that the Hunter was correct. He had
+been trying to elude the charge of the beast, only, fear and that
+desperate desire had occupied his mind at that moment. But what did
+that signify?
+
+To test just what he did not know, he crawled now to Hume's side, put
+up his own hand to the space where the plasta-flesh palm slid back and
+forth on nothingness. But he almost fell on his face, forward into the
+gap. Where he had been expecting the resistance of the unseen curtain
+there had been nothing at all! He turned to Hume with the expression
+of a man who had been stunned by an unexpected blow.
+
+
+
+
+11
+
+
+"It is open for you!" Hume broke the quiet first. His eyes were very
+bleak in his bony face.
+
+Vye stood up, took one step and was on the other side of the curtain
+where Hume's hand still found substance. He came back with the same
+lack of hindrance. Yes, to him there was no longer a barrier. But
+why--why him when Hume was still a prisoner?
+
+The Hunter raised his head so his eyes could meet Vye's with the
+authority of an order. "Go, get away while you can!"
+
+Instead Vye dropped down beside the other. "Why?" he asked baldly. And
+then the most obvious of all answers came.
+
+He glanced at Hume. The Hunter's head lolled back against the rock
+which supported him, his eyes were closed now, and he had the look of
+a man who had been driven to the edge of endurance and was now willing
+to relinquish his grip and let go.
+
+Deliberately Vye brought up his right hand, balled his fingers into a
+fist. And just as deliberately he struck home, square on the point of
+that defenseless chin. Hume sagged, would have slipped down the
+surface of the rock had Vye's hands not caught in his armpits.
+
+Since he had not the strength left to get to his feet with such a
+burden, Vye crawled, dragging the inert body of the Hunter with him.
+And this time, as he had hoped, there was no resistance at the gap.
+Unconscious, Hume was able to cross the barrier. Vye stretched him as
+comfortably flat as he could, used a portion of their water on his
+face until he moaned, muttered, and raised his hand feebly to his
+head.
+
+Then those gray eyes opened, focussed on Vye.
+
+"What--"
+
+"We're both through now, both of us!" The younger man saw Hume glance
+around him with waking belief.
+
+"But how--?"
+
+"I knocked you out, that's how," Vye returned.
+
+"Knocked me out? I crossed when I was unconscious!" Hume's voice
+steadied, strengthened. "Let me see!" He rolled over on his side,
+threw out his arm, and this time the hand found no wall. For him, too,
+the barrier was gone.
+
+"Once through, you are free," he added wonderingly. "Maybe they never
+foresaw any escapes." He struggled up, sitting with his hands hanging
+loosely between his knees.
+
+Vye turned his head, looked down the trail. The length of distance
+lying between them and the safari camp now faced them with a new
+problem. Neither of them could make that trek on foot.
+
+"We're out, but we aren't back--yet," Hume echoed his thought.
+
+"I was wondering, if _this_ door is open--" Vye began.
+
+"The flitter!" Again Hume's mind matched his. "Yes, if those globes
+aren't hanging around just waiting for us to try."
+
+"They might act only to get us here, not to keep us once we're in."
+That might be wishful thinking, they wouldn't know until they tried to
+prove it.
+
+"Give me a hand." Hume held out his own, let Vye pull him to his feet.
+Weak as he was, he was clear-eyed, plainly clear-headed once more.
+"Let's go!"
+
+Together they went back through the gap, then tested the absence of
+the barrier once more, to make sure. Hume laughed. "At least the front
+door remains open, even if we find the back one closed."
+
+Vye left him sitting by that entrance while he made a quick trip to
+the cave to pick up the small pack of supplies left them. When he
+returned they crammed tablets into their mouths, drank feverishly of
+the lake water, and, with the stimulation of the new energy, set off
+along the cliff face.
+
+"This wall in the lake," Hume asked suddenly, "you are sure it is
+artificial?"
+
+"Runs too straight to be anything else, and those projections are
+evenly spaced. I don't see how it could be natural."
+
+"We'll have to be sure."
+
+Vye thought of that attacking water creature. "No diving in there," he
+protested. Hume smiled, a stretch of skin far too tight over his jaw
+now.
+
+"Not us, at least not us now," he agreed. "But the Guild will send
+another survey."
+
+"What could be the reason for all this?" Vye helped his companion over
+the loose debris of a cliff slide.
+
+"Information."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Someone--or something--picked our brains while we were out of our
+heads. Or--" Hume paused suddenly, looked directly at Vye. "I have a
+vague feeling that you were able to keep going a lot better than I
+was. That so?"
+
+"Some of the time," Vye admitted.
+
+"That checks. Part of me knew what was going on, but was helpless
+while that other thing," his smile of moments earlier was wiped away,
+there was a chill edge in his voice, "picked over my brains, sorted
+out what it wanted."
+
+Vye shook his head. "I didn't feel that way. Just thick-headed--as if
+I were sleep walking and yet awake."
+
+"So it took me over, but didn't go all the way with you. Why? Another
+question for our list."
+
+"Maybe--maybe Wass' techs fixed it so I couldn't be brain-picked, as
+you call it," Vye offered.
+
+Hume nodded. "Could be--would well be. Come on." He pressed the pace
+now.
+
+Vye turned to look down the slope suspiciously. Had Hume another
+warning of menace out of the wood? He could sight no movement there.
+And from this distance the lake was a topaz sheet of calm which could
+hide anything. Hume was already several paces ahead, scrambling as if
+the valley monsters were again on their track.
+
+"What's the matter?" Vye demanded, as he caught up.
+
+"Night coming." Which was true. Then Hume added, "If we can reach the
+flitter before sunset, we'll have a chance to fly over the lake down
+there, to make a taping of it before we go."
+
+The energy of the tablets strengthened them so that by the time they
+reached the crevice door they were moving with their former agility.
+For a single second Hume hesitated before that slit, almost as if he
+feared the test he must make. Then he stepped forward and this time
+into freedom.
+
+They reached the ledge where the flitter perched just as they had seen
+it last. How long ago that had been they could not have told, but they
+suspected that days of haze hung in between. Vye searched the sky. No
+globes winking there--just the flyer alone.
+
+He took his old seat behind the pilot, watched Hume test the relays
+and responses in the quick run down of a man who has done this chore
+many times before. But the other gave a little sigh of relief when he
+finished.
+
+"She's all right, we can lift."
+
+Again they both looked aloft, half fearing to see those malignant
+herders wink into being to forbid flight. But the sky was as serenely
+clear of even a drifting cloud as they could hope. Hume pressed a
+button and they arose vertically with an even progress totally unlike
+the leap which had taken them out of Wass' camp.
+
+Well above the cliff wall they hovered, and were able to see below the
+round bowl of the valley prison. Hume touched controls, the flitter
+descended slowly just above the center of the lake. And from this
+position they were able to sight the other peculiarity of that body of
+water, that it was perfectly oval in shape, far too perfect to be an
+undeveloped product of nature. Hume took a round disk from his
+equipment belt, fitted it carefully into a slot on the control board
+and pressed the button below. Then he sent the flitter in a weaving
+zigzag course well above the surface of the water, so that eventually
+the flyer passed over every foot of its surface.
+
+And from above, in spite of the turgid quality of the liquid, they
+could see what did rest on the bottom of that oval. The wall with its
+sharp corner which Vye had noted from shore level was only part of a
+water covered erection. It made a design when seen from overhead, a
+six-pointed star surrounding an oval and in the midst of that oval a
+black blot which they could not identify.
+
+Hume brought the flitter over in one last sweep. "That's it. We have a
+full taping."
+
+"What do you think it is?"
+
+"A device set there by an intelligent being, and set a long time ago.
+This valley wasn't arranged over night, six months ago--or even a year
+ago. We'll have to let the experts tell us when and for what reason.
+Now, let's head for home!"
+
+He brought the flitter up and over the valley wall, flying southwest
+so that they passed over the gap which was the main entrance to the
+trap. And now he tried the com unit, endeavoring to pick up a signal
+on which they could beam in for a safe ride.
+
+"That's odd." Under Hume's control the direction finder passed back
+and forth without bringing any answering code click from the mike. "We
+may be too far in the mountains to pick up the beam. I wonder...." He
+swept the needle in another direction, slightly to the left.
+
+A crackle spat from the mike. Vye could not read code but the very
+fury and intensity of that sound suggested panic--even terror.
+
+"What's that?"
+
+Hume spoke without looking away from the control board. "Alarm."
+
+"From the safari?"
+
+"No. Wass." For a long second Hume sat very still, his fingers quiet.
+The flitter was on the automatic course, taking them out of the
+mountains, and Vye thought that their air speed was such they were
+already well removed from that sinister valley.
+
+Hume made a slight adjustment to a dial, and the flitter banked,
+coming around on another course. Once more he spun the finder of the
+com. This time he was answered with a series of well-spaced clicks
+which lacked the urgency of that other call. Hume listened until the
+code rattled into silence again.
+
+"They're all right at the safari camp."
+
+"But Wass is in trouble. So what does that matter?" Vye wanted to
+know.
+
+"It matters this much." Hume spoke slowly as if he must convince
+himself as well as Vye. "I'm the Guild man on Jumala, and the Guild
+man is responsible for all civs."
+
+"You can't call him your client!"
+
+Hume shook his head. "No, he's no client. But he's human."
+
+It narrowed down to that when a man was on the frontier worlds--humans
+stood together. Vye wanted to deny it, but his own emotions, as well
+as the centuries of age-old tradition, argued him down. Wass was a
+Veep, one of the criminal parasites dabbling in human misery along
+more than one solar lane. But he was also human and, as one of their
+own species, had his claim on them.
+
+Vye watched Hume take over the controls, felt the flitter answer
+another change of course, then heard the frantic yammer of the
+distress call as they leveled off to ride its beam in to the hidden
+camp.
+
+"Automatic." Hume had turned down the volume of the receiver so that
+the clicks in the mike no longer were so strident. "Set on maximum and
+left that way."
+
+"They had a force barrier around the camp and they knew about the
+globes and the watchers." Vye tried to imagine what had happened in
+that woods clearing.
+
+"The barrier might have shorted. And without the flitter they would
+have been pinned."
+
+"Could have taken off in the spacer."
+
+"Wass doesn't have the reputation of letting any project get out of
+his hands."
+
+Vye remembered. "Oh--your billion credit deal."
+
+To his surprise Hume laughed. "Seems all very far and out of orbit
+now, doesn't it, Lansor? Yes, our billion credit deal--but that was
+thought out before we knew there were more players around the table
+than we counted. I wonder...."
+
+But what he wondered he did not put into words and a moment later he
+added over his shoulder, "Better try to get some rest, boy. We've some
+time to a set-down."
+
+Vye did sleep, deeply, dreamlessly. And he roused after a gentle
+shaking to see a beam of light in the sky ahead, though around them
+was the solid darkness of night.
+
+"That's a warning," Hume explained. "And I can't raise any reply from
+the camp except a repeat of the distress call. If there is anyone
+there now, he can't or won't answer."
+
+Against that column of light they could make out the sky-pointed taper
+of the spacer and the auto-pilot landed them beside that ship in the
+middle of an area well lighted by the steady shaft of light from the
+tripod standing where the atom lamp had been on the night they had
+made their escape from camp.
+
+Climbing stiffly from the small flyer they advanced with caution. A
+very few minutes later Hume slid his ray tube back into its belt loop.
+
+"Unless they've holed up in the spacer--and I can't see why they'd do
+that--this camp's deserted. And they haven't taken any equipment with
+them except maybe a few items they could back-pack."
+
+The ship proved as empty of life as the campsite. A wall seat pulled
+out too hastily so that it was jammed awry, the com cabin suggested
+that the leave-taking, when and for what reason, had been a matter of
+some emergency. Hume did not touch the tape set to keep on
+broadcasting the call for assistance.
+
+"What now?" Vye wanted to know as they completed the search.
+
+"The safari camp first--and a call for the Patrol."
+
+"Look here," Vye set down the ration container he had found, was
+emptying it with vast satisfaction of one who had been too long on
+tablets, "if you beam the Patrol you'll have to talk, won't you?"
+
+Hume went on fitting new charges into his ray tube. "The Patrol has to
+have a full report. There's no way of bypassing that. Yes, we'll have
+to give all the story. You needn't worry." He snapped closed the load
+chamber. "I can clear you all the way. You're the victim, remember."
+
+"I wasn't thinking about that."
+
+"Boy." Hume tossed the tube up in the air, caught it in his
+plasta-hand. "I went into this deal with my eyes wide open--why
+doesn't matter very much now. In fact," he stared beyond Vye out into
+the empty, lighted camp, "I've begun to wonder about a lot of
+things--maybe too late. No--we'll call the Patrol and we'll do it not
+because it is Wass and his men out there, but because we're human and
+they're human, and there's a nasty set-up here which has already
+sucked in other humans for its own purposes."
+
+The skeleton in the valley! And how very close they had been
+themselves to joining that unknown in his permanent residence.
+
+"So now we make time--back to the safari camp. Get our message off to
+the Patrol and then we'll try to trace Wass and see what we can do.
+Jumala is off a regular route. The Patrol won't be here tomorrow at
+sunrise, no matter how much we wish a scouter would planet then."
+
+Vye was quiet as he stowed in the flitter again. As Hume had said,
+events moved fast. A little while ago he had wanted to settle with
+this Out-Hunter, wring out of him not only an explanation for his
+being here, but claim satisfaction for the humiliation of being moved
+about to suit some others' purposes. Now he was willing to defeat
+Wass, bring in the Patrol, go up against whatever hid in that lake up
+there, providing Hume was not the loser. He tried to think why that
+was so and could not, he only knew it was the truth.
+
+They were both silent as they took off from Wass' deserted camp, sped
+away over the black blot of the woodland towards the safari
+headquarters on the plains. There were stars above again but no
+globes. Just as they had won their freedom from the valley, so they
+moved without escort on the plains.
+
+But the lights were there--not impinging on the flitter, or patrolling
+along its line of flight. No, they hung in a glowing cluster ahead
+when in the dawn the flitter shot away from the woods, headed for the
+landmark of the safari camp. A crown of lights circled over the camp
+site, as if those below were in a state of siege.
+
+Hume aimed straight for them and this time the bobbing circle split
+wide open, broke to left and right. Vye looked below. Though the
+grayness of the morning was still hardly more than dusk he could not
+miss those humps spaced at intervals on the land, just beyond the
+unseen line of the force barrier. The lights above, the beasts below,
+the safari camp was under guard.
+
+
+
+
+12
+
+
+"There is only one way they could be moving--toward the mountains."
+Hume stood in the open space among the bubble tents, facing him the
+four men of the camp, the three civs and Rovald. "You say it's been
+seven days, planet time, since I left here. They may have been five
+days on that trail. If possible we have to stop them before they reach
+that valley."
+
+"A fantastic story." Chambriss wore the affronted expression of a man
+who expected no interference with his own concerns. Then catching
+Hume's eye he added, "Not that we doubt you, Hunter. We have the
+evidence in those dumb brutes waiting out there. However, by your own
+story, this Wass is an outside-the-law Veep, on this planet secretly
+for criminal purposes. Surely there is no reason for us to risk our
+safety in his behalf. Are you certain he is in any danger at all? You
+and this young man here have, by your testimony, been into the
+enemies' territory and have been able to get out again."
+
+"Through a series of fortunate chances which might never occur again."
+Hume was patient, too patient, Rovald seemed to think. His hand moved,
+he was holding a ray tube so that a simple movement of the wrist could
+send a crisping blast across all the rest of the party.
+
+"I say, stop this yapping and get out there and pick up the Veep!"
+
+"I intend to--after I call the Patrol."
+
+Rovald's tube was now aimed directly at Hume. "No Patrol!" he
+ordered.
+
+"This wrangling has gone far enough." It was Yactisi who spoke with an
+authority which startled them all. And as their attention swung to
+him, he was already in action.
+
+Rovald cried out, the weapon spun from his fingers, fingers which were
+slowly reddening. Yactisi nodded with satisfaction and he held his
+electo pole ready for a second attack. Vye scooped up the tube which
+had whirled across the ground to strike against his borrowed boot.
+
+"I'll set the call for the Patrol, then I'll try to locate Wass," Hume
+stated.
+
+"Sensible procedure," Yactisi approved in his dry voice. "You believe
+that you are now immune to whatever force this alien installation
+controls?"
+
+"It would seem so."
+
+"Then, of course, you must go."
+
+"Why?" Chambriss countered for the second time. "Suppose he isn't so
+immune after all? Suppose he gets out there and is captured again?
+He's our pilot--do you want to be planet bound _here_?
+
+"This man is also a pilot." Starns indicated Rovald, who was nursing
+his numb hand.
+
+"Since he, too, is one of these criminals, he's not to be trusted!"
+Chambriss shot back. "Hunter, I demand that you take us off planet at
+once! And it is only fair to inform you that I also intend to prefer
+charges against you and against the Guild. Empty world! Just how empty
+have we found this world?"
+
+"But, Gentlehomo," Starns showed no signs of any emotion but eager
+curiosity, "to be here at this time is a privilege we could not hope
+to equal except by good fortune! The T-Casts will be avid for our
+stories."
+
+What had that to do with the matter, puzzled Vye. But he saw Starns'
+reminder produce a quick change in Chambriss.
+
+"The T-Casts," he repeated, his expression of anger smoothing away.
+"Yes, of course, this is, in a manner of speaking, a truly historic
+occasion. We are in a unique position!"
+
+Had Yactisi smiled? That change of lip line had been so slight Vye
+could not call it a smile. But Starns appeared to have found the right
+way to handle Chambriss. And it was the same little man who offered
+his services in another way when he said, diffidently to Hume:
+
+"I have some experience with coms, Hunter. Do you wish me to send your
+message and take over the unit until you return? I gather," he added
+with a certain delicacy, "that it will not be expedient for your
+gearman to engage in that duty now."
+
+So it was that Starns was installed in the com cabin of the spacer,
+sending out the request for Patrol aid, while Rovald was locked in the
+storage compartment of the same ship, pending arrival of those same
+authorities. As Hume sorted out supplies and Vye loaded them into the
+waiting flitter, Yactisi approached the Hunter.
+
+"You have a definite plan of search?"
+
+"Just to cast north from their camp. If they've been gone long enough
+to hit the foothills we may be able to sight them climbing. Otherwise,
+we'll go all the way up to the valley, wait for them there."
+
+"You don't believe that they will be released after they have
+been--processed?"
+
+Hume shook his head. "I don't think we would have been free,
+Gentlehomo, if it hadn't been for a series of fortunate accidents."
+
+"Yes, though you didn't give us many details about that, Hunter."
+
+Hume put down the needler he had been charging. He studied Yactisi
+across that weapon.
+
+"Who are you?" His voice was soft but carried a snap.
+
+For the first time Vye saw the tall, lean civ really smile.
+
+"A man of many interests, Hunter--shall we let it go at that for the
+present? Though I assure you that Wass is not one of them in the way
+you might believe."
+
+Gray eyes met brown, held so straightly. Then Hume spoke. "I believe
+you. But I have told you the truth."
+
+"I have never doubted that--only the amount of it. There must be more
+talking later on--you understand that?"
+
+"I never thought otherwise." Hume set the needler inside the flitter.
+The civ smiled again, this time including Vye in that evidence of good
+will before he walked away.
+
+Hume made no comment. "That does it," he told his companion. "Still
+want to go?"
+
+"If you do--and you can't do it alone." No man could take on the
+valley and Wass and his men.
+
+Hume made no comment. They had rested briefly after their return to
+the safari camp, and Vye had been supplied with clothing from Hume's
+bags, so that now he wore the uniform of the Guild. He went armed,
+too, with the equipment belt taken from Rovald and that other's
+weapons, needler and tube. At least they started on their dubious
+rescue mission with every aid the safari camp could muster.
+
+It was mid-afternoon when the flitter took to the air once again,
+scattering the hovering globes. There was no alteration in the ranks
+of the blue watchers waiting--for the barrier to go down, or someone
+in the camp to step beyond that protection?
+
+"They're stupid," Vye said.
+
+"Not stupid, just geared to one set of actions," Hume returned.
+
+"Which could mean that what sends them here can't change its orders."
+
+"Good guess. I'd say that they were governed by something akin to our
+tapes. No provision made for any innovations."
+
+"So the guiding intelligence could be long gone."
+
+"I think it has been." Hume then changed the subject sharply.
+
+"How did you get into service at the Starfall?"
+
+It was hard now to think back to Nahuatl--as if the Vye Lansor who had
+been swamper in that den of the port town was a different person
+altogether. In that patch of memories into which Rynch Brodie still
+intruded he hunted for the proper answer.
+
+"I couldn't hold the state jobs. And once you get the habit of eating,
+you don't starve willingly."
+
+"Why not the state jobs?"
+
+"Without premium they're all low-rung tenders' places. I tried hard
+enough. But to sit pressing buttons when a light flashed, hour after
+hour--" Vye shook his head. "They said I was too erratic and gave me
+the shove. One more move on and it would have been compulsive
+conditioning. I turned port-drift instead."
+
+"Ever thought of trying for a loan premium?"
+
+Vye laughed shortly. "Loan premium? That's a true fantasy if you've
+been job hopping. None of the companies will take a chance on a man
+with an in and out record. Oh, I tried...." That memory arose to the
+surface, clear and very chilling. Yes, he had tried to break out of
+the net the law and custom had put around him from the day he had
+been made a state child. "No--it was conditioning, or port-drift."
+
+"And you chose port-drift?"
+
+"I was still me--as long as I stayed away from conditioning."
+
+"Then you became Rynch Brodie in spite of your flight."
+
+"No--well, maybe, for a while. But I'm still Vye Lansor here."
+
+"Yes, here. And I don't think you'll have to worry about raising a
+premium to get a new start. You can claim victim compensation, you
+know."
+
+Vye was silent, but Hume did not let him remain so.
+
+"When the Patrol arrives, you put in your claim. I'll back you."
+
+"You can't."
+
+"That's where you're mistaken," Hume told him crisply. "I've already
+taped a full story back at the spacer--it's on record now."
+
+Vye frowned. The Hunter seemed determined to ask for the worst the
+Patrol--or the planet police back on Nahuatl--could deal out. A case
+of illegal conditioning was about as serious as you could get.
+
+They shot along the diagonal of the triangle made by three points, the
+mountain valley, Wass' camp, and the safari headquarters, heading to
+the slopes up which the men must be herded if the beasts were
+shepherding them to the mountain valley. Vye, surveying the forest
+thick below, began to doubt they would ever be able to pick them up
+before they reached the valley gate.
+
+Hume took a weaving course, zigzagging back and forth, while they both
+watched intently for a glint from one of the globes, any movement
+which would betray that trail. And it was on one of the upper slopes
+that the flitter passed over two of the blue beasts lumbering along.
+Neither of the creatures paid any attention to the flyer, they moved
+with purpose on some mission of their own.
+
+"Maybe the tail end of the hunting pack," Hume commented.
+
+He sent the flyer hovering over a stunted line of trees and brush.
+Beyond that was bare rock. But though they hung for moments, nothing
+moved into that open.
+
+"Wrong scent somehow." Hume brought the flitter around. He had it on
+manual control now, keeping it answering to the quick changes of his
+will.
+
+A longer sweep supplied the answer--a vegetation roofed slit running
+back into the uplands, in a way resembling the crevice through which
+they had originally found their way into this country. Hume brought
+the flyer along that. But if the men they sought were pushing their
+way through below they could not be sighted from the air. At last,
+with evening drawing in, Hume was forced to admit failure.
+
+"Wait by the gap?" Vye asked.
+
+"Have to now." Hume glanced about. "I'd say maybe
+tomorrow--mid-morning before they make it that far--_if_ they are
+here. We'll have plenty of time."
+
+Time for what? To make ready for a pitched battle with Wass--or with
+the beasts herding him? To try in the space of hours to solve the
+mystery of the lake?
+
+"Do you think we could blast that thing in the lake?" Vye asked.
+
+"We might be able to, just might. But that must be the last resort. We
+want that in working order for the X-Tee men to study. No, we'd better
+plan to hold Wass at the gate, wait for the Patrol to come in."
+
+Less than an hour later after a soaring approach, Hume brought the
+flitter down with neat skill on the top of one of the cliffs which
+helped to form the portal of the gap. There was no difference in the
+scene below, save that where the two bodies of the blue beasts had
+lain there were now only clean and shining bones.
+
+Darkness spread out from the lake woods like a growing stain of evil
+promise as the sun fell behind the peaks. Night came earlier here than
+in the plains.
+
+"Watch!" Vye had been gazing down the gap; he was the first to note
+that movement in the cloaking bush.
+
+Out of the cover trotted a four-footed, antlered animal he had not
+seen before.
+
+"Syken deer," Hume identified. "But why in the mountains? It's a long
+way from its home range."
+
+The deer did not pause, but headed directly for the gap and, as it
+neared, Vye saw that its brown coat was roughed with patches of white
+froth, while more dripped from the pale pink tongue protruding from
+its open jaws, and its shrunken sides heaved.
+
+"Driven!" Hume picked up a stone, hurled it to strike the ground ahead
+of the deer.
+
+The creature did not start, nor show any sign of seeing the rock fall.
+It trotted on at the same wearied pace, passed the portal rocks into
+the valley. Then it stood still, wedge-shaped head up, black horns
+displayed, while the nose flaps expanded, testing the air, until it
+bounded toward the lake, disappearing in the woods.
+
+Though they shared watches during the night there were no other signs
+of life, nor did the deer reappear from the woods. With the
+mid-morning there was a sudden sound to warn them--a wild cry which
+must have come from a human throat. Hume tossed one of the needlers to
+Vye, took the other, and they scrambled down to the floor of the gap
+passage.
+
+Wass did not lead his men, he came behind the reeling trio as if he
+had joined the blasts as driver. And while his men wavered, staggered,
+gave the appearance of nearly complete exhaustion, he still walked
+with a steady tread, in command of his wits, his fears, and the
+company.
+
+As the first of the men blundered on, a fresh trickle of red running
+down his bruised face, Hume called:
+
+"Wass!"
+
+The Veep stopped short. He made no move to unsling the needler he
+carried, its barrel pointing skyward over his shoulder, but his round
+head with its upstanding comb of hair swung slightly from side to
+side.
+
+"Stop--Wass--this is a trap!"
+
+His three men kept on. Vye moved, for Peake leading that wavering
+group, stumbled, would have fallen had not the younger man advanced
+from the shadows to steady him.
+
+"Vye!" Hume made his name a warning.
+
+He had only time to glance around. Wass, his broad face impassive
+except for the eyes--those burning madman's eyes--was aiming a ray
+tube.
+
+Broken free of his hold, Peake fell to the right, came up against
+Hume. As Vye went down he saw Wass dart forward at a speed he wouldn't
+have believed a driven man could summon. The Veep lunged, escaping the
+shot the Hunter had no time to aim, rolled, and came up with the
+needler Vye had dropped.
+
+Then Hume, hampered by Peake's feeble clawing, met head on the
+swinging barrel of that weapon. He gave a startled grunt and smashed
+back against the cliff, a wave of scarlet blood streaming down the
+side of his head.
+
+The momentum of Wass' charge carried him on. He collided with his men,
+and the last thing Vye saw, was the huddle of all four of them,
+flailing arms and legs, spinning on through the gate into the valley
+with Wass' hoarse, wordless shouting, bringing echoes from the cliffs.
+
+
+
+
+13
+
+
+He lay against a rock, and it was quiet again, except for a small
+whimpering sound which hurt, joined with the eating pain in his side.
+Vye turned his head, smelled burned cloth and flesh. Cautiously he
+tried to move, bring his hand across his body to the belt at his
+waist. One small part of his mind was very clear--if he could get his
+fingers to the packet there, and the contents of that packet to his
+mouth, the pain would go away, and maybe he could slip back into the
+darkness again.
+
+Somehow he did it, pulled the packet out of its container pouch,
+worked the fingers of his one usable hand until he shredded open the
+end of the covering. The tablets inside, spilled out. But he had three
+or four of them in his grasp. Laboriously he brought his hand up,
+mouthed them all together, chewing their bitterness, swallowing them
+as best he could without water.
+
+Water--the lake! For a moment he was back in time, feeling for the
+water bulbs he should be carrying. Then the incautious movement of his
+questing fingers brought a sudden stab of raw, red agony and he
+moaned.
+
+The tablets worked. But he did not slide back into unconsciousness
+again as the throbbing torture became something remote and
+untroubling. With his good arm he braced himself against the cliff,
+managed to sit up.
+
+Sun flashed on the metal barrel of a needler which lay in the trampled
+dust between him and another figure, still very still, with a pool of
+blood about the head. Vye waited for a steadying breath or two, then
+started the infinitely long journey of several feet which separated
+him from Hume.
+
+He was panting heavily when he crawled close enough to touch the
+Hunter. Hume's face, cheek down in the now sodden dust, was dabbled
+with congealing blood. As Vye turned the hunter's head, it rolled
+limply. The other side was a mass of blood and dust, too thick to
+afford Vye any idea of how serious a hurt Hume had taken. But he was
+still alive.
+
+With his good hand Vye thrust his numb and useless left one into the
+front of his belt. Then, awkwardly he tried to tend Hume. After a
+close inspection he thought that the mass of blood had come from a
+ragged tear in the scalp above the temple and the bone beneath had
+escaped damage. From Hume's own first-aid pack he crushed tablets into
+the other's slack mouth, hoping they would dissolve if the Hunter
+could not swallow. Then he relaxed against the cliff to wait--for what
+he could not have said.
+
+Wass' party had gone on into the valley. When Vye turned his head to
+look down the slope he could see nothing of them. They must have tried
+to push on to the lake. The flitter was at the top of the cliff, as
+far out of his reach now as if it were in planetary orbit. There was
+only the hope that a rescue party from the safari camp might come.
+Hume had set the directional beam on the flyer, when he had brought
+her down, to serve as a beacon for the Patrol, if and when Starns was
+lucky enough to contact a cruiser.
+
+"Hmmm...." Hume's mouth moved, cracked the drying bloody mask on his
+lips and chin. His eyes blinked open and he lay staring up at the sky.
+
+"Hume--" Vye was startled at the sound of his own voice, so thready
+and weak, and by the fact that he found it difficult to speak at all.
+
+The other's head turned; now the eyes were on him and there was a
+spark of awareness in them.
+
+"Wass?" The whisper was as strained as his own had been.
+
+"In there." Vye's hand lifted from Hume's chest indicating the
+valley.
+
+"Not good." Hume blinked again. "How bad?" His attention was not for
+his own hurt; his eyes searched Vye. And the latter glanced down at
+his side.
+
+By some chance, perhaps because of his struggle with Peake, Wass' beam
+had not struck true, the main core of the bolt passing between his arm
+and his side, burning both. How deeply he could not tell, in fact he
+did not want to find out. It was enough that the tablets had banished
+the pain now.
+
+"Seared a little," he said. "You've a bad cut on your head."
+
+Hume frowned. "Can we make the flitter?"
+
+Vye moved, then relaxed quickly into his former position. "Not now,"
+he evaded, knowing that neither of them would be able to take that
+climb.
+
+"Beam on?" Hume repeated Vye's thoughts of moments before. "Patrol
+coming?"
+
+Yes, eventually the Patrol would come--but when? Hours--days? Time was
+their enemy now. He did not have to say any of that, they both knew.
+
+"Needler--" Hume's head had turned in the other direction; now his
+hand pointed waveringly to the weapon in the dust.
+
+"They won't be back," Vye stated the obvious. Those others had been
+caught in the trap, the odds on their return without aid were very
+high.
+
+"Needler!" Hume repeated more firmly, and tried to sit up, falling
+back with a sharp intake of breath.
+
+Vye edged around, stretched out his leg and scraped the toe of his
+boot into the loop of the carrying sling, drawing the weapon up to
+where he could get his hand on it. As he steadied it across his knee
+Hume spoke again:
+
+"Watch for trouble!"
+
+"They all went in," Vye protested.
+
+But Hume's eyes had closed again. "Trouble--maybe...." His voice
+trailed off. Vye rested his hand on the stock of the needler.
+
+"Hoooooo!"
+
+That beast wail--as they had heard it in the valley! Somewhere from
+the wood. Vye brought the needler around, so that the sights pointed
+in that direction. There death might be hunting, but there was nothing
+he could do.
+
+A scream, filled with all the agony of a man in torment, caught up on
+the echoes of that other cry. Vye sighted a wild waving of bushes. A
+figure, very small and far away, crawled into the open on hands and
+knees and then crumpled into only a shadowy blot on the moss. Again
+the beast's cry, and a shouting!
+
+Vye watched a second man back out of the trees, still facing whatever
+pursued him. He caught the glint of sun on what must be a ray tube.
+Leaves crisped into a black hole, curls of smoke arose along the path
+of that blast.
+
+The man kept on backing, passed the inert body of his companion,
+glancing now and then over his shoulder at the slope up which he was
+making a slow but steady way. He no longer rayed the bush, but there
+was the crackle of a small fire outlining the ragged hole his beam had
+cut.
+
+Back two strides, three. Then he turned, made a quick dash, again
+facing around after he had gained some yards in the open. Vye saw now
+it was Wass.
+
+Another dash and an about face. But this time to confront the enemy.
+There were three of them, as monstrous as those Vye and Hume had
+fought in the same place. And one of them was wounded, swinging a
+charred forepaw before it, and giving voice to a wild frenzy of roars.
+
+Wass leveled the ray tube, centered sights on the beast nearest to
+him. The man hammered at the firing button with the flat of his other
+hand, and almost paid for that second of distraction with his life,
+for the creature made one of those lightning swift dashes Vye had so
+luckily escaped. The clawed forepaw tore a strip from the shoulder of
+Wass' tunic, left sprouting red furrows behind. But the man had thrown
+the useless tube into its face, was now running for the gap.
+
+Vye held the needler braced against his knee to fire. He saw the dart
+quiver in the upper arm of the beast, and it halted to pull out that
+sliver of dangerously poisoned metal, crumpled it into a tight twist.
+Vye continued to fire, never sure of his aim, but seeing those slivers
+go home in thick legs, in outstretched forelimbs, in wide, pendulous
+bellies. Then there were three blue shapes lying on the slope behind
+the man running straight for the gap.
+
+Wass hit the invisible barrier full force, was hurled back, to lie
+gasping on the turf, but already raising himself to crawl again to the
+gateway he saw and could not believe was barred. Vye closed his eyes.
+He was very tired now--tired and sleepy--maybe the pain pills were
+bringing the secondary form of relief. But he could hear, just beyond,
+the man who beat at that unseen curtain, first in anger and fear, and
+then just in fear, until the fear was a lonesome crying that went on
+and on until even that last feeble assault on the barrier failed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"We have here the tape report of Ras Hume, Out-Hunter of the Guild."
+
+Vye watched the officer in the black and silver of the Patrol, a black
+and silver modified with the small, green, eye badge of X-Tee, with
+level and hostile gaze.
+
+"Then you know the story." He was going to make no additions nor
+explanations. Maybe Hume had cleared him. All right, that was all he
+would ask, to be free to go his way and forget about Jumala--and Ras
+Hume.
+
+He had not seen the Hunter since they had both been loaded into the
+Patrol flitter in the gap. Wass had come out of the valley a witless,
+dazed creature, still under the mental influence of whoever, or
+whatever, had set that trap. As far as Vye knew the Veep had not yet
+recovered his full senses, he might never do so. And if Hume had not
+dictated that confession to damn himself before the Patrol, he might
+have escaped. They could suspect--but they would have had no proof.
+
+"You continue to refuse to tape?" The officer favored him with one of
+the closed-jaw looks Vye had often seen on the face of authority.
+
+"I have my rights."
+
+"You have the right to claim victim compensation--a good compensation,
+Lansor."
+
+Vye shrugged and then winced at a warning from the tender skin over
+ribs.
+
+"I make no claim, and no tape," he repeated. And he intended to go on
+saying that as long as they asked him. This was the second visit in
+two days and he was getting a little tired of it all. Perhaps he
+should do as prudence dictated and demand to be returned to Nahuatl.
+Only his odd, unexplainable desire to at least see Hume kept him from
+making the request they would have to honor.
+
+"You had better reconsider." Authority resumed.
+
+"Rights of person--" Vye almost grinned as he recited that. For the
+first time in his pushed-around life he could use that particular
+phrase and make it stick. He thought there was a sour twist to the
+officer's mouth, but the other still retained his impersonal tone as
+he spoke into the intership com:
+
+"He refused to make a tape."
+
+Vye waited for the other's next move. This should mark the end of
+their interview. But instead the officer appeared to relax the
+restraint of his official manner. He brought a viv-root case from an
+inner pocket, offered a choice of contents to Vye, who gave an instant
+and suspicious refusal by shake of head. The officer selected one of
+the small tubes, snapped off the protecto-nib, and set it between his
+lips for a satisfying and lengthy pull. Then the panel of the cabin
+door pushed open, and Vye sat up with a jerk as Ras Hume, his head
+banded with a skin-core covering, entered.
+
+The officer waved his hand at Vye with the air of one turning over a
+problem. "You were entirely right. And he's all yours, Hume."
+
+Vye looked from one to the other. With Hume's tape in official hands
+why wasn't the Hunter under restraint? Unless, because they were
+aboard the Patrol cruiser, the officers didn't think a closer
+confinement was necessary. Yet the Hunter wasn't acting the role of
+prisoner very well. In fact he perched on a wall-flip seat with the
+ease of one completely at home, accepted the viv-root Vye had refused.
+
+"So you won't make a tape," he asked cheerfully.
+
+"You act as if you want me to!" Vye was so completely baffled by this
+odd turn of action that his voice came out almost plaintively.
+
+"Seeing as how a great deal of time and effort went into placing you
+in the position where you _could_ give us that tape, I must admit some
+disappointment."
+
+"Give _us_?" Vye echoed.
+
+The officer removed the viv-root from between his lips. "Tell him the
+whole sad story, Hume."
+
+But Vye began to guess. Life in the Starfall, or as port-drift, either
+sharpened the wits or deadened them. Vye's had suffered the burnishing
+process. "A set-up?"
+
+"A set-up," Hume agreed. Then he glanced at the Patrol officer a
+little defensively. "I might as well tell the whole truth--this
+didn't quite begin on the right side of the law. I had my reasons for
+wanting to make trouble for the Kogan estate, only not because of the
+credits involved." He moved his plasta-flesh hand. "When I found that
+L-B from the Largo Drift and saw the possibilities, did a little day
+dreaming--I worked out this scheme. But I'm a Guild man and as it
+happens, I want to stay one. So I reported to one of the Masters and
+told him the whole story--why I hadn't taped on the records my
+discovery on Jumala.
+
+"When he passed along the news of the L-B to the Patrol, he also
+suggested that there might be room for fraud along the way I had
+thought it out. That started a chain reaction. It happened that the
+Patrol wanted Wass. But he was too big and slick to be caught in a
+case which couldn't be broken in court. They thought that here was
+just the bait he might snap at, and I was the one to offer it to him.
+He could check on me, learn that I had excellent reason to do what I
+said I was doing. So I went to him with my story and he liked it. We
+made the plan work just as I had outlined it. And he planted Rovald on
+me as a check. But I didn't know Yactisi was a plant, also."
+
+The Patrol officer smiled. "Insurance," he waved the viv-root, "just
+insurance."
+
+"What we didn't foresee was this complicating alien trouble. You were
+to be collected as the castaway, brought back to the Center and then,
+once Wass was firmly enmeshed, the Patrol would blow the thing wide
+open. Now we do have Wass, with your tape we'll have him for good,
+subject to complete reconditioning. But we also have an X-Tee puzzle
+which will keep the services busy for some time. And we would like
+your tape."
+
+Vye watched Hume narrowly. "Then you're an agent?"
+
+Hume shook his head. "No, just what I said I am, an Out-Hunter who
+happened to come into some knowledge that will assist in straightening
+out a few crooked quirks in several systems. I have no love for the
+Kogan clan, but to help bring down a Veep of Wass' measure does aid in
+reinstating one's self-esteem."
+
+"This victim compensation--I _could_ claim it, even though the deal
+was a set-up?"
+
+"You'll have first call on Wass' assets. He has plenty invested in
+legitimate enterprises, though we'll probably never locate all his
+hidden funds. But everything we can get open title to will be
+impounded. Have something to do with your share?" inquired the
+officer.
+
+"Yes."
+
+Hume was smiling subtly. He was a different man from the one Vye had
+known on Jumala. "Premium for the Guild is one thousand credits down,
+two thousand for training and say another for about the best field
+outfit you can buy. That'll give you maybe another two or three
+thousand to save for your honorable retirement."
+
+"How did you know?" Vye began and then had to laugh in spite of
+himself as Hume replied:
+
+"I didn't. Good guess, eh? Well, zoom out your recorder, Commander. I
+think you are going to have some very free speech now." He got to his
+feet. "You know, the Guild has a stake in this alien discovery. We may
+just find that we haven't seen the last of that valley after all,
+recruit."
+
+He was gone and Vye, eager to have the past done with, and the future
+beginning, reached for the dictation mike.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+TWO COMPLETE SPACE ADVENTURE NOVELS
+
+PLANET OF ALIEN MONSTERS....
+
+    Somewheres on the jungle world of Jumala, there was a man in
+    hiding--a man whose mind had been reconditioned with
+    another's brain pattern and for whom there was a fabulous
+    reward. STAR HUNTER is a thrill-packed account of that
+    other-worldly game of hide-and-seek between a man who did not
+    know all his own powers and an interstellar safari that
+    sought something no man had a right to find....
+
+PLANET OF MIND MAGICIANS....
+
+    Dane Thorson of the space-trader Solar Queen found himself
+    embroiled in a desperate battle of minds between the rational
+    science of the spaceways and the hypnotic witchcraft of the
+    mental wizard that ruled the VOODOO PLANET.
+
+_Here is a double prize-package of Andre Norton space treasures!_
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Andre Norton novels available from Ace Books include:
+
+
+THE LAST PLANET (M-151)
+SEA SIEGE (F-147)
+CATSEYE (G-654)
+THE DEFIANT AGENTS (M-150)
+STAR BORN (M-148)
+THE STARS ARE OURS! (M-147)
+WITCH WORLD (G-655)
+HUON OF THE HORN (F-226)
+STAR GATE (M-157)
+THE TIME TRADERS (F-386)
+LORD OF THUNDER (F-243)
+WEB OF THE WITCH WORLD (F-263)
+SHADOW HAWK (G-538)
+SARGASSO OF SPACE (F-279)
+JUDGMENT ON JANUS (F-308)
+PLAGUE SHIP (F-291)
+KEY OUT OF TIME (F-287)
+ORDEAL IN OTHERWHERE (F-325)
+NIGHT OF MASKS (F-365)
+QUEST CROSSTIME (G-595)
+STAR GUARD (G-599)
+YEAR OF THE UNICORN (F-357)
+THREE AGAINST THE WITCH WORLD (F-332)
+THE SIOUX SPACEMAN (F-408)
+WARLOCK OF THE WITCH WORLD (G-630)
+MOON OF THREE RINGS (H-33)
+DAYBREAK--2250 A.D. (G-717)
+THE X FACTOR (G-646)
+VICTORY ON JANUS (G-703)
+
+F-books are 40¢
+G-books are 50¢
+M-books are 45¢
+H-books are 60¢
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Star Hunter, by Andre Alice Norton
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+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
+  <head>
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Star Hunter, by Andre Norton
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Star Hunter, by Andre Alice Norton
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Star Hunter
+
+Author: Andre Alice Norton
+
+Release Date: August 21, 2006 [EBook #19090]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STAR HUNTER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Greg Weeks, Sankar Viswanathan, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<p class="tr">Transcriber's note: <br />
+Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the copyright
+on this publication was renewed.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="center"><img src="images/image_001.jpg" alt="Cover page" width="400" height="735" /></div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<h1>STAR HUNTER</h1>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>ANDRE NORTON</h2>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>ACE BOOKS, INC.</h3>
+<h3>1120 Avenue of the Americas</h3>
+<h3>New York, N.Y. 10036</h3>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center">Copyright, 1961, by Ace Books, Inc.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>STAR HUNTER</h2>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span></p>
+<h2>I</h2>
+
+
+<p>Nahuatl's larger moon pursued the smaller, greenish globe of its
+companion across a cloudless sky in which the stars made a speckled
+pattern like the scales of a huge serpent coiled around a black bowl.
+Ras Hume paused at the border of scented spike-flowers on the top
+terrace of the Pleasure House to wonder why he thought of serpents. He
+understood. Mankind's age-old hatred, brought from his native planet
+to the distant stars, was evil symbolized by a coil in a twisted,
+belly-path across the ground. And on Nahuatl, as well as a dozen other
+worlds, Wass was the serpent.</p>
+
+<p>A night wind was rising, stirring the exotic, half-dozen other worlds'
+foliage planted cunningly on the terrace to simulate the mystery of an
+off-world jungle.</p>
+
+<p>"Hume?" The inquiry seemed to come out of thin air over his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Hume," he repeated his own name calmly.</p>
+
+<p>A shaft of light brilliant enough to dazzle the eyes struck through
+the massed vegetation, revealing a path. Hume lingered for a moment,
+offering a counterstroke of indifference in what he had always known
+would be a test of wits.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span> Wass was Veep of a shadowy empire, but that
+was apart from the world in which Ras Hume moved.</p>
+
+<p>He strode deliberately down the corridor illuminated between leaf and
+blossom walls. A grotesque lump of crystal leered at him from the
+heart of a tharsala lilly bed. The intricate carving of a devilish
+nonhuman set of features was a work of alien art. Tendrils of smoke
+curled from the thing's flat nostrils, and Hume sniffed the scent of a
+narcotic he recognized. He smiled. Such measures might soften up the
+usual civ Wass interviewed here. But a star pilot turned out-hunter
+was immunized against such mind clouding.</p>
+
+<p>There was a door, the lintel and posts of which had more carving, but
+this time Terran, Hume thought&mdash;old, very old. Perhaps rumor was
+right, Milfors Wass might be truly native Terran and not second,
+third, nor fourth generation star stock as most of those who reached
+Nahuatl were.</p>
+
+<p>The room beyond that elaborately carved entrance was, in contrast,
+severe. Rust walls were bare of any pattern save an oval disk of
+cloudy golden shimmer behind the chair at the long table of solid ruby
+rock from Nahuatl's poisonous sister planet of Xipe. Without a pause
+he walked to the chair and seated himself without invitation to wait
+in the empty room.</p>
+
+<p>That clouded oval might be a com device. Hume refused to look at it
+after his first glance. This interview was to be person to person. If
+Wass did not appear within a reasonable length of time he would leave.</p>
+
+<p>And Hume hoped to any unseen watcher he presented the appearance of a
+man not impressed by stage settings. After all he was now in the
+seller's space boots, and it was a seller's market.</p>
+
+<p>Ras Hume rested his right hand on the table. Against the polished glow
+of the stone, the substance of it was flesh-tanned brown&mdash;a perfect
+match for his left. And the subtle difference between true flesh and
+false was no hindrance in the use of those fingers or their strength.
+Save that it had pushed him out of command of a cargo-cum-liner and
+hurled him down from the pinnacle of a star pilot. There were bitter
+brackets about his mouth, set there by that hand as deeply as if
+carved with a knife.</p>
+
+<p>It had been four years&mdash;planet time&mdash;since he had lifted the Rigal
+Rover from the launch pad on Sargon Two. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span> had suspected it might be
+a tricky voyage with young Tors Wazalitz, who was a third owner of the
+Kogan-Bors-Wazalitz line, and a Gratz chewer. But one did not argue
+with the owners, except when the safety of the ship was concerned. The
+Rigal Rover had made a crash landing at Alexbut, and a badly injured
+pilot had brought her in by will, hope and a faith he speedily lost.</p>
+
+<p>He received a plasta-hand, the best the medical center could supply
+and a pension for life, forced by the public acclaim for a man who had
+saved ships and lives. Then&mdash;the sack because a crazed Tors Wazalitz
+was dead. They dared not try to stick Hume with a murder charge; the
+voyage record tapes had been shot straight through to the Patrol
+Council, and the evidence on those could be neither faked nor tampered
+with. They could not give him a quick punishment, but they could try
+to arrange a slow death. The word had gone out that Hume was off pilot
+boards. They had tried to keep him out of space.</p>
+
+<p>And they might have done it, too, had he been the usual type of pilot,
+knowing only his trade. But some odd streak of restlessness had always
+led him to apply for the rim runs, the very first flights to newly
+opened worlds. Outside of the survey men, there were few qualified
+pilots of his seniority who possessed such a wide and varied knowledge
+of the galactic frontiers.</p>
+
+<p>So when he learned that the ships' boards were irrevocably closed to
+him, Hume had signed up with the Out-Hunters' Guild. There was a vast
+difference between lifting a liner from a launching pad and guiding
+civ hunters to worlds surveyed and staked out for their trips into the
+wild. Hume relished the exploration part&mdash;he disliked the
+leading-by-the-hand of nine-tenths of the Guild's clients.</p>
+
+<p>But if he had not been in the Guild service he would never have made
+that find on Jumala. That lucky, lucky find! Hume's plasta-flesh
+fingers curved, their nails drew across the red surface of the table.
+And where was Wass? He was about to rise and go when the golden oval
+on the wall smoked, its substance thinning to a mist as a man stepped
+through to the floor.</p>
+
+<p>The newcomer was small compared to the former pilot, but he had
+breadth of shoulder which made the upper part of his torso overbalance
+his thin hips and legs. He was dressed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span> most conservatively except for
+a jeweled plaque resting on the tightly stretched gray silk of his
+upper tunic at heart level. Unlike Hume he wore no visible arms belt,
+but the other did not doubt that there were a number of devices
+concealed in that room to counter the efforts of any assassin.</p>
+
+<p>The man from the mirror spoke with a flat, toneless voice. His black
+hair had been shaven well above his ears, the locks left on top of his
+skull trained into a kind of bird's crest. As Hume, his visible areas
+of flesh were deeply browned, but by nature rather than exposure to
+space, the pilot guessed. His features were harsh, with a prominent
+nose, a back-slanting forehead, eyes dark, long and large, with heavy
+lids.</p>
+
+<p>"Now&mdash;" He spread both his hands, palm down and flat on the table, a
+gesture Hume found himself for some unknown reason copying. "You have
+a proposition?"</p>
+
+<p>But the pilot was not to be hurried, any more than he was to be
+influenced by Wass' stage-settings.</p>
+
+<p>"I have an idea," he corrected.</p>
+
+<p>"There are many ideas." Wass leaned back in his chair, but he did not
+remove his hands from the table. "Perhaps one in a thousand is the
+kernel of something useful. For the rest, there is no need to trouble
+a man."</p>
+
+<p>"Agreed," Hume returned evenly. "But that one idea in a thousand can
+also pay off in odds of a million to one, when and if a man has it."</p>
+
+<p>"And you have such a one?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have such a one." It was Hume's role now to impress the other by
+his unshakable confidence. He had studied all the possibilities. Wass
+was the right man, perhaps the only partner he could find. But Wass
+must not know that.</p>
+
+<p>"On Jumala?" Wass returned.</p>
+
+<p>If that stare and statement was intended to rattle Hume it was a
+wasted shot. To discover that he had just returned from that frontier
+planet required no ingenuity on the Veep's part.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps."</p>
+
+<p>"Come, Out-Hunter Hume. We are both busy men, this is no time to play
+tricks with words and hints. Either you have made a find worth the
+attention of my organization or you have not. Let me be the judge."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>This was it&mdash;the corner of no return. But Wass had his own code. The
+Veep had established his tight control of his lawless organization by
+set rules, and one of them was, don't be greedy. Wass was never
+greedy, which is why the patrol had never been able to pull him down,
+and those who dealt with him did not talk. If you had a good thing,
+and Wass accepted temporary partnership, he kept his side of the
+bargain rigidly. You did the same&mdash;or regretted your stupidity.</p>
+
+<p>"A claimant to the Kogan estate&mdash;that good enough for you?"</p>
+
+<p>Wass showed no surprise. "And how would such a claimant be profitable
+to us?"</p>
+
+<p>Hume appreciated that "us"; he had an in now. "If you supply the
+claimant, surely you can claim a reward, in more ways than one."</p>
+
+<p>"True. But one does not produce a claimant out of a Krusha dream. The
+investigation for any such claim now would be made by a verity lab and
+no imposture will pass those tests. While a real claimant would not
+need your help or mine."</p>
+
+<p>"Depends upon the claimant."</p>
+
+<p>"One you discovered on Jumala?"</p>
+
+<p>"No." Hume shook his head slowly. "I found something else on
+Jumala&mdash;an L-B from Largo Drift intact and in good shape. From the
+evidence now in existence it could have landed there with survivors
+aboard."</p>
+
+<p>"And the evidence of such survivors living on&mdash;that exists also?"</p>
+
+<p>Hume shrugged, his plasta-flesh fingers flexed slightly. "It has been
+six planet years, there is a forest where the L-B rests. No, no
+evidence at present."</p>
+
+<p>"The Largo Drift," Wass repeated slowly, "carrying, among others,
+Gentlefem Tharlee Kogan Brodie."</p>
+
+<p>"And her son Rynch Brodie, who was at the time of the Largo Drift's
+disappearance a boy of fourteen."</p>
+
+<p>"You have indeed made a find." Wass gave that simple statement enough
+emphasis to assure Hume he had won. His one-in-a-thousand idea had
+been absorbed, was now being examined, amplified, broken down into
+details he could never have hoped to manage for himself, by the most
+cunning criminal brain in at least five solar systems.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Is there any hope of survivors?" Wass attacked the problem straight
+on.</p>
+
+<p>"No evidence even of there being any passengers when the L-B planeted.
+Those are automatic and released a certain number of seconds after an
+accident alarm. For what it's worth the hatch of this one was open. It
+could have brought in survivors. But I was on Jumala for three months
+with a full Guild crew and we found no sign of any castaways."</p>
+
+<p>"So you propose&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"On the basis of my report Jumala has been put up for a safari choice.
+The L-B could well be innocently discovered by a client. Every one
+knows the story with the case dragging through the Ten Sector-Terran
+Courts now. Gentlefem Brodie and her son might not have been news ten
+years ago. Now, with a third of the Kogan-Bors-Wazalitz control going
+to them, any find linked with the Largo Drift would gain full galactic
+coverage."</p>
+
+<p>"You have a choice of survivor? The Gentlefem?"</p>
+
+<p>Hume shook his head. "The boy. He was bright, according to the stories
+since, and he would have the survival manual from the ship to study.
+He could have grown up in the wilds of an unopened planet. To use a
+woman is too tricky."</p>
+
+<p>"You are entirely right. But we shall require an extremely clever
+imposter."</p>
+
+<p>"I think not." Hume's cool glance met Wass'. "We only need a youth of
+the proper general physical description and the use of a conditioner."</p>
+
+<p>Wass' expression did not change, there was no sign that Hume's hint
+had struck home. But when he replied there was a slight change in the
+monotone of his voice.</p>
+
+<p>"You seem to know a great deal."</p>
+
+<p>"I am a man who listens," Hume replied, "and I do not always discount
+rumor as mere fantasy."</p>
+
+<p>"That is true. As one of the guild you would be interested in the root
+of fact beneath the plant of fiction," Wass acknowledged. "You appear
+to have done some planning on your own."</p>
+
+<p>"I have waited and watched for just such an opportunity as this," Hume
+answered.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, yes. The Kogan-Bors-Wazalitz combine incurred your displeasure. I
+see you are also a man who does not forget easily. And that, too, I
+understand. It is a foible of my own,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> Out-Hunter. I neither forget
+nor forgive my enemies, though I may seem to do so and time separates
+them from their past deeds for a space."</p>
+
+<p>Hume accepted that warning&mdash;both must keep any bargain. Wass was
+silent for a moment, as if to leave time for the thought to root
+itself, then he spoke again.</p>
+
+<p>"A youth with the proper physical qualifications. Have you any such in
+mind?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think so." Hume was short.</p>
+
+<p>"He will need certain memories; those take time to tape."</p>
+
+<p>"Those dealing with Jumala, I can supply."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. You will have to provide a tape beginning with his arrival on
+that world. For such family material as is necessary I shall have
+ready. An interesting project, even apart from its value to us. This
+is one to intrigue experts."</p>
+
+<p>Expert psycho-techs&mdash;Wass had them. Men who had slipped over the
+border of the law, had entered Wass' organization and prospered there.
+There were some techs crooked enough to enjoy such a project for its
+own sake, indulging in forbidden experimentation. For a moment, but
+only for a moment, something in Hume jibbed at the intent of carrying
+through his plan. Then he shrugged that tinge aside.</p>
+
+<p>"How soon do you wish to move?"</p>
+
+<p>"How long will preparation take?" Hume asked in return, for the second
+time battling a taste of concern.</p>
+
+<p>"Three months, maybe four. There's research to be done and tapes to be
+made."</p>
+
+<p>"It will be six months probably before the Guild sets up a safari for
+Jumala."</p>
+
+<p>Wass smiled. "That need not worry us. When the time comes for a
+safari, there shall also be clients, impeccable clients, asking for it
+to be planned."</p>
+
+<p>There would be, too, Hume knew. Wass' influence reached into places
+where the Veep himself was totally unknown. Yes, he could count on an
+excellent, well above suspicion, set of clients to discover Rynch
+Brodie when the time came.</p>
+
+<p>"I can deliver the boy tonight, or early tomorrow morning. Where?"</p>
+
+<p>"You are sure of your selection?"</p>
+
+<p>"He fulfills the requirements, the right age, general appearance. A
+boy who will not be missed, who has no kin, no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> ties, and who will
+drop out of sight without any questions to be asked."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well. Get him at once. Deliver him here."</p>
+
+<p>Wass swept one hand across the table surface. On the red of the stone
+there glowed for seconds an address. Hume noted it, nodded. It was one
+in the center of the port town, one which could be visited at an odd
+hour without exciting any curiosity. He rose.</p>
+
+<p>"He will be there."</p>
+
+<p>"Tomorrow, at your convenience," Wass added, "you will come to this
+place." Again the palm moved and a second address showed on the table.</p>
+
+<p>"There you will begin your tape for our use. It may take several
+sessions."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm ready. I still have the long report to make to the Guild, so the
+material is still available on my note tapes."</p>
+
+<p>"Excellent. Out-Hunter Hume, I salute a new colleague." At last Wass'
+right hand came up from the table. "May we both have luck equal to our
+industry."</p>
+
+<p>"Luck to equal our desires," Hume corrected him.</p>
+
+<p>"A very telling phrase, Out-Hunter. Luck to equal our desires. Yes,
+let us both deserve that."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>2</h2>
+
+
+<p>The Starfall was a long way down scale from the pleasure houses of the
+upper town. Here strange vices were also merchandise, but not such
+exotics as Wass provided. This was strictly for crewmen of the star
+freighters who could be speedily and expertly separated from a
+voyage's pay in an evening. The tantalizing scents of Wass' terraces
+were reduced here to simply smells, the majority of which were not
+fragrant.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>There had already been two fatal duels that evening. A tubeman from a
+rim ship had challenged a space miner to settle a difference with
+those vicious whips made from the tail casings of Flangoid flying
+lizards, an encounter which left both men in ribbons, one dead, one
+dying. And a scarred, ex-space marine had blaster-flamed one of the
+Star-and-Comet dealers into charred human ash.</p>
+
+<p>The young man who had been ordered to help clear away the second loser
+retired to the stinking alley outside to lose the meal which was part
+of his meager day's pay. Now he crawled back inside, his face
+greenish, one hand pressed to his middle section.</p>
+
+<p>He was thin, the fine bones of his face tight under the pallid skin,
+his ribs showing even through the sleazy fabric of the threadbare
+tunic with its house seal. When he leaned his head back against the
+grime encrusted wall, raising his face to the light, his hair had the
+glint of bright chestnut, a gold which was also red. And for his
+swamper's labor he was almost fastidiously clean.</p>
+
+<p>"You&mdash;Lansor!"</p>
+
+<p>He shivered as if an icy wind had found him and opened his eyes. They
+seemed disproportionately large in his skin and bone face and were of
+an odd shade, neither green nor blue, but somewhere between.</p>
+
+<p>"Get going, you! Ain't paying out good credits for you to sit there
+like you was buying on your own!" The Salarkian who loomed above him
+spoke accentless, idiomatic Basic Space which came strangely from
+between his yellow lips. A furred hand thrust the handle of a mop-up
+stick at the young man, a taloned thumb jerked the direction in which
+to use that evil-smelling object. Vye Lansor levered himself up the
+wall, took the mop, setting his teeth grimly.</p>
+
+<p>Someone had spilled a mug of Kardo and the deep purple liquid was
+already patterning the con-stone floor past any hope of cleaning. But
+he set to work slapping the fringe of the noisome mop back and forth
+to sop up what he could. The smell of the Kardo uniting with the
+general effluvia of the room and its inhabitants heightened his
+queasiness.</p>
+
+<p>Working blindly in a half stupor, he was not aware of the man sitting
+alone in the booth until his mop spattered the ankle of one of the
+drinking girls. She struck him sharply<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> across the face with a
+sputtering curse in the tongue of Altar-Ishtar.</p>
+
+<p>The blow sent him back against the open lattice of the booth. As he
+tried to steady himself another hand reached up, fingers tightened
+about his wrist. He flinched, tried to jerk away from that hold, only
+to discover that he was the other's prisoner.</p>
+
+<p>And looking down at his captor in apprehension, he was aware even then
+of the different quality of this man. The patron wore the tunic of a
+crewman, lighter patches where the ship's badges should have been to
+show that he was not engaged. But, though his tunic was shabby, dirty,
+his magnetic boots scuffed and badly worn, he was not like the others
+now enjoying the pleasures of the Starfall.</p>
+
+<p>"This one&mdash;he makes trouble?" The vast bulk of the Vorm-man who was
+the Starfall's private law moved through the crowd with serene
+confidence in his own strength, which no one there, unless blind,
+deaf, and out-of-the-senses drunk, could dispute. His scaled,
+six-fingered, claw hand reached out for Lansor and the boy cringed.</p>
+
+<p>"No trouble!" There was the click of authority in the voice of the man
+in the booth. His face, moments earlier taut and sharp with
+intelligence, was suddenly slack, his tone slurred as he answered:
+"Looks like an old shipmate. No trouble, just want a drink with an old
+shipmate."</p>
+
+<p>But the grip which had pulled Vye forward, swung him around and down
+on the other bench in the booth, was anything but slack. The Vorm-man
+glanced from the patron of the Starfall to its least important
+employee and then grinned, thrusting his fanged jaws close to
+Lansor's.</p>
+
+<p>"If the master wants to drink, you dirt-rat, you drink!"</p>
+
+<p>Vye nodded vigorously, and then put his hand to his mouth, afraid his
+stomach was about to betray him again. Apprehensive, he watched the
+Vorm-man turn away. Only when that broad, green-gray back was lost in
+the smoky far reaches of the room did he expel his breath again.</p>
+
+<p>"Here&mdash;" The grip was gone from his wrist, but fingers now put a mug
+into his hand. "Drink!"</p>
+
+<p>He tried to protest, knew it was hopeless, and used both hands to get
+the mug to his lips, mouthing the stinging liquid in dull despair.
+Only, instead of bringing nausea with it, the stuff settled his
+stomach, cleared his head, with an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> after glow with which he managed
+to relax from the tense state of endurance which filled his hours in
+the Starfall.</p>
+
+<p>Half of the mug's contents inside him and he dared to raise his eyes
+to the man opposite him. Yes, this was no common crewman, nor was he
+drunk as he had pretended for the Vorm-man. Now he watched the milling
+crowd with a kind of detachment, though Vye was sure he was aware of
+every move he himself made.</p>
+
+<p>Vye finished the liquid. For the first time since he had come into
+this place two months earlier he felt like a real person again. And he
+had wits enough to guess that the potion he had just swallowed
+contained some drug. Only now he did not care at all. Anything which
+could wipe out in moments all the shame, fear, and sick despair the
+Starfall had planted in him was worth swallowing. Why the other had
+drugged him was a mystery, but he was content to wait for
+enlightenment.</p>
+
+<p>Lansor's companion once more applied that compelling pressure to the
+younger man's bony forearm. Linked by that hold they left the
+Starfall, came into the cooler, far more pleasant atmosphere of the
+street. They were a block away before Vye's guide halted, though he
+did not release his prisoner.</p>
+
+<p>"Forty names of Dugor!" he spat.</p>
+
+<p>Lansor waited, breathing in the air of early morning. The confidence
+of the drug still held. At the moment he was certain nothing could be
+as bad as the life behind him, he was willing to face what this
+strange patron of the Starfall had in mind.</p>
+
+<p>The other slapped his hand down on an air-car call button, stood
+waiting until one of the city flitters landed on beam before them.</p>
+
+<p>From the seat of the air-car Vye noted they were heading into the
+respectability of the upper city, away from the stews ringing the
+launch port. He tried to guess their destination or purpose, not that
+either mattered much. Then the car descended on a landing stage.</p>
+
+<p>The stranger waved Lansor through a doorway, down a short corridor
+into a room of private quarters. Vye sat down gingerly on the foam
+seat extending from the wall as he neared. He stared about. Dimly he
+could just remember rooms which had this degree of comfort, but so
+dimly now<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> he could not be sure they did not exist only in his vivid
+imagination. For Vye's imagination had buoyed him first through the
+drab existence in a State Child's Cr&egrave;che, then through a state-found
+job which he had lost because he could not adapt to the mechanical
+life of a computer tender, and had been an anchor and an escape when
+he had sunk through the depths of the port to the last refuge in the
+Starfall.</p>
+
+<p>Now he pressed both his hands into the soft stuff of the seat and
+gaped at a small tri-dee on the wall facing him, a miniature scene of
+life on some other planet wherein a creature enveloped in short black
+and white striped fur crept belly flat, to stalk long-legged,
+short-winged birds making blood-red splotches against yellow reed
+banks under a pale violet sky. He feasted on its color, on the sense
+of freedom and off-world wonders which it raised in him.</p>
+
+<p>"Who are you?"</p>
+
+<p>The stranger's abrupt question brought him back, not only to the room
+but to his own precarious position. He moistened his lips, no longer
+quite so aglow with confidence.</p>
+
+<p>"Vye&mdash;Vye Lansor." Then he added his other identification, "S. C. C.
+425061."</p>
+
+<p>"State child, eh?" The other had pushed a button for a refresher cup,
+then was sipping its contents slowly. He did not ring for a second to
+offer Vye. "Parents?"</p>
+
+<p>Lansor shook his head. "I was brought in after the Five-Hour Fever
+epidemic. They didn't try to keep records, there were too many of us."</p>
+
+<p>The man was watching him levelly over the rim of that cup. There was
+something cold in that study, something which curbed Vye's pleasant
+feeling of only moments earlier. Now the other set down his drink,
+crossed the room. Cupping his hand under Lansor's chin, he brought up
+his head in a way which stirred a sullen resentment in the younger
+man, yet something told him resistance would only bring trouble.</p>
+
+<p>"I'd say Terran stock&mdash;not more than second generation." He was
+talking to himself more than to Vye. He loosed his hold on the boy's
+chin, but he still stood there surveying him from head to foot. Lansor
+wanted to squirm, but he fought that impulse, and managed to meet the
+other's gaze when it reached his face again.</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;not the usual port-drift. I was right all the way."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> Now he
+looked at Vye again as if the younger man did have a brain, emotions,
+some call on his interest as a personality. "Want a job?"</p>
+
+<p>Lansor pressed his hand deeper into the foam seat. "What&mdash;what kind?"
+He was angry and ashamed at that small betraying break in his voice.</p>
+
+<p>"You have scruples?" The stranger appeared to think that amusing. Vye
+reddened, but he was also more than a little surprised that the man in
+the worn space uniform had read hesitancy right. Someone out of the
+Starfall should not be too particular about employment, and he could
+not tell why he was.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing illegal, I assure you." The man crossed to set his refresher
+cup in the empty slot. "I am an Out-Hunter."</p>
+
+<p>Lansor blinked. This had all taken on some of the fantastic aura of a
+dream. The other was eyeing him impatiently, as if he had expected
+some reaction.</p>
+
+<p>"You may inspect my credentials if you wish."</p>
+
+<p>"I believe you," Vye found his voice.</p>
+
+<p>"I happen to need a gearman."</p>
+
+<p>But this wasn't happening! Of course, it couldn't happen to him, Vye
+Lansor, state child, swamper in the Starfall. Things such as this did
+not happen, except in a thaline dream, and he wasn't a smoke eater! It
+was the kind of dream a man didn't want to wake from, not if he was
+port-drift.</p>
+
+<p>"Would you be willing to sign on?"</p>
+
+<p>Vye tried to clutch reality to himself, to remain level-headed. A
+gearman for an Out-Hunter! Why five men out of six would pay a large
+premium for a chance at such rating. The chill of doubt cut through
+the first hazy rosiness. A swamper from a port-side dive simply did
+not become a gearman for a Guild Hunter.</p>
+
+<p>Again it was as if the stranger read his thoughts. "Look here," he
+spoke abruptly. "I had a bad time myself, years ago. You resemble
+someone to whom I owe a debt. I can't repay him, but I can make the
+scales a little even this way."</p>
+
+<p>"Make the scales even." Vye's fading hope brightened. Then the
+Out-Hunter was a follower of the Fata Rite. That would explain
+everything. If you could not repay a good deed to the one you owed,
+you must balance the Eternal Scales in another fashion. He relaxed
+again, a great many of his unasked questions so answered.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You will accept?"</p>
+
+<p>Vye nodded eagerly. "Yes, Out-Hunter." He still could not believe that
+this was happening.</p>
+
+<p>The other pressed the refresher button, and this time he handed Lansor
+the brimming cup. "Drink on the bargain." His words had the ring of
+command.</p>
+
+<p>Lansor drank, gulping down the contents of the cup, and suddenly was
+aware of being tired. He leaned back against the wall, his eyes
+closed.</p>
+
+<p>Ras Hume took the cup from the lax fingers of the young man. So far,
+very good. Chance appeared to be playing on his side of the board. It
+had been chance which had steered him into the Starfall just three
+nights ago when he had been in quest of his imposter. And Vye Lansor
+was better than he dared hope to find. The boy had the right coloring,
+he had been batted around enough to fall for the initial story, he was
+malleable now. And after Wass' techs worked on him he would be Rynch
+Brodie&mdash;heir to one-third of Kogan-Bors-Wazalitz!</p>
+
+<p>"Come!" He touched Vye on the shoulder. The boy opened his eyes but
+his gaze did not focus as he got slowly to his feet. Hume glanced at
+his planet-time watch. It was still very early; the chance he must run
+in getting Lansor out of this building was small if they went at once.
+Guiding the younger man with a light hold above the elbow, he walked
+him out back to the flitter landing stage. The air-car was waiting.
+Hume's sense of being a gambler facing a run of good luck grew as he
+shepherded the boy into the flitter, punched a cover destination and
+took off.</p>
+
+<p>On another street he transferred himself and his charge into a second
+air-car, set the destination to within a block of the address Wass had
+given him. Not much later he walked Vye into a small lobby with a
+discreet list of names posted in its rack. No occupations attached to
+those colored streamers Hume noted. This meant either that their
+owners represented luxury trades, where a name signified the
+profession or service, or that they were covers&mdash;perhaps both. Wass'
+world fringed many different circles, intermingled with some quite
+surprising professions dedicated to the comfort, pleasure or health of
+the idle rich, off-world nobility, and the criminal elite.</p>
+
+<p>Hume fingered the right call button, knowing that the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> thumb pattern
+he had left on Wass' conference table would have already been relayed
+as his symbol of admission here. A flicker of light winked below the
+name, the wall to the right shimmered, and produced a doorway.
+Steering Vye to it, Hume nodded to the man waiting there. He was a
+flat-faced Eucorian of the servant caste, and now he reached out to
+draw Lansor over the threshold.</p>
+
+<p>"I have him, gentlehomo." His voice was as expressionless as his face.
+There was another shimmer and the door disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>Hume brushed his hand down the outer side of his thigh, wiping flesh
+against the coarse stuff of the crew uniform. He left the lobby
+frowning at his own thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>Stupid! A swamper from one of the worst rat holes in the port. Like as
+not that youngster would have had his brains kicked out in a brawl, or
+been fried to a crisp when some drunk got wild with a blaster, before
+the year was out. He'd done him a real kindness, given him a chance at
+a future less than one man in a billion ever had the power to even
+dream about. Why, if Vye Lansor had known what was going to happen to
+him, he would have been so willing to volunteer, that he would have
+dragged Hume here. There was no reason to have any regrets over the
+boy, he had never had it so good&mdash;never! There was only one small
+period of risk for Vye to face. Those days he would have to spend
+alone on Jumala between the time Wass' organization would plant him
+there and the coming of Hume's party to "discover" him. Hume himself
+would tape every possible aid to cover that period. All the knowledge
+of a Guild Out-Hunter, added to the information gathered by the
+survey, would be used to provide Rynch Brodie with the training
+necessary for wilderness survival. Hume was already listing the items
+to be included as he strode down the street, his tread once more
+assured.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span></p>
+<h2>3</h2>
+
+
+<p>His head ached dully, of that he was conscious first. As he turned,
+without opening his eyes, he felt the brush of softness against his
+cheek, and a pungent odor fill his nostrils.</p>
+
+<p>He opened his eyes, stared up past a rim of broken rock toward the
+cloudless, blue-green sky. A relay clicked into proper place deep in
+his mind.</p>
+
+<p>Of course! He had been trying to lure a strong-jaws out of its
+traphole with hooked bait, then his foot had slipped. Rynch Brodie sat
+up, flexed his bare thin arms, and moved his long legs experimentally.
+No broken bones, anyway. But still he frowned. Odd&mdash;that dream which
+jarred with the here and now.</p>
+
+<p>Crawling to the side of the creek, he dipped head and shoulders into
+the water, letting the chill of the stream flush away some of his
+waking bewilderment. He shook himself, making the drops fly from his
+uncovered torso and arms, and then discovered his hunting tackle.</p>
+
+<p>He stood for a moment fingering each piece of his scanty clothing,
+recalling every piece of labor or battle which had added pouch, belt,
+strip of fabric to his equipment. Yet&mdash;there was still that odd sense
+of strangeness, as if none of this was really his.</p>
+
+<p>Rynch shook his head, wiped his wet face with his arm. It was all his,
+that was sure, every bit of it. He'd been lucky, the survival manual
+on the L-B had furnished him with general directions and this was a
+world which was not unfriendly&mdash;not if one was prepared for trouble.</p>
+
+<p>He climbed up and loosened the net, coiling its folds into one hand,
+taking the good spear in his other. A bush stirred<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> ahead, against the
+pull of the light breeze. Rynch froze, then the haft of his spear slid
+into a new hand grip, the coils of his net spun out. A snarl cut over
+the purr of water.</p>
+
+<p>The scarlet blot which sprang for his throat was met with the flail of
+the net. Rynch stabbed twice at the creature he had so swept off
+balance. A water-cat, this year's cub. Dying, its claws, over-long in
+proportion to its paws, drew inch deep furrows in the earth and
+gravel. Its eyes, almost the same shade as its long, burr-entangled
+body fur, glared up at him in deathly enmity.</p>
+
+<p>As Rynch watched, that feeling that he was studying something strange,
+utterly alien, came to him once again. Yet he had hunted water-cats
+for many seasons. Fortunately they were solitary, evil-tempered beasts
+that marked out a roaming territory to defend it from others of their
+kind, and not too many were to be encountered in cross-country travel.</p>
+
+<p>He stooped to pull his net from the now still paws. Some definite
+place he must reach. The compulsion to move on in that sudden flash
+shook him, raised the dull ache still troubling his temples into a
+punishing throb. Going down on his knees, Rynch once more turned to
+the stream water; this time after splashing it onto his face, he drank
+from his cupped hands.</p>
+
+<p>Rynch swayed, his wet hands over his eyes, digging fingertips into the
+skin of his forehead to ease that pain bursting in his skull. Sitting
+in a room, drinking from a cup&mdash;it was as if a shadow picture fitted
+over the reality of the stream, rocks and brush about him. He had sat
+in a room, had drank from a cup&mdash;that action had been important!</p>
+
+<p>A sharp, hot pain made him lose contact with that shadow. He looked
+down. From the gravel, from under rocks, gathered an army of
+blue-black, hard-shelled things, their clawed forelimbs extended, blue
+sense organs raised on fleshy stalks well above their heads, all
+turned towards the dead feline.</p>
+
+<p>Rynch slapped out vigorously, stumbled into the water loosening the
+hold of two vicious scavengers on the torn skin of his ankle when he
+waded out knee-deep. Already that black tongue of small bodies licked
+across the red-haired side of the hunter. Within minutes the corpse
+would be only well-cleaned bones.</p>
+
+<p>Retrieving his spear and net, Rynch immersed both in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> water to
+clean off attackers, and hurried on, splashing through the creek until
+he was well away from the vicinity of the kill. A little later he
+flushed a four-footed creature from between two rocks and killed it
+with one blow from his spear haft. He skinned his kill, feeling the
+substance of the skill. Was it exceedingly rough hide, or rudimentary
+scales? And knew a return of that puzzlement.</p>
+
+<p>He felt, he thought painfully as he toasted the dry looking, grayish
+meat on a sharpened stick, as if a part of him knew very well what
+manner of animal he had killed. And yet, far inside him, another
+person he could not understand stood aloof watching in amazement.</p>
+
+<p>He was Rynch Brodie, and he had been traveling on the Largo Drift with
+his mother.</p>
+
+<p>Memory presented him automatically with a picture of a thin woman with
+a narrow, rather unhappy face, a twist of elaborately dressed hair in
+which jeweled lights sparkled. There had been something bad&mdash;memory
+was no longer exact but chaotic. And his head ached as he tried to
+recall that time with greater clarity. Afterwards the L-B and a man
+with him in it&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Simmons Tait!"</p>
+
+<p>An officer, badly hurt. He had died when the L-B landed here. Rynch
+had a clear memory of himself piling rocks over Tait's twisted body.
+He had been alone then with only the survival manual and some of the
+L-B supplies. The important thing was that he must never forget he was
+Rynch Brodie.</p>
+
+<p>He licked grease from his fingers. The ache in his head made him
+drowsy. He curled up on a patch of sun-warmed sand and slept.</p>
+
+<p>Or did he? His eyes were open again. Now the sky above him was no
+longer a bowl of light, but rather a muted halo of evening. Rynch sat
+up, his heart pounding as if he had been racing to outdistance the
+rising wind now pushing against his half-naked body.</p>
+
+<p>What was he doing here? Where <i>was</i> here?</p>
+
+<p>Panic, carried through from that awakening, dried his mouth, roughened
+his skin, made wet the palms of the hands he dug into the sand on
+either side of him. Vaguely, a picture projected into his mind&mdash;he had
+sat in a room, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> watched a man come to him with a cup. Before that,
+he had been in a place of garish light and evil smells.</p>
+
+<p>But he was Rynch Brodie, he had come here on an L-B when he was a boy,
+he had buried the ship's officer under a pile of rocks, managed to
+survive by himself because he had applied the aids in the boat to
+learn how. This morning he had been hunting a strong-jaw, tempting it
+out of its hiding by a hook and line and a bait of fresh killed
+skipper.</p>
+
+<p>Rynch's hands went to his face, he crouched forward on his knees. That
+all was true, he could prove it&mdash;he would prove it! There was the
+strong-jaw's den back there, somewhere on the rise where he had left
+the snapped haft of the spear he had broken in his fall. If he could
+find the den, then he would be sure of the reality of everything else.</p>
+
+<p>He had only had a very real dream&mdash;that was it! Only, why did he
+continue to dream of that room, that man, and the cup? Of the place of
+lights and smells, which he hated so much that the hate was a sour
+taste in his fright-dried mouth? None of it had ever been a part of
+Rynch Brodie's world.</p>
+
+<p>Through the dusk he started back up the stream bed, towards the narrow
+little valley where he had wakened after that fall. Finally, finding
+shelter within the heart of a bush, he crouched low, listening to the
+noises of another world which awoke at night to take over the stage
+from the day dwellers.</p>
+
+<p>As he plodded back, he fought off panic, realizing that some of those
+noises he could identify with confidence, while others remained
+mysteries. He bit down hard on the knuckles of his clenched fist,
+attempting to bend that discovery into evidence. Why did he know at
+once that that thin, eerie wailing was the flock call of a
+leather-winged, feathered tree dweller, and that a coughing grunt from
+downstream was just a noise?</p>
+
+<p>"Rynch Brodie&mdash;Largo Drift&mdash;Tait." He tasted the blood his teeth drew
+from his own skin as he recited that formula. Then he scrambled up.
+His feet tangled in the net, and he went down again, his head cracking
+on a protruding root.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing tangible reached him in that brush shelter. What did venture
+out of hiding to investigate was a substance none of his species could
+have named. It was neither body, nor mind&mdash;perhaps it was closest to
+alien emotion.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Making contact stealthily, but with confidence, it explored after its
+own fashion. Then, puzzled, it withdrew to report. And since that to
+which it reported was governed by a set pattern which had not been
+altered for eons, its only answer was a basic command reaffirmed.
+Again it made contact, strove to carry out that order fruitlessly.
+Where it should have found easy passage, a clear channel to carry
+influence to the sleeper's brain, it found a jumble of impressions,
+interwoven until they made a protective barrier.</p>
+
+<p>The invader strove to find some pattern, or meaning&mdash;withdrew baffled.
+But its invasion, as ghostly as that had been, loosened a knot here,
+cleared a passage there.</p>
+
+<p>Rynch awoke at dawn, slowly, dazedly, sorting out sounds, smells,
+thoughts. There was a room, a man, trouble and fear, then there was
+he, Rynch Brodie, who had lived in this wilderness on an unmapped
+frontier world for the passage of many seasons. That world was about
+him now, he could feel its winds, hear its sounds, taste, smell. It
+was not a dream&mdash;the other was the dream. It had to be!</p>
+
+<p>Prove it. Find the L-B, retrace the trail of yesterday past the point
+of the fall which had started all this. Right there was the slope down
+which he must have tumbled. Above, he would find the den he had been
+exploring when the accident had occurred.</p>
+
+<p>Only&mdash;he did not find it. His mind had produced a detailed picture of
+that rounded depression, at the bottom of which the strong-jaw lurked.
+But when he reached the crown of the bluff, nowhere did he sight the
+mounded earth of the pit's rim. He searched carefully for a good
+length, both north and south. No den&mdash;no trace of one. Yet his memory
+told him that there had been one here yesterday.</p>
+
+<p>Had he fallen elsewhere and stumbled on, dazed, to fall a second time?</p>
+
+<p>Some disputant inside him said no to that. This was where he had
+regained consciousness yesterday and there was no den!</p>
+
+<p>He faced away from the river, breathing fast. No den&mdash;was there also
+no L-B? If he had passed this way dazed from a former fall, surely he
+would have left some trace.</p>
+
+<p>There was a crushed, browned plant flattened by weight. He stooped to
+finger the wilted leaves. Something had come<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> in this direction. He
+would back-track. Rynch gave a hunter's attention to the ground.</p>
+
+<p>A half-hour later he found nothing but some odd, almost obliterated
+marks on grass too resilient to hold traces very long. And from them
+he could make nothing.</p>
+
+<p>He knew where he was, even if he did not know how he got here. The
+L-B&mdash;if it did exist&mdash;was to the west. He had a vivid mental picture
+of the rocket shape, its once silvery sides dulled by exposure, canted
+crookedly amid trees. And he was going to find it!</p>
+
+<p>Beyond the edge of any conscious sense there was a new stir. He was
+contacted again, tested. A forest called delicately in its alien way.
+Rynch had a fleeting thought of trees, was not aware of more than a
+mild desire to see what lay in their shade.</p>
+
+<p>For the present his own problem held him. That which beckoned was
+defeated, repulsed by his indifference. While Rynch started at a
+steady distance to trot towards the east, far away a process akin to a
+relay clicked into a second set of impulse orders.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Well above the planet Hume spun a dial to bring in the image of the
+wide stretches of continents, the small patches of seas. They would
+set down on the western land mass. Its climate, geographical features
+and surface provided the best site. And he had the very important
+co-ordinates for their camp already taped in the directo.</p>
+
+<p>"That's Jumala."</p>
+
+<p>He did not glance around to see what effect that screen view had on
+the other four men in the control cabin of the safari ship. Just now
+he was striving to master his impatience. The slightest hint could
+give birth to a suspicion which would blast their whole scheme. Wass
+might have had a hand in the selection of the three clients, but they
+would certainly be far from briefed on the truth of any discovery made
+on Jumala&mdash;they had to be for the safety of the whole enterprise.</p>
+
+<p>The fourth man, serving as his gearman for this trip, was Wass' own
+insurance against any wrong move on Hume's part. And the Out-Hunter
+respected him as being man enough to be wary of giving any suspicion
+of going counter to the agreed plan.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Dawn was touching up the main points of the western continent, and he
+must set this spacer down within a day's journey of the abandoned L-B.
+Exploration in that direction would be the first logical move for his
+party. They could not be openly steered to the find, but there were
+ways of directing a hunt which would do as well.</p>
+
+<p>Two days ago, according to schedule, their castaway had been deposited
+here with a sub-conscious command to remain in the general area. There
+had been a slight element of risk in leaving him alone, armed only
+with the crude weapons he could manipulate, but that was part of the
+gamble.</p>
+
+<p>They were down&mdash;right on the mark. Hume saw to the unpacking and
+activating of those machines and appliances which would protect and
+serve his civ clients. He slapped the last inflate valve on a bubble
+tent, watched it critically as it billowed from a small roll of fabric
+into a weather resistant, one-room, air-conditioned and heated
+shelter.</p>
+
+<p>"Ready and waiting for you to move in, Gentlehomo," he reported to the
+small man who stood gazing about him with a child's wondering interest
+in the new and strange.</p>
+
+<p>"Very ingenious, Hunter. Ah&mdash;now just what might that be?" His voice
+was also eager as he pointed a finger to the east.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>4</h2>
+
+
+<p>Hume glanced up alertly. There was a bare chance that "Brodie" might
+have witnessed their arrival and might be coming in now to save them
+all a great amount of time and trouble by acting the overjoyed,
+rescued castaway.</p>
+
+<p>But he could sight nothing at all in that direction to excite any
+attention. The distant mountains provided a stark, dark blue
+background. Up their foothills and lower slopes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> was a thick furring
+of trees with foliage of so deep a green as to register black from
+this distance. And on the level country was the lighter blue-green of
+the other variety of wood edging the open country about the river. In
+there rested the L-B.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see anything!" he snapped, so sharply the little man stared
+at him in open surprise. Hume forced a quick smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Just what did you sight, Gentlehomo Starns? There is no large game in
+the woodlands."</p>
+
+<p>"This was not an animal, Hunter. Rather a flash of light, just about
+there." Again he pointed.</p>
+
+<p>Sun, Hume thought, could have been reflected from some portion of the
+L-B. He had believed that small spacer so covered with vines and
+ringed in by trees that it could not have been so sighted. But a storm
+might have disposed of some of nature's cloaking. If so Starns'
+interest must be fed, he would make an ideal discoverer.</p>
+
+<p>"Odd." Hume produced his distance glasses. "Just where, Gentlehomo?"</p>
+
+<p>"There." Starns obligingly pointed a third time.</p>
+
+<p>If there had been anything to see it was gone now. But it did lie in
+the right direction. For a second or two Hume was uneasy. Things
+seemed to be working too well; his cynical distrust was triggered by
+fitting so smoothly.</p>
+
+<p>"Might be the sun," he observed.</p>
+
+<p>"Reflected from some object you mean, Hunter? But the flash was very
+bright. And there could be no mirror surface in there, surely there
+could not be?"</p>
+
+<p>Yes, things were moving too fast. Hume might be overly cautious but he
+was determined that no hint of any pre-knowledge of the L-B must ever
+come to these civs. When they would find the Largo Drift's life boat
+and locate Brodie, there would be a legal snarl. The castaway's
+identity would be challenged by a half dozen distant and unloving
+relatives, and there would be an intense inquiry. These civs must be
+the impartial witnesses.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I hardly believe in a mirror in an uninhabited forest,
+Gentlehomo," he chuckled. "But we are on a hunting planet and not all
+its life forms have yet been classified."</p>
+
+<p>"You are thinking of an intelligent native race, Hunter?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> Chambriss,
+the most demanding of the civ party, strode up to join them.</p>
+
+<p>Hume shook his head. "No native intelligence on a hunting world,
+Gentlehomo. That is assured before the planet is listed for a safari.
+However, a bird or flying thing, perhaps with metallic plumage or
+scales to catch the sunlight, might under the right circumstances seem
+a flash of light. That has happened before."</p>
+
+<p>"It was <i>very</i> bright," Starns said doubtfully. "We might look over
+there later."</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense!" Chambriss spoke briskly as one used to overriding the
+conflicting wishes in any company. "I came here for a water-cat, and a
+water-cat I'm going to have. You don't find those in wooded areas."</p>
+
+<p>"There will be a schedule," Hume announced. "Each of you has signed
+up, according to contract, for a different trophy. You for a
+water-cat, Gentlehomo. And you, Gentlehomo Starns, want to make
+tri-dees of the pit-dragons. While Gentlehomo Yactisi wishes to try
+electo fishing in the deep holes. To alternate days is the fair way.
+And, who knows, each of you may discover your own choice near the
+other man's stake out."</p>
+
+<p>"You are quite right, Hunter," Starns nodded. "And since my two
+colleagues have chosen to try for a water creature, perhaps we should
+start along the river."</p>
+
+<p>It was two days, then, before they could work their way into the
+woods. One part of Hume protested, the more cautious section of his
+mind was appeased. He saw, beyond the three clients now turning over
+and sorting space bags, Wass' man glanced at the woods and then back
+to Starns. And, being acutely aware of all undercurrents here, Hume
+wondered what the small civ had actually seen.</p>
+
+<p>The camp was complete, a cluster of seven bubble tents not too far
+from the ship. At least this crowd did not appear to consider that the
+Hunter was there to do all the serious moving and storing of supplies.
+All three of the clients pitched in to help, and Wass' man went down
+to the river to return with half a dozen silver-fins cleaned and
+threaded on a reed, ready to broil over the cook unit.</p>
+
+<p>A fire in the night was not needed except to afford the proper stage
+setting. But it was enjoyed. Hume leaned for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span>ward to feed the flames,
+and Starns pushed some lengths of driftwood closer.</p>
+
+<p>"You have said, Hunter, that hunting worlds never contain intelligent
+native life. Unless the planet is minutely explored how can your
+survey teams be sure of that fact?" His voice bordered on the
+pedantic, but his interest was plain.</p>
+
+<p>"By using the verifier." Hume sat crosslegged, his plasta-hand resting
+on one knee. "Fifty years ago, we would have had to keep rather a
+lengthy watch to be sure of a free world. Now, we plant verifiers at
+suitable test points. Intelligence means mental activity of some
+sort&mdash;any of which would be recorded on the verifier."</p>
+
+<p>"Amazing!" Starns extended his plump hands to the flames in the
+immemorial gesture of a human attracted not only to the warmth of the
+burning wood, but to its promise of security against the forces of the
+dark. "No matter how few, or how scattered your native thinkers may
+be, you record them without missing any?"</p>
+
+<p>Hume shrugged. "Maybe one or two," he grinned, "might get through such
+a screening. But we have yet to discover a planet with such a sparse
+native life as that at the level of intelligence."</p>
+
+<p>Yactisi juggled a cup in and out of the firelight. "I agree, this is
+most interesting." He was a thin man, with scanty drab gray hair and
+dark skin, perhaps the result of the mingling of several human races.
+His eyes were slightly sunken, so that it was difficult in this light
+to read their expression. He was, Hume had already decided, a class
+one brain and observant to a degree, which could either be a help or a
+menace. "There have been no cases of failure?"</p>
+
+<p>"None reported," Hume returned. All his life he had relied on machines
+operating, of course, under the competent domination of men trained to
+use them properly. He understood the process of the verifier, had seen
+it at work. At the Guild Headquarters there were no records of its
+failure; he was willing to believe it was infallible.</p>
+
+<p>"A race residing in the sea now&mdash;could you be sure your machine would
+discover its presence?" Starns continued to question.</p>
+
+<p>Hume laughed. "Not to be found on Jumala, you may be sure of that&mdash;the
+seas here are small and shallow. Such, not to be picked up by the
+verifier, would have to exist at great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> depths and never venture on
+land. So we need not fear any surprises here. The Guild takes no
+chances."</p>
+
+<p>"As it always continues to assure one," Yactisi replied. "The hour
+grows late. I wish you rewarding dreams." He arose to go to his own
+bubble tent.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, indeed!" Starns blinked at the fire and then scrambled up in
+turn. "We hunt along the river, then, tomorrow?"</p>
+
+<p>"For water-cat," Hume agreed. Of the three, he believed Chambriss the
+most impatient. Might as well let him pot his trophy as soon as
+possible. The ex-pilot deduced there would be little cooperation in
+exploration from that client until he was satisfied in his own quest.</p>
+
+<p>Rovald, Wass' man, lingered by the fire until the three civs were safe
+in their bubbles.</p>
+
+<p>"River range tomorrow?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. We can't rush the deal."</p>
+
+<p>"Agreed." Rovald spoke with a curtness he did not use when the civs
+were present. "Only don't delay too long. Remember, our boy's roaming
+around out there. He might just be picked off by something before
+these stumble-footed civs catch up with him."</p>
+
+<p>"That's the chance we knew we'd have to take. We don't dare raise any
+suspicion. Yactisi, for one, is no fool, neither is Starns. Chambriss
+just wants to get his water-cat, but he could become nasty if anyone
+tried to steer him."</p>
+
+<p>"Too long a wait might run us into trouble. Wass doesn't like
+trouble."</p>
+
+<p>Hume spun around. In the half light of the fire his features were set,
+his mouth grim. "Neither do I, Rovald, neither do I!" he said softly,
+but with an icy promise beneath the words.</p>
+
+<p>Rovald was not to be intimidated. He grinned. "Set your fins down,
+fly-boy. You need Wass&mdash;and I'm here to hold his stakes for him. This
+is a big deal, we won't want any misses!"</p>
+
+<p>"There won't be any&mdash;not from my side." Hume stepped away from the
+fire, approached a post which gleamed with a dull, red line of fire
+down either side. He pressed a control button. That red line flared
+into a streak of brilliance. Now encircling the bubble tents and the
+space ship was a force field: routine protection of a safari camp on a
+strange world and one Hume had set as a matter of course.</p>
+
+<p>He stood for a long moment staring through that invisible<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> barrier
+toward the direction of the wood. It was a dark night, there were
+scudding clouds to hide the stars, which meant rain probably before
+morning. This was no time to be plagued by uncertain weather.</p>
+
+<p>Somewhere out there Brodie was holed up. He hoped the boy had long ago
+reached the "camp" so carefully erected and left for his occupancy.
+The L-B, that stone covered "grave" showing signs of several years'
+occupancy, was all assembled and constructed to the last small detail.
+Far less might have deceived the civs in this safari. But as soon as
+the story of their find leaked, there would be others on the scene,
+men trained to assess the signs of a castaway's fight for survival.
+His own Guild training and the ability of Wass' renegade techs should
+bring them through that test.</p>
+
+<p>What had Starns seen? The glint of sun on the tail of the L-B, tilted
+now to the sky? Hume walked slowly back to the fire, when he saw
+Rovald going up the ramp into the spacer. He smiled. Did Wass think he
+was stupid enough not to guess that the Veep's man would be in com
+touch with his employer? Rovald was about to report along some channel
+of the shadow world that they had landed and that the play was about
+to begin. Hume wondered idly how far and through how many relays that
+message would pass before it reached its destination.</p>
+
+<p>He stretched and yawned, moving to his sleeping pad. Tomorrow they
+must find Chambriss a water-cat. Hume shoved Brodie into the back of
+his mind to center his thoughts on the various ways of delivering, to
+the waiting sportsman, a fair-sized alien feline.</p>
+
+<p>The lights in the bubbles went out one by one. Within the circle
+barrier of the force field men slept. And by midnight the rain began
+to fall, streaming down the sides of the bubbles, soaking the ashes of
+the fire.</p>
+
+<p>Out of the dark crept that which was not thought, not substance, but
+alien to the off-world men. But the barrier, meant to deter
+multi-footed creatures, with wings or no visible limbs at all, proved
+to be a better protection than its creators had hoped. There was no
+penetration&mdash;only a baffled butting of one force against another. And
+then the probe withdrew as undetected as it had come.</p>
+
+<p>Only, the thing which had no intelligence, as humankind rated
+intelligence, did possess the ability to fathom the na<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>ture of that
+artificial barrier. The force field was examined, its nature digested.
+First approach had failed. The second was now ready&mdash;ready as it had
+not been months before when the first coming of these creatures had
+alerted the very ancient watchdog on Jumala.</p>
+
+<p>Deep in the darker woods on the mountain sides there was a stirring.
+Things whimpered in their sleep, protested subconsciously commands
+they could never understand, only obey. With the coming of dawn there
+would be a marshaling of hosts, a new assault&mdash;not on the camp, but on
+any leaving its protection. And also on the boy now sleeping in a
+shallow cave formed by the swept roots of a tree&mdash;a tree which had
+crashed when the L-B landed.</p>
+
+<p>Again, fortune favored Hume. With the dawn the rain was over. There
+was a cloudy sky overhead, but he believed the day would clear. The
+roily, rushing water of the river would aid Chambriss' quest.
+Water-cats holed up in the banks, but rising water often forced them
+out of such dens. A course parallel to the stream bed could well show
+them the tracks of one of the felines.</p>
+
+<p>They started off in a group, Hume leading, with Chambriss treading
+briskly behind him, Rovald bringing up the rear in the approved trail
+technique. Chambriss carried a needler, Starns was unarmed except for
+a small protection stunner, his tri-dee box slung on his chest by
+well-worn carrying straps. Yactisi shouldered an electric pole, wore
+its control belt buckled about his middle, though Hume had warned him
+that the storm would prevent any deep hole fishing.</p>
+
+<p>Only a short distance from the campsite they came upon the
+unmistakable marks of a water-cat's broad paws, pressed in so heavy
+and distinct a pattern that Hume knew the animal could not be far
+ahead. The indentations were deep, and he measured the distance
+between them with the length of his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Big one!" Chambriss exclaimed in satisfaction. "Going away from the
+river, too."</p>
+
+<p>That point puzzled Hume slightly. The red coated felines might be
+washed out of their burrows, but they did not willingly head so
+sharply away from the water. He squatted on his heels and surveyed the
+stretch of countryside between them and the distant wood with care.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The grass was this season's, still growing, not tall enough to afford
+cover for an animal with paws as large as these prints. There were two
+clumps of brush. It could have holed up in either, waiting to attack
+any trailer&mdash;but why? It had not been wounded, nor frightened by their
+party, there was no reason for it to set an ambush on its back trail.</p>
+
+<p>Starns and Yactisi dropped back, though Starns was fussing with his
+tri-dee. Rovald caught up. He had drawn his ray tube in answer to
+Hume's hand wave. Any action foreign to the regular habits of an
+animal was to be mistrusted.</p>
+
+<p>Getting to his feet Hume paced along the line of marks. They were
+fresh&mdash;hot fresh. And they still led in a straight line for the woods.
+With another wave of his hand he stopped Chambriss. The civ was
+trained in spite of his eagerness and obeyed. Hume left the tracks,
+made a detour which brought him to a point from which he could study
+those clumps of brush. No sign except that line of prints pointed to
+the woods. And if the party kept on, they might well come upon the
+L-B!</p>
+
+<p>He decided to risk it. But when they were less than a couple of yards
+from the tree fringe his hand shot up to direct Chambriss to fire
+towards the quivering bush.</p>
+
+<p>Only, that formless half seen thing, hardly to be distinguished in
+color from the vegetation, was no water-cat. There was a thin, ragged
+cry. Then the creature plunged backward, was gone.</p>
+
+<p>"What in the name of nine Gods was that?" Chambriss demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know." Hume went forward, jerked the needler dart from a tree
+trunk. "But don't shoot again&mdash;not unless you are sure of what you are
+aiming at!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span></p>
+<h2>5</h2>
+
+
+<p>Moisture from the night's rain hung on the tree leaves, clung in
+globules to Rynch's sweating body. He lay on a wide branch trying to
+control the heavy panting which supplied his laboring lungs. And he
+could still hear the echoes of the startled cries which had come from
+the men who had threaded through the woods to the up-pointed tail fins
+of the L-B.</p>
+
+<p>Now he tried to reason why he had run. They were his own kind, they
+would take him out of the loneliness of a world heretofore empty of
+his species. But that tall man&mdash;the one who had led the party into the
+irregular clearing about the life boat&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Rynch shivered, dug his nails into the wood on which he lay. At the
+sight of that man, dream and reality had crashed together, sending him
+into panic-stricken flight. That was the man from the room&mdash;the man
+with the cup!</p>
+
+<p>As his heart quieted he began to think more coherently. First, he had
+not been able to find the strong-jaws's den. Then the marks on the
+ground at the point from which he had fallen and the L-B were here,
+just as he remembered. But not far from the small ship he had
+discovered something more&mdash;a campsite with a shelter fashioned out of
+spalls and vines, containing possessions a castaway might have
+accumulated.</p>
+
+<p>That man would come, Rynch was sure of that, but he was too spent to
+struggle on.</p>
+
+<p>No, the answer to every part of the puzzle lay with that man. To go
+back to the ship clearing was to risk capture&mdash;but he had to know.
+Rynch looked with more attention at his present surroundings. Deep
+mold under the trees here<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> would hold tracks. There might just be
+another way to move. He eyed the spread of limbs on a neighbor tree.</p>
+
+<p>His journey through those heights was awkward and he sweated and
+cringed when he disturbed vocal treetop dwellers. He was also to
+discover that close to the site of the L-B crash others waited.</p>
+
+<p>He huddled against the bole of a tree when he made out the curve of a
+round bulk holding tight to the tree trunk aloft. Though it was balled
+in upon itself he was sure the creature was fully as large as he, and
+the menacing claws suggested it was a formidable opponent.</p>
+
+<p>When it made no move to follow him Rynch began to hope it had only
+been defending its own hiding place, for its present attitude
+suggested concealment.</p>
+
+<p>Still facing that featureless blob in the tree, the man retreated,
+alert for the first sign of advance on the part of the creature above.
+None came, and he dared to slip around the bole of the tree under
+which he stood, listening intently for any corresponding movement
+overhead. Now he was facing that survivor's camp.</p>
+
+<p>Another object crouched in the dark of the lean-to shelter, just as
+its fellow was on sentry duty in the tree! Only this one did not have
+the self-color of the foliage to disguise it. Four-limbed, its long
+forearms curved about its bent knees, its general outline almost that
+of a human&mdash;if a human went clothed in a thick fuzz. The head hunched
+right against the shoulders as if the neck were very short, or totally
+lacking, was pear-shaped, with the longer end to the back, and the
+sense organs of eyes and nose squeezed together on the lower quarter
+of the rounded portion, with a line of wide mouth to split the blunt
+round of the muzzle. Dark pits for eyes showed no pupil, iris, or
+cornea. The nose was a black, perfectly rounded tube jutting an inch
+or so beyond the cheek surface. Grotesque, alien and terrifying, it
+made no hostile move. And, since it had not turned its head, he could
+not be sure it had even sighted him. But it knew he was there, he was
+certain of that. And was waiting&mdash;for what? As the long seconds
+crawled by Rynch began to believe that it was not waiting for him.
+Heartened, he pulled at the vine loop, climbed back into the tree.</p>
+
+<p>Minutes later he discovered that there were more than two of the
+beasts waiting quietly about the camp, and that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> their sentry line ran
+between him and the clearing of the L-B. He withdrew farther into the
+wood, intent upon finding a detour which would bring him out into the
+open lands. Now he wanted to join forces with his own kind, whether
+those men were potential enemies or not.</p>
+
+<p>As time passed the beasts closed about the clearing of the camp.
+Afternoon was fading into evening when he reached a point several
+miles downstream near the river. Since he had come into the open he
+had not sighted any of the watchers. He hoped they did not willingly
+venture out of the trees where the leaves were their protection.</p>
+
+<p>Rynch went flat on the stream bank, made a worm's progress up the
+slope to crouch behind a bush and survey the land immediately ahead.
+There stood an off-world spacer, fins down, nose skyward, and grouped
+not too far from its landing ramp, a collection of bubble tents. A
+fire burned in their midst and men were moving about it.</p>
+
+<p>Now that he was free from the wood and its watchers and had come so
+near to his goal, Rynch was curiously reluctant to do the sensible
+thing, to rise out of concealment and walk up to that fire, to claim
+rescue by his own kind.</p>
+
+<p>The man he sought stood by the fire, shrugging his arms into a webbing
+harness which brought a box against his chest. Having made that fast
+he picked up a needler by its sling. By their gestures the others were
+arguing with him, but he shook his head, came on, to be a shadow
+stalking among other shadows. One of the men trailed him, but as they
+reached a post planted a little beyond the bubble tents he stopped,
+allowed the explorer to advance alone into the dark.</p>
+
+<p>Rynch went to cover under a bush. The man was heading to the stream
+bed. Had they somehow learned of his own presence nearby, were they
+out to find him? But the preparations the tall man had made seemed
+more suited to going on patrol. The watchers! Was the other out to spy
+on them? That idea made sense. And in the meantime he would let the
+other past him, follow along behind until he was far enough from the
+camp so that his friends could not interfere&mdash;then, they would have a
+meeting!</p>
+
+<p>Rynch's fingers balled into fists. He would find out what was real,
+what was a dream in this crazy, mixed up mind of his! That other would
+know, and would tell him the truth!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Alert as he was, he lost sight of the stranger who melted into the
+dusky cover of the shadows. Then came a quiet ripple of water close to
+his own hiding place. The man from the spacer camp was using the
+stream as his road.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of his caution Rynch was close to betrayal as he edged around
+a clump of vegetation growing half in, half out of the stream. Only a
+timely rustle told him that the other had sat down on a drift log.</p>
+
+<p>Waiting for him? Rynch froze, so startled that he could not think
+clearly for a second. Then he noted that the outline of the other's
+body was visible, growing brighter by the moment.</p>
+
+<p>Minute particles of pale-greenish radiance were gathering about the
+other. The dark shadow of an arm flapped, the radiance swirled, broke
+again into pinpoint sparks.</p>
+
+<p>Rynch glanced down at his own body&mdash;the same sparks were drifting in
+about him, edging his arms, thighs, chest. He pushed back into the
+bushes while the sparks still flitted, but they no longer gathered in
+strength enough to light his presence. Now he could see they drifted
+about the vegetation, about the log where the man sat, about rocks and
+reeds. Only they were thicker about the stranger as if his body were a
+magnet. He continued to keep them whirling by means of waving hand and
+arm, but there was enough light to show Rynch the fingers of his other
+hand, busy on the front panel of the box he wore.</p>
+
+<p>That fingering stopped, then Rynch's head came up as he heard a very
+faint sound. Not a beast's cry&mdash;or was it?</p>
+
+<p>Again those fingers moved on the panel. Was the other sending a
+message by that means? Rynch watched him check the webbing, count the
+equipment at his belt, settle the needler in the crook of his arm.
+Then the stranger left the stream, headed towards the woods.</p>
+
+<p>Rynch jumped to his feet, a cry of warning shaping, but not to be
+uttered. He padded after the other. There was plenty of time to stop
+the man before he reached the danger which might lurk under the trees.</p>
+
+<p>However the other was as wary of that dark as if he suspected what
+might lie in wait there. He angled along northward, avoiding clumps of
+scattered brush, keeping in the open where Rynch dared not tail him
+too closely.</p>
+
+<p>Their course, parallel to the woods, brought them at last<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> to a second
+stream, the size of a river, into which the first creek emptied. Here
+the other settled down between two rocks with every indication of
+remaining there for a period.</p>
+
+<p>Thankfully Rynch found his own lurking place from which he could keep
+the other in sight. The light points gathered, hung in a small
+luminous cloud over the rocks. But Rynch had prudently withdrawn under
+a bush, and the scent of its aromatic leaves must have discouraged the
+sparks, for no such crown came to his sentry post.</p>
+
+<p>Drugged with fatigue, the younger man slept, awaking to full day, a
+fog of bewilderment and disorientation. To open his eyes to this
+blue-green pocket instead of to four dirty walls, was wrong.</p>
+
+<p>Remembering, he started up and slunk down the slope, angry at his
+failure. He found the other's track, not turning back as he had half
+feared, cleanly printed on level spots of wet earth&mdash;eastward now.
+What was the purpose of the other's expedition? Was he going to use
+the open cut through which the river ran as a way of penetrating the
+wooded country?</p>
+
+<p>Now Rynch considered the problem from his own angle. The man from the
+spacer had made no effort to conceal his trail, in fact it would
+almost seem that he had deliberately gone out of his way to leave boot
+prints on favorable stretches of ground. Did he guess that Rynch
+lurked behind, was now leading him on for some purpose of his own? Or
+were those traces left to guide another party from the camp?</p>
+
+<p>To advance openly up the stream bed was to invite discovery. Rynch
+surveyed the nearer bank. Clumps of small trees and high growing
+bushes dotted that expanse, an ideal cover.</p>
+
+<p>He was hardly out of sight of the bush which had sheltered him when he
+heard the coughing roar of a water-cat. And the feline was attacking
+an enemy, enraged to the pitch of vocal frenzy. Rynch ran a zigzag
+course from one clump of bush to the next. That sound of snarling,
+spitting hate ended in mid-cry as Rynch crawled to the river bank.</p>
+
+<p>The man from the spacer camp had been the focus of a three-prong
+attack from a female and her cubs. Three red bodies were flat and
+still on the gravel as the off-worlder leaned back against a rock
+breathing heavily. As Rynch sighted him, he stooped to recover the
+needler he had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> dropped, lurched away from the rock towards the water,
+and so blundered straight into another Jumalan trap.</p>
+
+<p>His unsteady foot advancing for another step came down on a slippery
+surface, and he fell forward as his legs were engulfed in the trap
+burrow of a strong-jaws. With a startled cry the man dropped the
+needler again, clawed at the ground about him. Already he was buried
+to his knees, then his mid-thighs, in the artificial quicksand. But he
+had not lost his head and was jerking from side to side in an effort
+to pull free.</p>
+
+<p>Rynch got to his feet, walked with slow deliberation down to the
+river's brink. The trapped prisoner had shied halfway around,
+stretching out his arms to find a firmer grip on some rock large and
+heavy enough to anchor him. After his first startled cry he had made
+no sound, but now, as he sighted Rynch, his eyes widened and his lips
+parted.</p>
+
+<p>The box on his chest caught on a stone he had dragged to him in a
+desperate try for support. There was a spitting of sparks and the
+stranger worked frantically at the buckle of the webbing harness to
+loosen it and toss the whole thing from him. The box struck one of the
+dead water-cats, flashed as fur and flesh were singed.</p>
+
+<p>Rynch watched dispassionately before he caught the needler, jerking it
+away from the prisoner. The man eyed him steadily, and his expression
+did not alter even when Rynch swung the off-world weapon to center its
+sights on the late owner.</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose," Rynch's voice was rusty sounding in his own ears, "we talk
+now."</p>
+
+<p>The man nodded. "As you wish, Brodie."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>6</h2>
+
+
+<p>"Brodie?" Rynch squatted on his heels.</p>
+
+<p>Those gray eyes, so light in the other's deeply tanned face, narrowed
+the smallest fraction, Rynch noted with an inner surge of triumph.</p>
+
+<p>"Were you looking for me?" he added.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"We found an L-B&mdash;we wondered if there were survivors."</p>
+
+<p>Slowly Rynch shook his head. "No&mdash;you knew I was here. Because you
+brought me!" He fashioned his suspicions into one quick thrust.</p>
+
+<p>This time there was not the slightest hint of self-betrayal from the
+other.</p>
+
+<p>"You see," Rynch leaned forward, but still well out of reach from the
+captive, "I remember!"</p>
+
+<p>Now there was a faint flicker of answer in the man's eyes. He asked
+quietly:</p>
+
+<p>"What do you remember, Brodie?"</p>
+
+<p>"Enough to know that I am not Brodie. That I did not get here on the
+L-B, did not build that camp."</p>
+
+<p>He ran one hand over the stock of the needler. Whatever motive lay
+behind this weird game into which he had been unwillingly introduced,
+he was now sure that it was serious enough to be dangerous.</p>
+
+<p>"You have no cup this time."</p>
+
+<p>"So you do remember." The other accepted that calmly. "All right. That
+need not necessarily spoil our plans. You have nothing to return to on
+Nahuatl&mdash;unless you <i>liked</i> the Starfall." His voice was icy with
+contempt. "To play our roles will be for your advantage, too." He
+paused, his gaze centering on Rynch with the intensity of one willing
+the desired answer out of his inferior.</p>
+
+<p>Nahuatl. Rynch caught at that. He had been on or in Nahuatl&mdash;a planet?
+a city? If he could make this man believe he remembered everything
+clearly, more than just the scattered patches that he did....</p>
+
+<p>"You had me planted here, then came back to hunt me. Why? What makes
+Rynch Brodie so important?"</p>
+
+<p>"Close to a billion credits!" The man from the spacer leaned well back
+in the hole, his arms spread flat out on either side to keep his body
+from sinking deeper. "A billion credits," he repeated softly.</p>
+
+<p>Rynch laughed. "You'll have to think of a better one than that,
+fly-boy."</p>
+
+<p>"The stakes would have to be high, wouldn't they, for us to go to all
+this staging? You've been conditioned, Brodie, illegally
+brain-channeled!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>To Rynch the words meant nothing. If they ever had, that was gone,
+lost in the maze of other things which had been blotted out of his
+mind by the Brodie past. But he would not give the other the advantage
+of knowing his uncertainty.</p>
+
+<p>"You need a Brodie for a billion credits. But you don't have a Brodie
+now!"</p>
+
+<p>To his surprise the prisoner in the earth trap laughed. "I'll have a
+Brodie when he's needed. Think about a good share of a billion
+credits, boy, keep thinking of that hard."</p>
+
+<p>"I will."</p>
+
+<p>"Thoughts alone won't work it, you know." For the first time there was
+a hint of some emotion in the man's voice.</p>
+
+<p>"You mean I need you? I don't think so. I've stopped being a plaque
+for someone to play across the board." That expression brought another
+momentary flash of hazy memory&mdash;a smoky, crowded room where men slid
+counters back and forth across tables&mdash;not one of Brodie's edited
+recalls, but his own.</p>
+
+<p>Rynch stood up, started for the rise of the slope, but before he
+topped that he glanced back. The damaged com box still smoked where
+its wearer had flung it. Now the man was already straining forward
+with both arms, trying to reach a rock just a finger space beyond.
+Lucky for him the burrow was an old one, uninhabited. In time he
+should be able to work his way out. Meanwhile there was the whole of a
+wide countryside in which Rynch could discover a hideout&mdash;no one would
+find him now against his will.</p>
+
+<p>He tried, as he strode along, to piece together more of his memories
+and the scanty information he had had from the Nahuatl man. So he had
+been "brain-channeled," given a set of false memories to fit a Rynch
+Brodie whose presence on this world meant a billion credits for
+someone. He could not believe that this was the spaceman's game alone,
+for hadn't he spoken of "we"?</p>
+
+<p>A billion credits! The sum was fantastic, the whole story
+unbelievable.</p>
+
+<p>There was a hot stab of pain on his instep. Rynch cried out, stamped
+hard. One of the clawed scavengers was crushed. The man leaped back in
+time to avoid another step into a swarming mass of them at work on
+some unidentifiable carrion. Staring down at the welter of scaled,
+segmented bodies and busy claws, he gasped.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Three dead water-cats were near the man trapped in the pit. Bait to
+draw these voracious eaters straight to the prisoner. Rynch's empty
+stomach heaved. He swung around, ran across the grassy verge of the
+upper bank, hoping he was not too late.</p>
+
+<p>As he half fell, half slid down to the water, he saw that the man had
+managed to hook the webbing of the smouldering box to him, was casting
+it out and dragging it back patiently, aiming at the nearest rock of
+size, fruitlessly attempting to hitch its straps over the round of
+stone.</p>
+
+<p>Rynch dashed on, caught at that loop of webbing, and dug his heels
+into the loose gravel as he began a steady pull. With his aid the
+other crawled out, lay panting. Rynch grabbed the man's shoulder,
+jerked him away from the body of the female water-cat. He was sure he
+had seen a telltale scurrying around the smaller of the dead cubs.</p>
+
+<p>The man straightened, glanced toward Rynch who was backing off, the
+needler up and ready between them.</p>
+
+<p>"My turn to ask why?"</p>
+
+<p>Then his gaze followed Rynch's. The smallest cub twitched from side to
+side. Not with any faint trace of life, but under the attack of the
+scavengers. More scuttled towards the second cub.</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks!" The stranger was on his feet. "My name is Ras Hume. I don't
+think I told you that when we last met."</p>
+
+<p>"This doesn't make any difference. I'm not your man, not Brodie!"</p>
+
+<p>Hume shrugged. "You think about it, Brodie, think about it with care.
+Come back to camp with me and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No!" Rynch interrupted. "You go your way, I go mine from here on."</p>
+
+<p>Again the other laughed. "Not so simple as all that, boy. We've
+started something which can't just be turned off as easily as you snap
+down a switch." He took a step or two in Rynch's direction.</p>
+
+<p>The younger man brought up the needler. "Stay right where you are!
+Your game, Hume? All right, you play it&mdash;but not with me."</p>
+
+<p>"And what are you going to do, take to the woods?"</p>
+
+<p>"What I do is my business, Hume."</p>
+
+<p>"No, my business, too, very much so. I'm giving you a warning, boy, in
+return for your help here." He nodded at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> the pit. "There's something
+in that woods&mdash;something which didn't show up when the Guild had their
+survey exploration here."</p>
+
+<p>"The watchers." Rynch retreated step by step, keeping the needler
+ready. "I saw them."</p>
+
+<p>"You've seen them!" Hume was eager. "What do they look like?"</p>
+
+<p>In spite of his desire to be rid of Hume, Rynch found himself
+answering that in detail, discovering that on demand he could recall
+minutely the description of the animal hiding in the tree, the one who
+had waited in the shelter, and those he had glimpsed drawing in about
+the L-B clearing.</p>
+
+<p>"No intelligence." Hume turned his head to survey the distant wood.
+"The verifier reported no intelligence."</p>
+
+<p>"These watchers&mdash;you don't know them?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. Nor do I like what you've seen of them, Brodie. So I'm willing to
+call a truce. The Guild believed Jumala an open planet, our records
+accredited it so. If that is not true we may be in for bad trouble. As
+an Out-Hunter I am responsible for the safety of three civs back there
+in the safari camp."</p>
+
+<p>Hume made sense, much as Rynch disliked admitting it. And the Hunter
+must have read something of his agreement in his face for now he
+nodded and added briskly:</p>
+
+<p>"Best place now is the safari camp. We'll head back at once."</p>
+
+<p>Only time had run out. A noise sounded with a metallic ring. Rynch
+whirled, needler cocked. A glittering ball about the size of his fist
+rolled away from contact with a boulder, came to rest in the deep
+depression of one of Hume's boot tracks. Then another flash through
+the air, a clatter as a second ball spun across a patch of gravel.</p>
+
+<p>The balls seemed to appear out of the air. Displaying rainbow glints
+they rolled in a semicircle about the two men. Rynch stooped, then
+Hume's fingers latched about his wrist, dragging his hand away from
+the globe. It was only then that he realized that sharp action had
+detached his attention from that ball he had wanted to take up.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't touch!" Hume barked. "And don't look at that too closely! Come
+along!" He pulled Rynch forward through the yet unclosed arc of the
+globe circle.</p>
+
+<p>Hume detoured around the feasting scavengers and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> brought Rynch with
+him at a trot. They could hear behind them the plop and tinkle of more
+globes. Glancing back Rynch saw one fall close to the bodies of the
+water-cats.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait a minute!" He pulled back against Hume's hold. Here was a chance
+to see what effect that crystal had on the clawed carrion eater.</p>
+
+<p>There was a change in the crystal: Yellow now, then red&mdash;red as the
+few scraps of fur remaining on the rapidly disappearing body.</p>
+
+<p>"Look!"</p>
+
+<p>The pulsating carpet which had covered the dead feline ceased to move.
+But towards that spot rolled two more of the globes, approaching the
+scavengers. Now the clawed things were stirring, dropping away from
+their prey. They spread out in a patch, moved purposefully forward.
+Behind them, as guardians might head a flock, rolled three globes,
+flushing scarlet, then more.</p>
+
+<p>Hume's hand came up. From the cone tip of the ray tube spat a lance of
+fire, to strike the middle crystal. The beam was reflected into the
+block of scavengers. Scaled bodies, twisted, crisped, were ash. But
+the crystal continued to roll at the same pace.</p>
+
+<p>"Move!" Hume's other hand hit Rynch's shoulder, knocked him forward in
+an impetuous shove which nearly took him off his feet. Both men began
+to run.</p>
+
+<p>"What&mdash;what are those things?" Rynch appealed between panting breaths.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know&mdash;and I don't like their looks. They're between us and
+the safari camp if we keep to the river&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Between us and the river now." Rynch saw that glittering swoop
+through the air, marked the landing of a ball near the water's edge.</p>
+
+<p>"Might be trying to box us in. But that's not going to work.
+See&mdash;ahead there where that log's caught between two rocks? Run out on
+that when we reach there and take to the water. I don't think those
+things can float and if they sink to the bottom that ought to fix them
+as far as we are concerned."</p>
+
+<p>Rynch ran, still holding the needler. He balanced along the drift log
+Hume had pointed out and a jump sent him floundering in the brown
+stream thigh deep. Hume joined him, his face grim.</p>
+
+<p>"Downstream&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Rynch looked. One shape&mdash;two&mdash;three&mdash;Clearly detailed where matching
+vegetation gave them no covering camouflage, the watchers had come out
+of the woods at last. A line of them were walking quietly and upright
+towards the humans, their blue-green fuzz covering like a mist under
+the direct rays of the sun. Quiet as they seemed at present, the
+things out of the Jumalan forest were a picture of sheer brute
+strength as they moved.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's get out of here&mdash;fast!"</p>
+
+<p>The men kept moving, and always after them padded that silent line of
+green-blue, pushing them farther and farther away from the safari
+camp, on towards the rising mountain peaks. Just as the globes had
+shaken the scavengers loose from their meal and sent them marching on,
+so were the humans being herded for some unknown purpose.</p>
+
+<p>At least, once the march of the beasts began, they saw and heard no
+more of the globes. And as they reached a curve in the river, Hume
+stopped, swung around, stood studying the line of decorously pacing
+animals.</p>
+
+<p>"We can pick them off with the needler or the ray."</p>
+
+<p>The Hunter shook his head. "You don't kill," he recited the credo of
+his Guild, "not until you are sure. There is a method behind this, and
+method means intelligence."</p>
+
+<p>Handling of X-tee creatures and peoples was a part of Guild training.
+In spite of his devious game here on Jumala, Hume was Guild educated
+and Rynch was willing to leave such decisions to him.</p>
+
+<p>The other held out the ray tube. "Take this, cover me, but don't use
+it until I say so. Understand?"</p>
+
+<p>He waited only for Rynch's nod before he started, at a deliberate pace
+which matched that of the beasts, back through the river shallows to
+meet them. But that advancing line halted, stood waiting in silence.
+Hume's hands went up, palm out, he spoke slowly in Basic-X-Tee clicks:</p>
+
+<p>"Friend." This was all Rynch could make out of that sing-song of
+syllables Rynch knew to be a contact pattern.</p>
+
+<p>The dark eye pits continued to stare. A light breeze ruffled the fuzz
+covering of wide shoulders, long muscular arms. Not a head moved, not
+one of those heavy, rounded jaws opened to emit any answering sound.
+Hume halted. The silence was threatening, a portending atmosphere
+spread from the alien things as might a tangible wave.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>For perhaps two breaths they stood so, man facing alien. Then Hume
+turned, walked back, his face set. Rynch offered him the ray tube.</p>
+
+<p>"Fight our way out?"</p>
+
+<p>"Too late. Look!"</p>
+
+<p>Moving lines of blue-green coming down to the river. Not five or six
+now&mdash;a dozen&mdash;twenty. There was a small trickle of moisture down the
+side of the Hunter's brown face.</p>
+
+<p>"We're penned&mdash;except straight ahead."</p>
+
+<p>"But we're going to fight!" Rynch protested.</p>
+
+<p>"No. Move on!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>7</h2>
+
+
+<p>It was some time before Hume found what he wanted, an islet in
+midstream lacking any growth and rising to a rough pinnacle. The sides
+were seamed with crevices and caves which promised protection for
+one's back in any desperate struggle. And they had discovered it none
+too soon, for the late afternoon shadows were lengthening.</p>
+
+<p>There had been no attack, just the trailing to herd the men to the
+northeast. And Rynch had lost the first tight pinch of panic, though
+he knew the folly of underestimating the unknown.</p>
+
+<p>They climbed with unspoken consent, going clear to the top, where they
+huddled together on a four-foot tableland. Hume unhooked his distance
+lenses, but it was toward the rises of the mountains that he aimed
+them, not along the back trail.</p>
+
+<p>Rynch wriggled about, studied the river and its banks. The beasts
+there were quiet, blue-green lumps, standing down on the river bank or
+squatting in the grass.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing." Hume lowered the lenses, held them before his broad chest
+as he still watched the peaks.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What did you expect?" Rynch snapped. He was hungry, but not hungry
+enough to abandon the islet.</p>
+
+<p>Hume laughed shortly. "I don't know. Only I'm sure they are heading us
+in that direction."</p>
+
+<p>"Look here," Rynch rounded on him. "You know this planet, you've been
+here before."</p>
+
+<p>"I was one of the survey team that approved it for the Guild."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you must have combed it pretty thoroughly. How is it that you
+didn't know about them?" He gestured to their pursuers.</p>
+
+<p>"That is what I would like to ask a few assorted experts right about
+now," Hume returned. "The verifiers registered no intelligent native
+life here."</p>
+
+<p>"No native life." Rynch chewed that over, came up with the obvious
+explanation. "All right&mdash;so then maybe our blue-backed friends are
+imported. Suppose someone's running a private business of his own here
+and wants to get rid of visitors?"</p>
+
+<p>Hume looked thoughtful. "No." He did not enlarge upon his negative.
+Sitting down he pulled a cylinder container from a belt loop and shook
+out four tablets, handing two to Rynch, mouthing the others.</p>
+
+<p>"Vita-blocks&mdash;good for twenty-four hours sustenance."</p>
+
+<p>The iron rations depended upon by all exploring services did not have
+the satisfying taste of real food. However Rynch swallowed them
+dutifully before he descended with Hume to river level. The Hunter
+splashed water from the stream into a depression in the rock and
+dropped a pinch of clarifying powder into it.</p>
+
+<p>"With the dark," he announced, "we might be able to get through their
+lines."</p>
+
+<p>"You believe that?"</p>
+
+<p>Hume laughed. "No&mdash;but one doesn't overlook the factor of sheer luck.
+Also, I don't care to finish up at the place they may have chosen for
+us." He tilted his chin to study the sky. "We'll take watches and rest
+in turn. No use trying anything until it is dark&mdash;unless they start to
+move in. You take the first one?"</p>
+
+<p>As Rynch nodded, Hume edged back into a crevice as a shelled creature
+withdrawing to natural protection, going to sleep as easily as if he
+could control that state by will.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> Rynch, watching him curiously for a
+second or two before climbing up to a position from which he judged he
+could see all sides of their refuge, determined not to be surprised.</p>
+
+<p>The watchers were crouched down, waiting with that patience which had
+impressed him from his first sight of the camp sentries back in the
+forest. There was no movement, no sound. They were simply there&mdash;on
+guard. And Rynch did not believe that the darkness of night would
+bring any relaxation of that vigilance.</p>
+
+<p>He leaned back, feeling the grit of the rocky surface against his bare
+back and shoulders. Under his hand was the most efficient and
+formidable weapon known to the frontier worlds, from this post he
+could keep the enemy under surveillance and think.</p>
+
+<p>Hume had had him planted here, in the first place, provided with the
+memory of Rynch Brodie&mdash;the reward for him was to be a billion
+credits. Too much staff work had gone into his conditioning for just a
+small stake.</p>
+
+<p>So Rynch Brodie was on Jumala, and Hume had come with witnesses to
+find him. Another part of his mind stood aloof now, applauding the
+clearness of his reasoning. Rynch Brodie was to be discovered a
+castaway on Jumala. Only, matters had not worked out according to
+Hume's plan. In the first place he was certain he had not been
+intended to know that he was not Rynch Brodie. For a fleeting second
+he wondered why that conditioning had not completely worked, then went
+back to the problem of his relationship with Hume.</p>
+
+<p>No, the Out-Hunter had expected a castaway who would be just what he
+ordered. Then this affair of the watchers&mdash;creatures the Guild men had
+not found here a few months ago&mdash;Rynch felt a small cold chill along
+his spine. Hume's game was one thing, something he could understand,
+but the silent beasts were another and somehow far more disturbing
+threat.</p>
+
+<p>Rynch edged forward, watching the mist on the water, his brain
+striving to solve this other puzzle as neatly as he thought he had
+discovered the reason for his scrambled memories and his being on
+Jumala.</p>
+
+<p>The mist was an added danger. Thick enough and those watchers could
+move in under its curtain. A needler was efficient, yes, but it could
+wipe out only an enemy at which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> it was aimed. Blind cross sweeping
+with its darts would only exhaust the clip without results, save by
+lucky chance.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, suppose they could turn that same gray haze to
+their own advantage&mdash;use it to blanket their withdrawal? He was about
+to go to Hume with that suggestion when he sighted the new move in
+their odd battle with the aliens.</p>
+
+<p>A wink of light&mdash;two more&mdash;blinking, following the erratic course by
+the pull of the stream. All bobbing along toward the rugged coastline
+of the islet. Those had appeared out of nothingness as suddenly as the
+globes when this chase had begun.</p>
+
+<p>The globes and the winking lights on the water connected in his mind,
+argued new danger. Rynch took careful aim, fired a dart at one which
+had grounded on the pointed tip of the rocks where the river current
+came together after its division about the island. For the first time
+Rynch realized those things below were moving <i>against</i> the
+current&mdash;they had come upstream as if propelled.</p>
+
+<p>He had fired and the light was still there, two more coming in behind
+it, so that now there was an irregular cluster of them. And there was
+activity on the water-washed rocks before them. Just as the scavengers
+had moved ahead of the globes on land, so now aquatic creatures had
+come out of the river, were flopping higher on the islet. And those
+lights were changing color&mdash;from white to reddish-yellow.</p>
+
+<p>Rynch scrabbled with one hand in a rock crevice, found a stone he had
+noted earlier. He hurled that at the cluster of lights. There was a
+puff of brilliant red, one was gone. Something flopping on the rocks
+gave a mewling cry and somersaulted back into the water. Then a finger
+of mist drew between Rynch and the lights which were now only faint,
+glowing patches. He swung down from his perch, shook Hume awake.</p>
+
+<p>The Out-Hunter made that instant return to full consciousness which
+was another defense for the men who live long on the rim of wild
+worlds.</p>
+
+<p>"What&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>Rynch pulled him forward. The mist had thickened, but there were more
+of those ominous lights at water level, spreading down both sides of
+the point, forming a wall. Dark forms moved out of the water ahead of
+them, flopping<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> on the rocks, pressing higher, towards the ledge where
+the men stood.</p>
+
+<p>"Those globes&mdash;I think they're moving in the river now." Rynch found
+another stone, took careful aim, and smashed a second one. "The
+needler has no effect on them," he reported. "Stones do&mdash;but I don't
+know why."</p>
+
+<p>They searched about them in the crevices for more ammunition, laying
+up a line of fist-sized rocks, while the lights gathered in, spreading
+farther and farther down the shores of the islet. Hume cried out
+suddenly, and aimed his ray tube below. The lance of its blast cut the
+dark as might a bolt of lightning.</p>
+
+<p>With a shrill squeal, a blot shadow detached from the slope
+immediately below them. A vile, musky scent, now mingled with the
+stench of burning flesh, set them coughing.</p>
+
+<p>"Water spider!" Hume identified. "If they are driving those out and up
+at...."</p>
+
+<p>He fumbled at his equipment belt and then tossed an object downward to
+disintegrate in a shower of fiery sparks. Wherever those sparks
+touched rock or ground they flared up in tall thin columns of fire,
+lighting up the nightmare on the rocks and up the ledges.</p>
+
+<p>Rynch fired the needler, Hume's ray tube flashed and flashed again.
+Things squealed, or grunted, or died silently, while clawing to reach
+the upper ledges. He could not be sure of the nature of some of those
+things. One, armed and clawed as the scavengers, was nearly as large
+as a water-cat. And a furry, man-legged creature, with a double-jawed
+head, bore also a ring of phosphorescent eyes set in a complete circle
+about its skull. They were alien life routed out of the water.</p>
+
+<p>"The lights&mdash;smash the lights!" Hume ordered.</p>
+
+<p>Rynch understood. The lights had driven these attackers out of the
+river. Put out the lights and the boiling broth of water dwellers
+might conceivably return to their homes. He dropped the needler, took
+up stones and set about the business of finishing off as many of the
+lights as he could.</p>
+
+<p>Hume fired into the crawling mass, pausing only once to send another
+of those flame bombs crashing to illuminate the scene. The water
+creatures bewildered, clumsy out of their element, were so far at his
+mercy. But their numbers,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> in spite of the piling dead, were still a
+dangerous threat.</p>
+
+<p>Rynch tore gapping holes in that line of lights. But he could see,
+through the mist, more floating sparks, gathering to take their
+places, perhaps herding before them more water things to attack.
+Except for those few gaps he had wrought, the islet was now completely
+enveloped.</p>
+
+<p>"Ahhhh&mdash;" Hume's voice arose in a roar of anger and defiance. He
+stabbed his ray down at a spot just below their ledge. A huge
+segmented, taloned leg kicked, caught on the edge of the stone at the
+level of their feet, twisted aloft again and was gone.</p>
+
+<p>"Up!" Hume ordered. "To the top!"</p>
+
+<p>Rynch caught up two handsful of stones, holding them to his chest with
+his left arm as he made a last cast to see one light puff out in
+answer. Then they both scrambled on to that small platform at the top
+of the islet. By the aid of the burning flame-torches the Hunter had
+set, they could see that most of the rocky slopes below them now
+squirmed with a horrible mass of water life.</p>
+
+<p>Where Hume had fired his ray there was fierce activity, as the living
+feasted on the slain and quarreled over the bounty. But from other
+quarters the crawling advance pressed on.</p>
+
+<p>"I have only one more flame flare," Hume stated.</p>
+
+<p>One more flare&mdash;then they would be in the dark with the mist hiding
+the forward-moving enemy.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder if they are watching out there?" Rynch scowled into the
+dark.</p>
+
+<p>"They&mdash;or what sent them. They know what they are doing."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean they must have done this before?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think so. That L-B back there&mdash;it made a good landing, and there
+are supplies missing from its lockers."</p>
+
+<p>"Which you removed&mdash;" Rynch countered.</p>
+
+<p>"No. There might have been real castaways landed here. Not that we
+found any trace of them. Now I can guess why&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But you Guild men were here, and you didn't run into this!"</p>
+
+<p>"I know." Hume sounded baffled. "Not a sign then."</p>
+
+<p>Rynch threw the last of his stones, heard it clink harmlessly against
+a rock. Hume balanced an object on the palm of his hand.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Last flare!"</p>
+
+<p>"What's that? Over there?"</p>
+
+<p>Rynch had sighted the flashing out of the dark from the river bank,
+making a pattern of flickers which bore no relation to the infernal
+lights at the water's edge.</p>
+
+<p>Hume's ray tube pointed skyward as he answered with a series of short
+bursts.</p>
+
+<p>"Take cover!" The call came weirdly out over the water, the tone
+dehumanized. Hume cupped his mouth with one hand, shouted back:</p>
+
+<p>"We're on top&mdash;no cover."</p>
+
+<p>"Then flatten down&mdash;we're blasting!"</p>
+
+<p>They flattened, lay almost in each other's arms, curled on that narrow
+space. Even through his closed eyelids Rynch caught the flash of
+vivid, man-made lightning crashing first on one side of the islet and
+then on the other, and sweeping every crawling horror out of life,
+into odorous ash. The backlash of that blast must have caught the
+majority of the lights also. For when Rynch and Hume cautiously sat
+up, they saw only a handful of widely scattered and dulling globes
+below.</p>
+
+<p>They choked, coughed, rubbed watering eyes as the fumes from the
+scorched rocks wreathed up about their perch.</p>
+
+<p>"Flitter with life line&mdash;above you!"</p>
+
+<p>That voice had come out of what should have been empty air over their
+heads. A gangling line trailed across their bodies, a line with a
+safety belt locked to it, and a second was uncoiling in a slow loop as
+they watched.</p>
+
+<p>In unison they grabbed for those means of escape, buckled the belts
+about them.</p>
+
+<p>"Haul away!" Hume called. The lines tightened, their bodies swung up
+clear of the blasted river island, as their unseen transport headed
+for the eastern shore.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span></p>
+<h2>8</h2>
+
+
+<p>A subdued but steady light all around him issued from stark gray
+walls. He lay on his back in an empty cell-room. And he'd better be on
+the move before Darfu comes to enforce a rising order with a powerful
+kick or one of these backhanded blows which the Salarkian used to
+reduce most humans to helpless obedience.</p>
+
+<p>Vye blinked again. But this wasn't his cubby hole at the Starfall, his
+nose as well as his eyes told him that. There was no hint of
+uncleanliness or corruption here. He sat up stiffly, looked down at
+his own body in dull wonder. The only covering on his bare, brown self
+was a wide, scaled belt and a loin cloth. Clumsy sandals shod his
+feet, and his legs, up to thigh level, were striped with healing
+scratches and blotched with bruises.</p>
+
+<p>Painfully, with mental processes as stiff as his arms and his legs, he
+tried to think back. Sluggishly, memory associated one picture with
+another.</p>
+
+<p>Last night&mdash;or yesterday&mdash;Rynch Brodie had been locked in here. And
+"here" was one of the storage compartments of a spacer belonging to a
+man named Wass. It had been Wass' pilot in the flitter which snaked
+them from the river islet where the monsters had besieged them.</p>
+
+<p>This was a concealed, fortified camp&mdash;Wass' hideout. And he was a
+prisoner with a very uncertain future, depending upon the will of the
+Veep and a man named Hume.</p>
+
+<p>Hume, the Out-Hunter, had shown no surprise when Wass stood up in the
+lamplight to greet the rescued. "I see you have been hunting." His
+eyes had moved from Hume to Rynch and back again.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;but that does not matter!" the Hunter had returned impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>"No? Then what does?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"This is not a free world, I have to report that. Get my civs off
+planet before something happens to them!"</p>
+
+<p>"I thought all safari worlds were certified as free," Wass countered.</p>
+
+<p>"This one isn't. I don't know how or why. But that fact has to be
+reported and the civs lifted&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Not so fast." Wass' voice had been quiet, almost gentle. "Such a
+report would interest the Patrol, would it not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course&mdash;" Hume began and then stopped abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>Wass smiled. "You see&mdash;complications already. I do not wish to explain
+anything to the Patrol. Nor do you either, my young friend, not when
+you stop to think about what might result from such explanations."</p>
+
+<p>"There wouldn't have been any trouble if you'd kept away from Jumala."
+Hume's control had returned; both voice and manner were under tight
+rein. "Weren't Rovald's reports explicit enough to satisfy you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have risked a great deal on this project," Wass replied. "Also, it
+is well from time to time for a Veep to check upon his field
+operatives. Men do not grow careless when personal supervision is ever
+in mind. And it is well that I did arrive here, is it not, Hunter? Or
+would you have preferred remaining on that island? Whether any of our
+project may be salvaged is a point we must consider. But for the
+moment we make no moves. No, Hume, your civs will have to take their
+chances for a time."</p>
+
+<p>"And if there is trouble?" Hume challenged him. "A report of an alien
+attack will bring in the Patrol quickly enough."</p>
+
+<p>"You forget Rovald," Wass corrected. "The chance that one of your civs
+can activate and transmit from the spacer is remote, and Rovald will
+see that it is impossible. You have picked up Brodie, I see."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"No!" What had possessed him at that moment to contradict? He had
+realized the folly of his outburst the moment Wass had looked at him.</p>
+
+<p>"This becomes more interesting," the Veep had remarked with that
+deceptive gentleness. "You are Rynch Brodie, castaway from the Largo
+Drift, are you not? I trust that Out-Hunter Hume has made plain to you
+our concern with your welfare, Gentlehomo Brodie."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I'm not Brodie." Having taken the leap into the dangerous truth he
+was stubborn enough to continue swimming.</p>
+
+<p>"I find this enlightening indeed. If you are not Brodie&mdash;then who are
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>That had been it. At that moment he couldn't have told Wass who he
+was, explain that his patchwork of memories had gaping holes.</p>
+
+<p>"And you, Out-Hunter," Wass' reptilian regard had moved again to Hume,
+"perhaps you have an adequate explanation for this discovery."</p>
+
+<p>"None of his doing," he burst out, "I remembered&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Some inexplicable emotion made Rynch defend Hume then.</p>
+
+<p>Hume laughed, and there was a reckless edge to that sound. "Yes, Wass,
+your techs are not as good as they pretend to be. He didn't follow the
+pattern of action they set for him."</p>
+
+<p>"A pity. But there are always errors when one deals with the human
+factor. Peake!" One of the other three men moved towards them. "You
+will escort this young man to the spacer, see him safely stowed for
+the present. Yes, a pity. Now we must see just how much can be
+salvaged."</p>
+
+<p>Then Vye had been brought into the shop, supplied with a ration
+container, and left to himself within this bare-walled cabin to
+meditate upon the folly of talking too freely. Why had he been so
+utterly stupid? Veeps of Wass' calibre did not swim through the murky
+channels of the Starfall, but their general breed had smaller but just
+as vicious representatives there, and he knew the man for what he was,
+ruthless, powerful and thorough.</p>
+
+<p>A sound, slight, but easily heard in the silent vacuum of the storage
+cabin, alerted him. The crack of the sliding panel door opened and Vye
+crouched, his hand cupping the only possible weapon, the ration
+container. Hume edged through, shut the door behind him. He stood
+there, his head turned so his ear rested against the wall; obviously
+he was listening.</p>
+
+<p>"You brain-smoothed idiot!" The Hunter's voice was a thread of
+whisper. "Why couldn't you have kept that swinging jaw of yours closed
+last night? Now listen and listen good. This is a slim try, but it's
+one we have to take."</p>
+
+<p>"We?" Vye was startled into asking.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, we! By rights I ought to leave you right here to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span> do the rest of
+your big, brave speechmaking for Wass' benefit. If I didn't need you,
+that's just what I would do! If it weren't for those civs&mdash;" His head
+snapped back, cheek to panel, he was listening again. After a long
+moment his whisper came once more. "I don't have time to repeat this.
+In about five minutes Peake'll be here with rations. I'll leave this
+door unlatched. There's another storage cabin across the corridor&mdash;see
+if you can hide there, then trick him into getting in here and lock
+him in. Got it?"</p>
+
+<p>Vye nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Then&mdash;make for the exit port. Here." He snapped a packet loose from
+his belt. "This is a flare pak, you saw how they worked on the island.
+When you get on the ramp beyond the atom lamp, throw this. It should
+hit the camp force barrier. And the result ought to hold their
+attention. Then you head for the flitter. Understand?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>The flitter, yes, that was the perfect escape. With a camp force
+barrier on, any fugitive could only break out by going straight up.</p>
+
+<p>Hume gazed at him soberly, listened once more, and then went. Vye
+counted a slow five before he followed. The cabin across the corridor
+was open, just as Hume had promised. He slipped inside, waited.</p>
+
+<p>Peake was coming now, the metallic plates on his spaceboots clicking
+in regular pattern of sound. He earned another ration container and
+crooked it in his arm as he snapped up the lock bar on the other
+cabin.</p>
+
+<p>There was an exclamation of surprise. Vye went into action. His hand,
+backed by all the strength of his thrusting arm, thumped between
+Peake's shoulders, sending him staggering into the prison compartment.
+Before the other could recover either his balance or his wits, Vye had
+the panel shut, the bar locked into place.</p>
+
+<p>He ran down the corridor to the well ladder, swung down its rungs with
+an agility born of necessity. Then he was in the air lock, getting his
+bearings. The flitter stood to his left, the flashing atom lamp, where
+the men were gathered, to his right.</p>
+
+<p>Vye stepped out on the ramp. He wiped his sweating hand across his
+thigh. There had to be no failures in the tossing of the flare pak.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Choosing a spot, not directly in line with the lamp but near enough to
+dazzle the men, he hurled it with all the force he could muster. Then
+he was running down the ramp, forward to the area of the ship.</p>
+
+<p>There was a flash&mdash;shouting&mdash;Vye curbed the impulse to look back,
+darted for the flitter. He jerked open the cabin compartment,
+scrambled into the cramped space behind the pilot's seat, leaving that
+free for Hume's quick entrance. More shouting&mdash;now he saw the lines of
+fire wavering from earth to sky along the barrier.</p>
+
+<p>A black shape put on a burst of speed, was silhouetted against that
+flaming wall, then passed the spacer, grabbed at the open cockpit, and
+slid in behind the controls. Hume pulled the levers with flying
+fingers. They arose vertically at a pace which practically slapped
+Vye's stomach up into the lower regions of his throat.</p>
+
+<p>The searing line of at least one blaster reached after them&mdash;too
+slowly, too low. He heard Hume grunt, and they again leaped higher.
+Then the Hunter spoke:</p>
+
+<p>"Half an hour at the most&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"The safari camp?</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>They no longer climbed. The flitter was boring forwards on a
+projectile flight, into the dark of the night.</p>
+
+<p>"What're those?" Vye suddenly leaned forward.</p>
+
+<p>Had some of the stars across the space void broken free from their
+fixed orbits? Flecks of light, moving in an arc, headed towards the
+speeding flitter.</p>
+
+<p>Hume hit a button. Again they arose in a violent leap above those
+wandering lights. But ahead on this new level more such dots flocked,
+moving fast to close in on the flyer.</p>
+
+<p>"A straight ram course," Hume muttered, more to himself than Vye.</p>
+
+<p>Again the flyer drove forward in a rising thrust of speed. Then the
+smooth purr of the propulsion unit faltered, broke into protesting
+coughs. Hume worked over the controls, beads of sweat showing on his
+forehead and cheek in the gleam of the cabin light.</p>
+
+<p>"Deading&mdash;deading out!"</p>
+
+<p>He brought the flitter around in a wide circle, the purr smoothed out
+once more in a steady reassuring beat.</p>
+
+<p>"Out run them!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But Vye feared they were back again on the losing side of a struggle
+with the unknown alien power. As they had been herded along the river,
+so now they were being pushed across the sky, towards the mountains.
+The enemy had followed them aloft!</p>
+
+<p>Some core of stubborn will in Hume would not yet allow him to admit
+that. Time and time again he climbed higher&mdash;always to meet climbing,
+twisting, spurting lines of lights which reacted on the engine of the
+flitter and threatened it with complete failure.</p>
+
+<p>Where they were now in relation to Wass' camp or that of the safari,
+Vye had no idea, and he guessed that Hume could not be too certain.</p>
+
+<p>Hume switched on the flitter's com unit, tried a channel search until
+he picked up a click of signal&mdash;the automatic reply of the safari
+camp. His fingertip beat out in return the danger warning, then the
+series of code sounds to give an edited version of what must be
+guarded against.</p>
+
+<p>"Wass has a man in your camp. His skin is in just as much danger as
+the rest. He may not relay it to the Patrol, but he'll keep the force
+barrier up and the civs inside&mdash;anything else would be malicious
+neglect and a murder charge when the Guild check tape goes in. This
+call is on the spacer tape now and will be a part of that&mdash;he can't
+possibly alter such a report and he knows it. This is the best we can
+do now&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"We're close to the mountains, aren't we?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know much about this part of the country?" Vye persisted.
+Hume's knowledge might be their only hope.</p>
+
+<p>"Flew over the range twice. Nothing to see."</p>
+
+<p>"But there has to be something there."</p>
+
+<p>"If there is, it didn't show up during our survey." Hume's voice was
+dull with fatigue.</p>
+
+<p>"You're a Guild man, you've dealt with alien life forms before&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"The Guild doesn't deal with intelligent aliens. That's X-Tee Patrol
+business. We don't land on any planet with unknown intelligent life
+forms. Why should we court trouble&mdash;couldn't run a safari in under
+those conditions. X-Tee certified Jumala as a wild world, our survey
+confirmed that."</p>
+
+<p>"Someone or something landed here after you left?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe so. This is too well organized an action. And since
+we have a satellite guard in space, any ship landing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> would be taped
+and recorded. No such record appeared on the Guild screens. One small
+spacer&mdash;such as Wass'&mdash;could slip through by knowing procedure&mdash;just
+as he did. But to land all those beasts and equipment they'd need a
+regular transport. No&mdash;this must be native." Hume leaned forward
+again, flipped a switch.</p>
+
+<p>A small red light answered on the central board.</p>
+
+<p>"Radar warn-off," he explained.</p>
+
+<p>So they wouldn't end up smeared against some cliff face anyway. Which
+was only small comfort amid terrifying possibilities.</p>
+
+<p>Hume had taken the precaution just in time. The light blinked faster,
+and the speed of the flyer was checked as the automatic control
+triggered by the warn-off came into command. Hume's hands were still
+on the board, but a system of relays put safety devices into action
+with a speed past that which a human pilot could initiate.</p>
+
+<p>They were descending and had to accept that, since the warn-off,
+operating for the sake of the passengers, had ruled that move best.
+The directive would glide the flitter to the best available landing.
+It was only moments before the shock gear did touch surface. Then the
+engine was silent.</p>
+
+<p>"This is it," Hume observed.</p>
+
+<p>"What do we do now?" Vye wanted to know.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Wait! For what?"</p>
+
+<p>Hume consulted his planet-time watch in the light of the cabin.</p>
+
+<p>"We have about an hour until dawn&mdash;if dawn arrives here at the same
+time it does in the plains. I don't propose to go out blindly in the
+dark."</p>
+
+<p>Which made sense. Except that to sit here, quietly, in their cramped
+quarters, not knowing what might be waiting outside, was an ordeal Vye
+found increasingly harder to bear. Maybe Hume guessed his discomfort,
+maybe he was following routine procedure. But he turned, thumbed open
+one of the side panels in Vye's compartment, and dug out the emergency
+supplies.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span></p>
+<h2>9</h2>
+
+
+<p>They sorted the crash rations into small packs. A blanket of the
+water-resistant, feather-heavy Ozakian spider silk was cut into a
+protective covering for Vye. That piece of tailoring occupied them
+until the graying sky permitted them a full picture of the pocket in
+which the flitter had landed. The dark foliage of the mountain growth
+was broken here by a ledge of dark-blue stone on which the flyer
+rested.</p>
+
+<p>To the right was a sheer drop, and a land slip had cut away the ledge
+itself a few feet behind the flitter. There was only a steadily
+narrowing path ahead, slanting upward.</p>
+
+<p>"Can we take off again?" Vye hoped to be reassured that such a feat
+was possible.</p>
+
+<p>"Look up!"</p>
+
+<p>Vye backed against the cliff wall, stared up at the sky. Well above
+them those globes still swam in unwearied circles, commanding the air
+lanes.</p>
+
+<p>Hume had cautiously approached the outer rim of the ledge, was using
+his distance glasses to scan what might lie below.</p>
+
+<p>"No sign yet."</p>
+
+<p>Vye knew what he meant. The globes were overhead, but the blue beasts,
+or any other fauna those balls might summon, had not yet appeared.</p>
+
+<p>Shouldering their packs they started along the ledge. Hume had his ray
+tube, but Vye was weaponless, unless somewhere along their route he
+could pick up some defensive and offensive arm. Stones had burst the
+lights of the islet, they might prove as effective against the blue
+beasts. He kept watch for any of the proper size and weight.</p>
+
+<p>The ledge narrowed, one shoulder scraped the cliff now as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> they
+rounded a pinnacle to lose sight of the flitter. But the globes
+continued to hover over them.</p>
+
+<p>"We are still traveling in the direction they want," Vye speculated.</p>
+
+<p>Hume had gone to hands and knees to negotiate an ascent so steep he
+had to search for head and toe holds. When they were safely past that
+point they took a breather, and Vye glanced aloft again. Now the sky
+was empty.</p>
+
+<p>"We may have arrived, or are about to do so," said Hume.</p>
+
+<p>"Where?"</p>
+
+<p>Hume shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine. And both of us can be
+wrong."</p>
+
+<p>The steep ascent did not quite reach the top of the cliff around the
+face of which the ledge curled. Instead their path now leveled off and
+began to widen out so that they could walk with more confidence. Then
+it threaded into a crevice between two towering rock walls and sloped
+downward.</p>
+
+<p>A path unnaturally smooth, Vye thought, as if shaped to funnel
+wayfarers on. And they came out on the rim of a valley, a valley
+centered with a wood-encircled lake. They stepped from the rock of the
+passage onto a springy turf which gave elastically to their tread.</p>
+
+<p>Vye's sandal struck a round stone. It started from its bed in the
+black-green vegetation, turned over so that round pits stared
+eyelessly up at him. He was faced by the fleshless grin of a human
+skull.</p>
+
+<p>Hume went down on one knee, examined the ground growth, gingerly
+lifted the lace of vertebrae forming a spine. That ended in a crushed
+break which he studied briefly before he laid the bones gently back
+into the concealing cover of the mossy stuff.</p>
+
+<p>"That was done by teeth!"</p>
+
+<p>The cup of green valley had not changed, it was the same as it had
+been when they had emerged from the crevice. But now every clump of
+trees, every wind-rippled mound of brush promised cover.</p>
+
+<p>Vye moistened his lips, diverted his eyes from the skull.</p>
+
+<p>"Weathered," Hume said slowly, "must have been here for seasons, maybe
+planet years."</p>
+
+<p>"A survivor from the L-B?" Yet this spot lay days of travel from that
+clearing back in the plains.</p>
+
+<p>"How did he get here?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Probably the same way we would have, had we not holed up on that
+river island."</p>
+
+<p>Driven! Perhaps the lone human on Jumala herded up into this dead-end
+valley by the globes or the blue beasts. "This process must have been
+in action for some time."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"I can give you two reasons." Hume studied the nearest trees narrowly.
+"First&mdash;for some purpose, whatever we are up against wants all
+interlopers moved out of the lowlands into this section, either to
+imprison them, or to keep them under surveillance. Second&mdash;" He
+hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>Vye's own imagination supplied a second reason, a revolting one he
+tried to deny to himself even as he put it into words:</p>
+
+<p>"That broken spine&mdash;food...." Vye wanted Hume to contradict him, but
+the Hunter only glanced around, his expression already sufficient
+answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's get out of here!" Vye was fighting down panic with every ounce
+of control he could summon, trying not to bolt for the crevice. But he
+knew he could not force himself any farther into that sinister valley.</p>
+
+<p>"If we can!" Hume's words lingered direly in his ears.</p>
+
+<p>Stones had smashed the globes by the river. If they still waited out
+there Vye was willing to try and break them with his bare hands,
+should escape demand such action. Hume must have agreed with those
+thoughts, he was already taking long strides back to the cliff
+entrance.</p>
+
+<p>But that door was closed. Hume's foot, raised for the last step toward
+the crevice corridor, struck an invisible obstruction. He reeled back,
+clutching at Vye's shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"Something's there!"</p>
+
+<p>The younger man put out his hand questingly. What his fingers
+flattened against was not a tight, solid surface, but rather an unseen
+elastic curtain which gave a little under his prodding and then drew
+taut again.</p>
+
+<p>Together they explored by touch what they could not see. The crevice
+through which they had entered was now closed with a curtain they
+could not pierce or break. Hume tried his ray tube. They watched thin
+flame run up and down that invisible barrier, but not destroy it.</p>
+
+<p>Hume relooped the tube. "Their trap is sprung."</p>
+
+<p>"There may be another way out!" But Vye was already<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span> despondently sure
+there was not. Those who had rigged this trap would leave no bolt
+holes. But because they were human and refused to accept the
+inevitable without a fight, the captives set off, not down into the
+curve of the cup, but along its slope.</p>
+
+<p>Tongues of brush and tree clumps brought about detours which forced
+them slowly downward. They were well away from the crevice when Hume
+halted, flung up a hand in silent warning. Vye listened, trying to
+pick up the sound which had alarmed his companion.</p>
+
+<p>It was as Vye strained to catch a betraying noise that he was first
+conscious of what he did not hear. In the plains there had been
+squeaking, humming, chitterings, the vocalizing of myriad grass
+dwellers. Here, except for the sighing of the wind and a few insect
+sounds&mdash;nothing. All inhabitants bigger than a Jumalan fly might have
+long ago been routed out of the land.</p>
+
+<p>"To the left." Hume faced about.</p>
+
+<p>There was a heavy thicket there, too stoutly grown for anything to be
+within its shadow. Whatever moved must be behind it.</p>
+
+<p>Vye looked about him frantically for anything he could use as a
+weapon. Then he grabbed at the long bush knife in Hume's belt sheath.
+Eighteen inches of tri-fold steel gleamed wickedly, its hilt fitting
+neatly into his fist as he held it point up, ready.</p>
+
+<p>Hume advanced on the bush in small steps, and Vye circled to his left
+a few paces behind. The Hunter was an expert with ray tube; that, too,
+was part of the necessary skill of a safari leader. But Vye could
+offer other help.</p>
+
+<p>He shrugged out of the blanket pack he had been carrying on his back,
+tossed that burden ahead.</p>
+
+<p>Out of cover charged a streak of red, to land on the bait. Hume
+blasted, was answered by a water-cat's high-pitched scream. The feline
+writhed out of its life in a stench of scorched fur and flesh. As Vye
+retrieved his clawed pack Hume stood over the dead animal.</p>
+
+<p>"Odd." He reached down to grasp a still twitching foreleg, stretched
+the body out with a sudden jerk.</p>
+
+<p>It was a giant of its species, a male, larger than any he had seen.
+But a second look showed him those ribs starting through mangy fur in
+visible hoops, the skin tight over the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> skull, far too tight. The
+water-cat had been close to death by starvation; its attack on the men
+probably had been sparked by sheer desperation. A starving carnivore
+in a land lacking the normal sounds of small birds and animal life, in
+a valley used as a trap.</p>
+
+<p>"No way out and no food." Vye fitted one thought to another out loud.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Pin the enemy up, let them finish off one another."</p>
+
+<p>"But why?" Vye demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"Least trouble that way."</p>
+
+<p>"There are plenty of water-cats down on the plains. All of them
+couldn't be herded up here to finish each other off; it would take
+years&mdash;centuries."</p>
+
+<p>"This one's capture may have been only incidental, or done for the
+purpose of keeping some type of machinery in working order," Hume
+replied. "I don't believe this was arranged just to dispose of
+water-cats."</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose this was started a long time ago, and those who did it are
+gone, so now it goes on working without any real intelligence behind
+it. That could be the answer, couldn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Some process triggers into action when a ship sets down on this
+portion of Jumala, maybe when one planet's under certain conditions
+only? Yes, that makes sense. Only why wasn't the first Patrol explorer
+flaming in here caught? And the survey team&mdash;we were here for months,
+cataloguing, mapping, not a whisper of any such trouble."</p>
+
+<p>"That dead man&mdash;he's been here a long time. And when did the Largo
+Drift disappear?"</p>
+
+<p>"Five&mdash;six years ago. But I can't give you any answers. I have none."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>It began as a low hum, hardly to be distinguished from the distant
+howling of the wind. Then it slid up scale until the thin wail became
+an ululating scream torturing the ears, dragging out of hiding those
+fears of a man confronting the unknown in the dark.</p>
+
+<p>Hume tugged at Vye, drew the other by force back into the brush.
+Scratched, laced raw by the whip of branches, they stood in a small
+hollow with the drift of leaves high about their ankles. And the
+Hunter pulled into place the portions of growth they had dislodged in
+their passage into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span> the thicket's heart. Through gaps they could see
+the opening where lay the body of the water-cat.</p>
+
+<p>The wail was cut off short, that cessation in itself a warning. Vye's
+body, touching earth with knee and hand as he crouched, picked up a
+vibration. Whatever came towards them walked heavily.</p>
+
+<p>Did the smell of death draw it now? Or had it trailed them from the
+closed gate? Hume's breath hissed lightly between his teeth. He was
+sighting the ray tube through a leaf gap.</p>
+
+<p>A snuffling, heavier than a man's panting. A vast blot, which was
+neither clearly paw nor hand, swept aside leaves and branches on the
+other side of the small clearing, tearing them casually from the
+shrubs.</p>
+
+<p>What shuffled into the open might be a cousin of the blue beasts. But
+where they had given only an impression of brutal menace, this was
+savagery incarnate. Taller than Hume, but hunched forward in its
+neckless outline, the thing was a monster. And over the round of the
+lower jaw, tusks protruded in ugly promise.</p>
+
+<p>Being carnivorous and hungry, it scooped up the body of the water-cat
+and fed without any prolonged ceremony. Vye, remembering the crushed
+spine of the human skeleton, was sickened.</p>
+
+<p>Done, it reared on hind feet once again, the pear-shaped head swung in
+their direction. Vye was half certain he had seen that tube-nose
+expand to test the air and scent them.</p>
+
+<p>Hume pressed the button of the ray tube. That soundless spear of death
+struck in midsection of that barrel body. The thing howled, threw
+itself in a mad forward rush at their bush. Hume snapped a second
+blast at the head, and the fuzz covering it blackened.</p>
+
+<p>Missing them by a precious foot, the creature crashed straight on
+through the thicket, coming to its knees, writhing in a rising chorus
+of howls. The men broke out of cover, raced into the open where they
+took refuge behind a chimney of rock half detached from the parent
+cliff. Down the slope the bushes were still wildly agitated.</p>
+
+<p>"What was that?" Vye got out between sobbing breaths.</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe a guardian, or a patrol stationed to dispose of any catch.
+Probably not alone, either." Hume fingered his ray tube. "And I am
+down to one full charge&mdash;just one."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Vye turned the knife he held around in his fingers, tried to imagine
+how one could face up to one of those tusked monsters with only this
+for a weapon. But if that thing had companions, none were coming in
+answer to its dying wails. And after it had been quiet for a while
+Hume motioned them out of hiding.</p>
+
+<p>"From now on we'll keep to the open, better see trouble like that
+before it arrives. And I want to find a place to hole up for the
+night."</p>
+
+<p>They trailed along the steep upper slope and in time found a place
+where a now dried stream had once formed a falls. The empty
+watercourse provided an overhang, not quite a cave, but shelter.
+Gathering brush and stones, they made a barricade and settled behind
+it to eat sparingly of their rations.</p>
+
+<p>"Water&mdash;a whole lake of it down there. The worst of it is that a water
+supply in a dry country is just where hunters congregate. That lake's
+entirely walled in by woodland and provides cover for a thousand
+ambushes."</p>
+
+<p>"We might find a way out before our water bulbs fail," Vye offered.</p>
+
+<p>Hume did not answer directly. "A man can live for quite a while on
+very thin rations, and we have tablets from the flitter emergency
+supplies. But he can't live long without water. We have two bulbs.
+With stretching that is enough for two days&mdash;maybe three."</p>
+
+<p>"We ought to get completely around the cliffs in another day."</p>
+
+<p>"And if we do find a way out, which I doubt, we're still going to need
+water for the trek out. It's right down there waiting until our need
+is greater than either our fear or our cunning."</p>
+
+<p>Vye moved impatiently, his blanket-clad shoulders scraping the rock at
+their backs. "You don't think we have a chance!"</p>
+
+<p>"We aren't dead. And as long as a man is breathing, and on his feet,
+with all his wits in his skull, he always has a chance. I've blasted
+off-world with odds stacked high on the other side of the board." He
+flexed that plasta-flesh hand which was so nearly human and yet not by
+the fraction which had changed the course of his life. "I've lived on
+the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> edge of the big blackout for a long time now&mdash;after a while you
+can get used to anything."</p>
+
+<p>"One thing I would like&mdash;to get at the one who set this trap,"
+commented Vye.</p>
+
+<p>Hume laughed with dry humor. "After me, boy, after me. But I think we
+might have to wait a long time for that meeting."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>10</h2>
+
+
+<p>Vye crawled weakly from the area of a rock outcrop. The sun, reflected
+from the cliff side, was a lash of fire across his emaciated body. His
+swollen tongue moved a pebble back and forth in his dry mouth. He
+stared dimly down the slope to that beckoning platter of water open
+under the sun, rimmed with the deadly woodland.</p>
+
+<p>What had happened? They had gone to sleep that first night under the
+ledge of the dried waterfall. And all of the next day was only a haze
+to him now. They must have moved on, though he could remember nothing,
+save Hume's odd behavior&mdash;dull-eyed silence while stumbling on as a
+brainless servio-robot, incoherent speech wherein all the words came
+fast, running together unintelligibly. And for himself&mdash;patches of
+blackout.</p>
+
+<p>At some time they had come to the cave and Hume had collapsed, not
+rousing in answer to any of Vye's struggles to awaken him. How long
+they had been there Vye could not tell now. He had the fear of being
+left alone in this place. With water perhaps Hume could be returned to
+consciousness, but that was all gone.</p>
+
+<p>Vye believed he could scent the lake, that every breeze up slope
+brought its compelling enticement. Just in case Hume might awake to a
+state of semi-consciousness and wander off, Vye tethered him with
+blanket bonds.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Vye fingered Hume's knife, which had been painstakingly lashed to a
+trimmed shaft of wood. Since he had emerged from that clouding of mind
+which still gripped the Hunter, he had done what he could to prepare
+for another attack from any roving beast. And he also had Hume's ray
+tube&mdash;its single charge to be used only in dire need.</p>
+
+<p>Water! His cracked lips moved, ejected the pebble. Their four empty
+water bulbs were in the front of his blanket tunic, pressing against
+his ribs. It was now&mdash;or die, because soon he would be too weak to
+make the attempt at all. He darted for the first stand of bush
+downhill.</p>
+
+<p>As the brooding silence of the valley continued, he reached the edge
+of the wood unhindered, intent on his mission with a concentration
+which shut out everything save his need and the manner of satisfying
+it.</p>
+
+<p>He squatted in the bush, eyeing the length of woodland ahead. Then he
+tried the only action he had been able to think out. That beast Hume
+had killed had been too heavy to swing up in trees. But Vye's own
+weight now did not prohibit that form of travel.</p>
+
+<p>With spear and ray tube firmly attached to him, Vye climbed into the
+first tree. A slim chance&mdash;but his only defense against a possible
+ambush. A wild outward swing brought him, heart-thudding, to the next
+set of limbs. Then he had a piece of luck, a looped vine tied together
+a whole group of branches from one treetop to the next.</p>
+
+<p>Hand grips, balance, sometimes a walk along a branch&mdash;he threaded
+towards the lake. Then he came to a gap. With hands laced into
+tendrils, Vye hunched to look down on a beaten ribbon of gray earth&mdash;a
+trail well used by the evidence of its pounded surface.</p>
+
+<p>That area had to be crossed on foot, but his passage through the brush
+below would leave traces. Only&mdash;there was no other way. Vye checked
+the lashings of his weapons again before leaping. Almost in the same
+instant his sandals hit the packed earth he was running. His palms
+skinned raw on rough bark as he somehow scrambled aloft once more.</p>
+
+<p>No more vines, but broad limbs shooting well out. He dropped from one
+to another-stopped for breath&mdash;listened.</p>
+
+<p>The dark gloom of the wood was broken by sunlight. He was at the final
+ring of trees. To get to the water he must descend again. A dead trunk
+extended over the water. If<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> he could run out on that and lower the
+bulb, it could work.</p>
+
+<p>Eerie silence. No flying things, no tree dwelling reptiles or animals,
+no disturbance of any water creature on the unruffled surface of the
+lake. Yet the sensation of life, inimical life, lurking in the depths
+of the wood, under the water, bore in upon him.</p>
+
+<p>Vye made the light leap to the bole of the dead tree, balanced out on
+it over the water, moving slowly as the trunk settled a little under
+his weight. He hunkered down, brought out the first bulb tied fast to
+a blanket string.</p>
+
+<p>The water of the river had been brown, opaque. But here the liquid was
+not so cloudy. He could see snags of dead branches below its surface.</p>
+
+<p>And something else!</p>
+
+<p>Down in those turgid depths he made out a straight ridge running with
+a trueness of line which could not be nature's unassisted product.
+That ridge joined another in a squared corner. He leaned over,
+strained his eyes to follow through the murk the farther extent of
+those two ridges. Looked along both pointed protuberances aimed at the
+surfaces of the lake, like fangs in an open jaw. Down there was
+something&mdash;something artificially fashioned which might be the answer
+to all their questions. But to venture into the lake himself&mdash;he could
+not do it! If he could bring the Out-Hunter to his senses the other
+might find the solution to this puzzle.</p>
+
+<p>Vye filled his bulbs, working speedily, but still studying what he
+could see of the strange erection under the lake. He thought it was
+curiously free of silt, and its color, as far as he could distinguish,
+allowing for the dark hue of the water, was light gray&mdash;perhaps even
+white. He lowered his last bulb.</p>
+
+<p>Down in the bleached forest of dead branches, well to one side of the
+mysterious walls, there was movement, a slow rolling of a shadow so
+hidden by a stirring of bottom mud that Vye could not make out its
+true form. But it was rising to the bulb.</p>
+
+<p>Vye hated to lose a single precious drop. Once he might have the luck
+to make this journey unmolested, a second time the odds could be too
+high.</p>
+
+<p>A flash&mdash;the slowly rising shadow was transformed into a whizzing
+spear of attack. Vye snapped the bulb out of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> water just as a
+nightmarish, armored head arose on a whiplash of coiled, scaled neck,
+and a blunt nose thudded against the tree trunk with a hollow boom.
+Vye clung to his perch as the thing flopped back into deeper water
+from a froth of beaten foam, leaving a patch of odorous scum and slime
+to bracelet the waterlogged wood.</p>
+
+<p>He ran for the shelter of the trees to get away. This time there was
+no rear, no thump of feet in warning. Out of the ground itself, or so
+it seemed to Vye's startled terror, reared one of the tusked beasts.
+To reach his tree and its dubious safety he had to wind past that
+chimera. And the creature waited with a semblance of ease for him to
+come to it.</p>
+
+<p>Vye brought around his spear. The length of the haft might afford him
+a fighting chance if he could send the point home in some vulnerable
+spot. Yet he knew that the beasts were hard to kill.</p>
+
+<p>The mouth opened in a wide grin of menace. Vye noted a telltale
+tightening of shoulder muscles. It was going to rush for him now with
+those clawed forepaws out to rip.</p>
+
+<p>To wait was to court disaster. Vye shouted, his battle cry piercing
+the silence of the lake and wood. He sprang, aiming the spear point at
+the beast's protuberant belly, and then swerved to the side as the
+knife bit home, raking his weapon to open a gaping wound.</p>
+
+<p>The spear was jerked from Vye's hold as both those taloned paws closed
+on it. Then the creature pulled it free, snapped the haft in two. Vye
+fired a short blast from the ray tube before it could turn on him, saw
+fur-fuzz afire, as he ran for the tree.</p>
+
+<p>Beneath its branches he looked back. The beast was pawing at the
+burning fur on its head, and he had perhaps a second or two. He jumped
+and his fingers caught on the low hanging branch, then he made a
+superhuman effort, was up out of the path of the thing which rushed
+blindly for the tree, shrieking in frenzied complaint.</p>
+
+<p>The huge body crashed against the trunk with force which nearly shook
+Vye from his hold. As the giant forepaws belabored the wood, strove to
+lift the body from the ground, Vye worked his way out on another
+branch. In the end it was the shaking of that limb under him which
+aided his swing to the next tree. And from there he traveled
+recklessly, intent only on getting out of the woods as fast as he
+could.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>By the noise the beast was still assaulting the tree, and Vye marveled
+at its vitality, for the belly wound would long ago have killed any
+creature he knew. Whether it could trace his flight aloft, or whether
+its howls would bring more of its kind, he could not guess, but every
+second he could gain was all important now.</p>
+
+<p>At the gap over the trail he hesitated. That path ran in the direction
+of the open, and to go on foot meant the possibility of greater speed.
+Vye slipped from the bough, hit the ground, and ran. His ragged
+lungsful of air came in great gasps and he doubted if he could take
+the exertion of more tree travel now. He raced down the path.</p>
+
+<p>Those mewling cries were louder, he was sure of it. Now he heard the
+thump of the beast's blundering pursuit behind him. But its bulk and
+hurts slowed it. In the open he could find cover behind a rock, use
+the ray again.</p>
+
+<p>The trees began to thin. Vye summoned power for a last burst of speed,
+came out of the shadow of the wood as might a dart expelled from a
+needler. Before him, up slope, was the closed door of the valley. And
+moving in from the left was another of the blue beasts.</p>
+
+<p>He could not retreat to the trees. But the newcomer was moving with
+the same ponderous self-confidence its fellow had shown earlier. Vye
+dodged right, headed for the rocks by the gap. As he pulled himself
+into that temporary fortification, the wounded beast dragged out of
+the woods below. He thought it was blind, yet some instinct drove it
+after him.</p>
+
+<p>Shaking from fatigue, Vye steadied his forearm on the top of the rock,
+brought up the ray tube. Less than two yards away now was the
+deceptively open mouth of the gap. If he threw himself at that, would
+the elasticity of the unseen curtain hurl him back into the claws of
+the enemy?</p>
+
+<p>He fired his blast at the head of the unwounded beast. It screeched,
+threw out its arms, and one of those paws struck against its wounded
+fellow. With a cry, that one flung itself at its companion in the
+hunt, and they tangled in a body-to-body battle terrible in its utter
+ferocity. Vye edged along the cliff determined to reach the cave and
+Hume. And the two blue things seemed intent on finishing each other
+off.</p>
+
+<p>The one from the wood was done, the fangs of the other ripping out its
+throat. Tearing viciously the victor made sure<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span> of its kill, then its
+seared head came up, swung about to face Vye. He guessed it was aware
+of his movements whether it could see or not.</p>
+
+<p>But he was not prepared for the speed of its attacking lunge.
+Heretofore the creatures had given the impression of brute strength
+rather than agility. And he had been almost fatally deceived. He
+jumped backwards, knowing he must elude that attack, for he could not
+survive hand-to-hand combat with the alien thing.</p>
+
+<p>There was a moment of dazed disorientation, a weird sensation of
+falling through unstable space in which there had never been and never
+would be firm footing again. He was rolling across rock&mdash;outside the
+curtain of the gap.</p>
+
+<p>He sat up, the feeling of being adrift in unmeasurable nothingness
+making him sick, to watch mistily as the blue beast came to a halt.
+Whimpering it turned, but before it reached the level of the woods, it
+sagged to its knees, fell face forward and was still, a destructive
+machine no longer controlled by life.</p>
+
+<p>Vye tried to understand what had happened. He had somehow broken
+through that barrier which made the valley a prison. For a moment all
+that mattered was his freedom. Then he looked apprehensively behind
+him along the road to the open, more than half expecting to see a
+gathering of the globes, or of the less impressive lowland beasts that
+acted as herders. But there was nothing.</p>
+
+<p>Freedom! He dragged himself to his feet. Free to go! He slipped Hume's
+ray tube back into his belt. Hume was still in the valley!</p>
+
+<p>Vye rubbed his shaking hands across his face. Through the barrier and
+free&mdash;but Hume was back there, without a weapon, defenseless against
+any questing beast able to nose him out. Sickly, without water and
+protection, he was a dead man even while he still breathed.</p>
+
+<p>Keeping one hand against the wall of the gap in support, Vye started
+to walk, not out of the gap towards the distant lowlands, but back
+into the valley, forcing himself to that by his will alone and
+screaming inside against such suicidal folly. He put out his hand
+tentatively when he reached the two points of rock where that curtain
+had hung. There was no obstruction&mdash;the barrier was down! He must get
+back to Hume.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Still keeping his wall hold, Vye lurched through the gate, was once
+more in the valley. He stood swaying, listening. But once again there
+was silence, not even the wind moved through trees or bushes. Placing
+one foot carefully before the other he went on towards Hume's cave.
+The haze which had clouded his thinking processes since that first
+morning's awakening in this bowl was gone now. Except for the physical
+weakness that weighted his body, he felt once more entirely alive and
+alert.</p>
+
+<p>Wriggling in the cave's entrance was the Hunter. He had freed the
+bonds Vye had put on his legs, but his hands were still tied. His
+face, grimy, sweat-covered, was turned up to the sunlight, and his
+eyes were again bright with reason.</p>
+
+<p>Vye found the strength to run the last few feet between them. He was
+fumbling with those ties about Hume's wrists as he blurted out the
+news. The barrier was out&mdash;they could go.</p>
+
+<p>Then he was bringing one of those precious bulbs, raising it to Hume's
+eager mouth, squeezing a portion of its contents between the man's
+cracked and bleeding lips.</p>
+
+<p>Somehow they made that trip back to the valley gate. When they saw
+their goal, Hume broke from Vye's hold, tottered forward with a cry
+not far removed from a sob. He rebounded to slip full length to the
+ground and lie there. Sobbing dryly, his gaunt face, eyes closed,
+turned up to the sky. The trap had snapped shut once again.</p>
+
+<p>"Why&mdash;why?" Vye found he was repeating the same words over and over,
+his gaze blank, unfocussed, yet turned to the woods of the lake.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me what happened again."</p>
+
+<p>Vye's head came around. Hume had pulled himself up so that his
+shoulders rested against the rock wall. His plasta-hand was out-flung,
+slipping up and down what seemed empty air, but which was the barrier
+against freedom. And now his eyes seemed entirely sane.</p>
+
+<p>Slowly, hesitating between words, Vye went over the full account of
+his visit to the lake, his retreat before the beasts, his fortunate
+stumble through the gap.</p>
+
+<p>"But you came back."</p>
+
+<p>Vye flushed. He was not going to try to explain that. Instead he said:</p>
+
+<p>"If it went away once, it can again."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Hume did not press the subject of his return. Rather he fastened upon
+the end of that action with the wounded beast, made Vye go through it
+verbally a third time.</p>
+
+<p>"There is just this," he said when the other was done. "When you fell
+you were not thinking of the barrier at all&mdash;and your wits were
+working again. You had come out of the daze we both had."</p>
+
+<p>Vye tried to remember, decided that the Hunter was correct. He had
+been trying to elude the charge of the beast, only, fear and that
+desperate desire had occupied his mind at that moment. But what did
+that signify?</p>
+
+<p>To test just what he did not know, he crawled now to Hume's side, put
+up his own hand to the space where the plasta-flesh palm slid back and
+forth on nothingness. But he almost fell on his face, forward into the
+gap. Where he had been expecting the resistance of the unseen curtain
+there had been nothing at all! He turned to Hume with the expression
+of a man who had been stunned by an unexpected blow.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>11</h2>
+
+
+<p>"It is open for you!" Hume broke the quiet first. His eyes were very
+bleak in his bony face.</p>
+
+<p>Vye stood up, took one step and was on the other side of the curtain
+where Hume's hand still found substance. He came back with the same
+lack of hindrance. Yes, to him there was no longer a barrier. But
+why&mdash;why him when Hume was still a prisoner?</p>
+
+<p>The Hunter raised his head so his eyes could meet Vye's with the
+authority of an order. "Go, get away while you can!"</p>
+
+<p>Instead Vye dropped down beside the other. "Why?" he asked baldly. And
+then the most obvious of all answers came.</p>
+
+<p>He glanced at Hume. The Hunter's head lolled back against<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span> the rock
+which supported him, his eyes were closed now, and he had the look of
+a man who had been driven to the edge of endurance and was now willing
+to relinquish his grip and let go.</p>
+
+<p>Deliberately Vye brought up his right hand, balled his fingers into a
+fist. And just as deliberately he struck home, square on the point of
+that defenseless chin. Hume sagged, would have slipped down the
+surface of the rock had Vye's hands not caught in his armpits.</p>
+
+<p>Since he had not the strength left to get to his feet with such a
+burden, Vye crawled, dragging the inert body of the Hunter with him.
+And this time, as he had hoped, there was no resistance at the gap.
+Unconscious, Hume was able to cross the barrier. Vye stretched him as
+comfortably flat as he could, used a portion of their water on his
+face until he moaned, muttered, and raised his hand feebly to his
+head.</p>
+
+<p>Then those gray eyes opened, focussed on Vye.</p>
+
+<p>"What&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"We're both through now, both of us!" The younger man saw Hume glance
+around him with waking belief.</p>
+
+<p>"But how&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"I knocked you out, that's how," Vye returned.</p>
+
+<p>"Knocked me out? I crossed when I was unconscious!" Hume's voice
+steadied, strengthened. "Let me see!" He rolled over on his side,
+threw out his arm, and this time the hand found no wall. For him, too,
+the barrier was gone.</p>
+
+<p>"Once through, you are free," he added wonderingly. "Maybe they never
+foresaw any escapes." He struggled up, sitting with his hands hanging
+loosely between his knees.</p>
+
+<p>Vye turned his head, looked down the trail. The length of distance
+lying between them and the safari camp now faced them with a new
+problem. Neither of them could make that trek on foot.</p>
+
+<p>"We're out, but we aren't back&mdash;yet," Hume echoed his thought.</p>
+
+<p>"I was wondering, if <i>this</i> door is open&mdash;" Vye began.</p>
+
+<p>"The flitter!" Again Hume's mind matched his. "Yes, if those globes
+aren't hanging around just waiting for us to try."</p>
+
+<p>"They might act only to get us here, not to keep us once we're in."
+That might be wishful thinking, they wouldn't know until they tried to
+prove it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Give me a hand." Hume held out his own, let Vye pull him to his feet.
+Weak as he was, he was clear-eyed, plainly clear-headed once more.
+"Let's go!"</p>
+
+<p>Together they went back through the gap, then tested the absence of
+the barrier once more, to make sure. Hume laughed. "At least the front
+door remains open, even if we find the back one closed."</p>
+
+<p>Vye left him sitting by that entrance while he made a quick trip to
+the cave to pick up the small pack of supplies left them. When he
+returned they crammed tablets into their mouths, drank feverishly of
+the lake water, and, with the stimulation of the new energy, set off
+along the cliff face.</p>
+
+<p>"This wall in the lake," Hume asked suddenly, "you are sure it is
+artificial?"</p>
+
+<p>"Runs too straight to be anything else, and those projections are
+evenly spaced. I don't see how it could be natural."</p>
+
+<p>"We'll have to be sure."</p>
+
+<p>Vye thought of that attacking water creature. "No diving in there," he
+protested. Hume smiled, a stretch of skin far too tight over his jaw
+now.</p>
+
+<p>"Not us, at least not us now," he agreed. "But the Guild will send
+another survey."</p>
+
+<p>"What could be the reason for all this?" Vye helped his companion over
+the loose debris of a cliff slide.</p>
+
+<p>"Information."</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>"Someone&mdash;or something&mdash;picked our brains while we were out of our
+heads. Or&mdash;" Hume paused suddenly, looked directly at Vye. "I have a
+vague feeling that you were able to keep going a lot better than I
+was. That so?"</p>
+
+<p>"Some of the time," Vye admitted.</p>
+
+<p>"That checks. Part of me knew what was going on, but was helpless
+while that other thing," his smile of moments earlier was wiped away,
+there was a chill edge in his voice, "picked over my brains, sorted
+out what it wanted."</p>
+
+<p>Vye shook his head. "I didn't feel that way. Just thick-headed&mdash;as if
+I were sleep walking and yet awake."</p>
+
+<p>"So it took me over, but didn't go all the way with you. Why? Another
+question for our list."</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe&mdash;maybe Wass' techs fixed it so I couldn't be brain-picked, as
+you call it," Vye offered.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Hume nodded. "Could be&mdash;would well be. Come on." He pressed the pace
+now.</p>
+
+<p>Vye turned to look down the slope suspiciously. Had Hume another
+warning of menace out of the wood? He could sight no movement there.
+And from this distance the lake was a topaz sheet of calm which could
+hide anything. Hume was already several paces ahead, scrambling as if
+the valley monsters were again on their track.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter?" Vye demanded, as he caught up.</p>
+
+<p>"Night coming." Which was true. Then Hume added, "If we can reach the
+flitter before sunset, we'll have a chance to fly over the lake down
+there, to make a taping of it before we go."</p>
+
+<p>The energy of the tablets strengthened them so that by the time they
+reached the crevice door they were moving with their former agility.
+For a single second Hume hesitated before that slit, almost as if he
+feared the test he must make. Then he stepped forward and this time
+into freedom.</p>
+
+<p>They reached the ledge where the flitter perched just as they had seen
+it last. How long ago that had been they could not have told, but they
+suspected that days of haze hung in between. Vye searched the sky. No
+globes winking there&mdash;just the flyer alone.</p>
+
+<p>He took his old seat behind the pilot, watched Hume test the relays
+and responses in the quick run down of a man who has done this chore
+many times before. But the other gave a little sigh of relief when he
+finished.</p>
+
+<p>"She's all right, we can lift."</p>
+
+<p>Again they both looked aloft, half fearing to see those malignant
+herders wink into being to forbid flight. But the sky was as serenely
+clear of even a drifting cloud as they could hope. Hume pressed a
+button and they arose vertically with an even progress totally unlike
+the leap which had taken them out of Wass' camp.</p>
+
+<p>Well above the cliff wall they hovered, and were able to see below the
+round bowl of the valley prison. Hume touched controls, the flitter
+descended slowly just above the center of the lake. And from this
+position they were able to sight the other peculiarity of that body of
+water, that it was perfectly oval in shape, far too perfect to be an
+undeveloped product of nature. Hume took a round disk from his
+equipment belt, fitted it carefully into a slot on the control board<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>
+and pressed the button below. Then he sent the flitter in a weaving
+zigzag course well above the surface of the water, so that eventually
+the flyer passed over every foot of its surface.</p>
+
+<p>And from above, in spite of the turgid quality of the liquid, they
+could see what did rest on the bottom of that oval. The wall with its
+sharp corner which Vye had noted from shore level was only part of a
+water covered erection. It made a design when seen from overhead, a
+six-pointed star surrounding an oval and in the midst of that oval a
+black blot which they could not identify.</p>
+
+<p>Hume brought the flitter over in one last sweep. "That's it. We have a
+full taping."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you think it is?"</p>
+
+<p>"A device set there by an intelligent being, and set a long time ago.
+This valley wasn't arranged over night, six months ago&mdash;or even a year
+ago. We'll have to let the experts tell us when and for what reason.
+Now, let's head for home!"</p>
+
+<p>He brought the flitter up and over the valley wall, flying southwest
+so that they passed over the gap which was the main entrance to the
+trap. And now he tried the com unit, endeavoring to pick up a signal
+on which they could beam in for a safe ride.</p>
+
+<p>"That's odd." Under Hume's control the direction finder passed back
+and forth without bringing any answering code click from the mike. "We
+may be too far in the mountains to pick up the beam. I wonder...." He
+swept the needle in another direction, slightly to the left.</p>
+
+<p>A crackle spat from the mike. Vye could not read code but the very
+fury and intensity of that sound suggested panic&mdash;even terror.</p>
+
+<p>"What's that?"</p>
+
+<p>Hume spoke without looking away from the control board. "Alarm."</p>
+
+<p>"From the safari?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. Wass." For a long second Hume sat very still, his fingers quiet.
+The flitter was on the automatic course, taking them out of the
+mountains, and Vye thought that their air speed was such they were
+already well removed from that sinister valley.</p>
+
+<p>Hume made a slight adjustment to a dial, and the flitter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span> banked,
+coming around on another course. Once more he spun the finder of the
+com. This time he was answered with a series of well-spaced clicks
+which lacked the urgency of that other call. Hume listened until the
+code rattled into silence again.</p>
+
+<p>"They're all right at the safari camp."</p>
+
+<p>"But Wass is in trouble. So what does that matter?" Vye wanted to
+know.</p>
+
+<p>"It matters this much." Hume spoke slowly as if he must convince
+himself as well as Vye. "I'm the Guild man on Jumala, and the Guild
+man is responsible for all civs."</p>
+
+<p>"You can't call him your client!"</p>
+
+<p>Hume shook his head. "No, he's no client. But he's human."</p>
+
+<p>It narrowed down to that when a man was on the frontier worlds&mdash;humans
+stood together. Vye wanted to deny it, but his own emotions, as well
+as the centuries of age-old tradition, argued him down. Wass was a
+Veep, one of the criminal parasites dabbling in human misery along
+more than one solar lane. But he was also human and, as one of their
+own species, had his claim on them.</p>
+
+<p>Vye watched Hume take over the controls, felt the flitter answer
+another change of course, then heard the frantic yammer of the
+distress call as they leveled off to ride its beam in to the hidden
+camp.</p>
+
+<p>"Automatic." Hume had turned down the volume of the receiver so that
+the clicks in the mike no longer were so strident. "Set on maximum and
+left that way."</p>
+
+<p>"They had a force barrier around the camp and they knew about the
+globes and the watchers." Vye tried to imagine what had happened in
+that woods clearing.</p>
+
+<p>"The barrier might have shorted. And without the flitter they would
+have been pinned."</p>
+
+<p>"Could have taken off in the spacer."</p>
+
+<p>"Wass doesn't have the reputation of letting any project get out of
+his hands."</p>
+
+<p>Vye remembered. "Oh&mdash;your billion credit deal."</p>
+
+<p>To his surprise Hume laughed. "Seems all very far and out of orbit
+now, doesn't it, Lansor? Yes, our billion credit deal&mdash;but that was
+thought out before we knew there were more players around the table
+than we counted. I wonder...."</p>
+
+<p>But what he wondered he did not put into words and a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span> moment later he
+added over his shoulder, "Better try to get some rest, boy. We've some
+time to a set-down."</p>
+
+<p>Vye did sleep, deeply, dreamlessly. And he roused after a gentle
+shaking to see a beam of light in the sky ahead, though around them
+was the solid darkness of night.</p>
+
+<p>"That's a warning," Hume explained. "And I can't raise any reply from
+the camp except a repeat of the distress call. If there is anyone
+there now, he can't or won't answer."</p>
+
+<p>Against that column of light they could make out the sky-pointed taper
+of the spacer and the auto-pilot landed them beside that ship in the
+middle of an area well lighted by the steady shaft of light from the
+tripod standing where the atom lamp had been on the night they had
+made their escape from camp.</p>
+
+<p>Climbing stiffly from the small flyer they advanced with caution. A
+very few minutes later Hume slid his ray tube back into its belt loop.</p>
+
+<p>"Unless they've holed up in the spacer&mdash;and I can't see why they'd do
+that&mdash;this camp's deserted. And they haven't taken any equipment with
+them except maybe a few items they could back-pack."</p>
+
+<p>The ship proved as empty of life as the campsite. A wall seat pulled
+out too hastily so that it was jammed awry, the com cabin suggested
+that the leave-taking, when and for what reason, had been a matter of
+some emergency. Hume did not touch the tape set to keep on
+broadcasting the call for assistance.</p>
+
+<p>"What now?" Vye wanted to know as they completed the search.</p>
+
+<p>"The safari camp first&mdash;and a call for the Patrol."</p>
+
+<p>"Look here," Vye set down the ration container he had found, was
+emptying it with vast satisfaction of one who had been too long on
+tablets, "if you beam the Patrol you'll have to talk, won't you?"</p>
+
+<p>Hume went on fitting new charges into his ray tube. "The Patrol has to
+have a full report. There's no way of bypassing that. Yes, we'll have
+to give all the story. You needn't worry." He snapped closed the load
+chamber. "I can clear you all the way. You're the victim, remember."</p>
+
+<p>"I wasn't thinking about that."</p>
+
+<p>"Boy." Hume tossed the tube up in the air, caught it in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> his
+plasta-hand. "I went into this deal with my eyes wide open&mdash;why
+doesn't matter very much now. In fact," he stared beyond Vye out into
+the empty, lighted camp, "I've begun to wonder about a lot of
+things&mdash;maybe too late. No&mdash;we'll call the Patrol and we'll do it not
+because it is Wass and his men out there, but because we're human and
+they're human, and there's a nasty set-up here which has already
+sucked in other humans for its own purposes."</p>
+
+<p>The skeleton in the valley! And how very close they had been
+themselves to joining that unknown in his permanent residence.</p>
+
+<p>"So now we make time&mdash;back to the safari camp. Get our message off to
+the Patrol and then we'll try to trace Wass and see what we can do.
+Jumala is off a regular route. The Patrol won't be here tomorrow at
+sunrise, no matter how much we wish a scouter would planet then."</p>
+
+<p>Vye was quiet as he stowed in the flitter again. As Hume had said,
+events moved fast. A little while ago he had wanted to settle with
+this Out-Hunter, wring out of him not only an explanation for his
+being here, but claim satisfaction for the humiliation of being moved
+about to suit some others' purposes. Now he was willing to defeat
+Wass, bring in the Patrol, go up against whatever hid in that lake up
+there, providing Hume was not the loser. He tried to think why that
+was so and could not, he only knew it was the truth.</p>
+
+<p>They were both silent as they took off from Wass' deserted camp, sped
+away over the black blot of the woodland towards the safari
+headquarters on the plains. There were stars above again but no
+globes. Just as they had won their freedom from the valley, so they
+moved without escort on the plains.</p>
+
+<p>But the lights were there&mdash;not impinging on the flitter, or patrolling
+along its line of flight. No, they hung in a glowing cluster ahead
+when in the dawn the flitter shot away from the woods, headed for the
+landmark of the safari camp. A crown of lights circled over the camp
+site, as if those below were in a state of siege.</p>
+
+<p>Hume aimed straight for them and this time the bobbing circle split
+wide open, broke to left and right. Vye looked below. Though the
+grayness of the morning was still hardly more than dusk he could not
+miss those humps spaced at in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>tervals on the land, just beyond the
+unseen line of the force barrier. The lights above, the beasts below,
+the safari camp was under guard.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>12</h2>
+
+
+<p>"There is only one way they could be moving&mdash;toward the mountains."
+Hume stood in the open space among the bubble tents, facing him the
+four men of the camp, the three civs and Rovald. "You say it's been
+seven days, planet time, since I left here. They may have been five
+days on that trail. If possible we have to stop them before they reach
+that valley."</p>
+
+<p>"A fantastic story." Chambriss wore the affronted expression of a man
+who expected no interference with his own concerns. Then catching
+Hume's eye he added, "Not that we doubt you, Hunter. We have the
+evidence in those dumb brutes waiting out there. However, by your own
+story, this Wass is an outside-the-law Veep, on this planet secretly
+for criminal purposes. Surely there is no reason for us to risk our
+safety in his behalf. Are you certain he is in any danger at all? You
+and this young man here have, by your testimony, been into the
+enemies' territory and have been able to get out again."</p>
+
+<p>"Through a series of fortunate chances which might never occur again."
+Hume was patient, too patient, Rovald seemed to think. His hand moved,
+he was holding a ray tube so that a simple movement of the wrist could
+send a crisping blast across all the rest of the party.</p>
+
+<p>"I say, stop this yapping and get out there and pick up the Veep!"</p>
+
+<p>"I intend to&mdash;after I call the Patrol."</p>
+
+<p>Rovald's tube was now aimed directly at Hume. "No Patrol!" he
+ordered.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"This wrangling has gone far enough." It was Yactisi who spoke with an
+authority which startled them all. And as their attention swung to
+him, he was already in action.</p>
+
+<p>Rovald cried out, the weapon spun from his fingers, fingers which were
+slowly reddening. Yactisi nodded with satisfaction and he held his
+electo pole ready for a second attack. Vye scooped up the tube which
+had whirled across the ground to strike against his borrowed boot.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll set the call for the Patrol, then I'll try to locate Wass," Hume
+stated.</p>
+
+<p>"Sensible procedure," Yactisi approved in his dry voice. "You believe
+that you are now immune to whatever force this alien installation
+controls?"</p>
+
+<p>"It would seem so."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, of course, you must go."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" Chambriss countered for the second time. "Suppose he isn't so
+immune after all? Suppose he gets out there and is captured again?
+He's our pilot&mdash;do you want to be planet bound <i>here</i>?</p>
+
+<p>"This man is also a pilot." Starns indicated Rovald, who was nursing
+his numb hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Since he, too, is one of these criminals, he's not to be trusted!"
+Chambriss shot back. "Hunter, I demand that you take us off planet at
+once! And it is only fair to inform you that I also intend to prefer
+charges against you and against the Guild. Empty world! Just how empty
+have we found this world?"</p>
+
+<p>"But, Gentlehomo," Starns showed no signs of any emotion but eager
+curiosity, "to be here at this time is a privilege we could not hope
+to equal except by good fortune! The T-Casts will be avid for our
+stories."</p>
+
+<p>What had that to do with the matter, puzzled Vye. But he saw Starns'
+reminder produce a quick change in Chambriss.</p>
+
+<p>"The T-Casts," he repeated, his expression of anger smoothing away.
+"Yes, of course, this is, in a manner of speaking, a truly historic
+occasion. We are in a unique position!"</p>
+
+<p>Had Yactisi smiled? That change of lip line had been so slight Vye
+could not call it a smile. But Starns appeared to have found the right
+way to handle Chambriss. And it was the same little man who offered
+his services in another way when he said, diffidently to Hume:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I have some experience with coms, Hunter. Do you wish me to send your
+message and take over the unit until you return? I gather," he added
+with a certain delicacy, "that it will not be expedient for your
+gearman to engage in that duty now."</p>
+
+<p>So it was that Starns was installed in the com cabin of the spacer,
+sending out the request for Patrol aid, while Rovald was locked in the
+storage compartment of the same ship, pending arrival of those same
+authorities. As Hume sorted out supplies and Vye loaded them into the
+waiting flitter, Yactisi approached the Hunter.</p>
+
+<p>"You have a definite plan of search?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just to cast north from their camp. If they've been gone long enough
+to hit the foothills we may be able to sight them climbing. Otherwise,
+we'll go all the way up to the valley, wait for them there."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't believe that they will be released after they have
+been&mdash;processed?"</p>
+
+<p>Hume shook his head. "I don't think we would have been free,
+Gentlehomo, if it hadn't been for a series of fortunate accidents."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, though you didn't give us many details about that, Hunter."</p>
+
+<p>Hume put down the needler he had been charging. He studied Yactisi
+across that weapon.</p>
+
+<p>"Who are you?" His voice was soft but carried a snap.</p>
+
+<p>For the first time Vye saw the tall, lean civ really smile.</p>
+
+<p>"A man of many interests, Hunter&mdash;shall we let it go at that for the
+present? Though I assure you that Wass is not one of them in the way
+you might believe."</p>
+
+<p>Gray eyes met brown, held so straightly. Then Hume spoke. "I believe
+you. But I have told you the truth."</p>
+
+<p>"I have never doubted that&mdash;only the amount of it. There must be more
+talking later on&mdash;you understand that?"</p>
+
+<p>"I never thought otherwise." Hume set the needler inside the flitter.
+The civ smiled again, this time including Vye in that evidence of good
+will before he walked away.</p>
+
+<p>Hume made no comment. "That does it," he told his companion. "Still
+want to go?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you do&mdash;and you can't do it alone." No man could take on the
+valley and Wass and his men.</p>
+
+<p>Hume made no comment. They had rested briefly after<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span> their return to
+the safari camp, and Vye had been supplied with clothing from Hume's
+bags, so that now he wore the uniform of the Guild. He went armed,
+too, with the equipment belt taken from Rovald and that other's
+weapons, needler and tube. At least they started on their dubious
+rescue mission with every aid the safari camp could muster.</p>
+
+<p>It was mid-afternoon when the flitter took to the air once again,
+scattering the hovering globes. There was no alteration in the ranks
+of the blue watchers waiting&mdash;for the barrier to go down, or someone
+in the camp to step beyond that protection?</p>
+
+<p>"They're stupid," Vye said.</p>
+
+<p>"Not stupid, just geared to one set of actions," Hume returned.</p>
+
+<p>"Which could mean that what sends them here can't change its orders."</p>
+
+<p>"Good guess. I'd say that they were governed by something akin to our
+tapes. No provision made for any innovations."</p>
+
+<p>"So the guiding intelligence could be long gone."</p>
+
+<p>"I think it has been." Hume then changed the subject sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"How did you get into service at the Starfall?"</p>
+
+<p>It was hard now to think back to Nahuatl&mdash;as if the Vye Lansor who had
+been swamper in that den of the port town was a different person
+altogether. In that patch of memories into which Rynch Brodie still
+intruded he hunted for the proper answer.</p>
+
+<p>"I couldn't hold the state jobs. And once you get the habit of eating,
+you don't starve willingly."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not the state jobs?"</p>
+
+<p>"Without premium they're all low-rung tenders' places. I tried hard
+enough. But to sit pressing buttons when a light flashed, hour after
+hour&mdash;" Vye shook his head. "They said I was too erratic and gave me
+the shove. One more move on and it would have been compulsive
+conditioning. I turned port-drift instead."</p>
+
+<p>"Ever thought of trying for a loan premium?"</p>
+
+<p>Vye laughed shortly. "Loan premium? That's a true fantasy if you've
+been job hopping. None of the companies will take a chance on a man
+with an in and out record. Oh, I tried...." That memory arose to the
+surface, clear and very chilling. Yes, he had tried to break out of
+the net the law<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span> and custom had put around him from the day he had
+been made a state child. "No&mdash;it was conditioning, or port-drift."</p>
+
+<p>"And you chose port-drift?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was still me&mdash;as long as I stayed away from conditioning."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you became Rynch Brodie in spite of your flight."</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;well, maybe, for a while. But I'm still Vye Lansor here."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, here. And I don't think you'll have to worry about raising a
+premium to get a new start. You can claim victim compensation, you
+know."</p>
+
+<p>Vye was silent, but Hume did not let him remain so.</p>
+
+<p>"When the Patrol arrives, you put in your claim. I'll back you."</p>
+
+<p>"You can't."</p>
+
+<p>"That's where you're mistaken," Hume told him crisply. "I've already
+taped a full story back at the spacer&mdash;it's on record now."</p>
+
+<p>Vye frowned. The Hunter seemed determined to ask for the worst the
+Patrol&mdash;or the planet police back on Nahuatl&mdash;could deal out. A case
+of illegal conditioning was about as serious as you could get.</p>
+
+<p>They shot along the diagonal of the triangle made by three points, the
+mountain valley, Wass' camp, and the safari headquarters, heading to
+the slopes up which the men must be herded if the beasts were
+shepherding them to the mountain valley. Vye, surveying the forest
+thick below, began to doubt they would ever be able to pick them up
+before they reached the valley gate.</p>
+
+<p>Hume took a weaving course, zigzagging back and forth, while they both
+watched intently for a glint from one of the globes, any movement
+which would betray that trail. And it was on one of the upper slopes
+that the flitter passed over two of the blue beasts lumbering along.
+Neither of the creatures paid any attention to the flyer, they moved
+with purpose on some mission of their own.</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe the tail end of the hunting pack," Hume commented.</p>
+
+<p>He sent the flyer hovering over a stunted line of trees and brush.
+Beyond that was bare rock. But though they hung for moments, nothing
+moved into that open.</p>
+
+<p>"Wrong scent somehow." Hume brought the flitter around.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> He had it on
+manual control now, keeping it answering to the quick changes of his
+will.</p>
+
+<p>A longer sweep supplied the answer&mdash;a vegetation roofed slit running
+back into the uplands, in a way resembling the crevice through which
+they had originally found their way into this country. Hume brought
+the flyer along that. But if the men they sought were pushing their
+way through below they could not be sighted from the air. At last,
+with evening drawing in, Hume was forced to admit failure.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait by the gap?" Vye asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Have to now." Hume glanced about. "I'd say maybe
+tomorrow&mdash;mid-morning before they make it that far&mdash;<i>if</i> they are
+here. We'll have plenty of time."</p>
+
+<p>Time for what? To make ready for a pitched battle with Wass&mdash;or with
+the beasts herding him? To try in the space of hours to solve the
+mystery of the lake?</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think we could blast that thing in the lake?" Vye asked.</p>
+
+<p>"We might be able to, just might. But that must be the last resort. We
+want that in working order for the X-Tee men to study. No, we'd better
+plan to hold Wass at the gate, wait for the Patrol to come in."</p>
+
+<p>Less than an hour later after a soaring approach, Hume brought the
+flitter down with neat skill on the top of one of the cliffs which
+helped to form the portal of the gap. There was no difference in the
+scene below, save that where the two bodies of the blue beasts had
+lain there were now only clean and shining bones.</p>
+
+<p>Darkness spread out from the lake woods like a growing stain of evil
+promise as the sun fell behind the peaks. Night came earlier here than
+in the plains.</p>
+
+<p>"Watch!" Vye had been gazing down the gap; he was the first to note
+that movement in the cloaking bush.</p>
+
+<p>Out of the cover trotted a four-footed, antlered animal he had not
+seen before.</p>
+
+<p>"Syken deer," Hume identified. "But why in the mountains? It's a long
+way from its home range."</p>
+
+<p>The deer did not pause, but headed directly for the gap and, as it
+neared, Vye saw that its brown coat was roughed with patches of white
+froth, while more dripped from the pale pink tongue protruding from
+its open jaws, and its shrunken sides heaved.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Driven!" Hume picked up a stone, hurled it to strike the ground ahead
+of the deer.</p>
+
+<p>The creature did not start, nor show any sign of seeing the rock fall.
+It trotted on at the same wearied pace, passed the portal rocks into
+the valley. Then it stood still, wedge-shaped head up, black horns
+displayed, while the nose flaps expanded, testing the air, until it
+bounded toward the lake, disappearing in the woods.</p>
+
+<p>Though they shared watches during the night there were no other signs
+of life, nor did the deer reappear from the woods. With the
+mid-morning there was a sudden sound to warn them&mdash;a wild cry which
+must have come from a human throat. Hume tossed one of the needlers to
+Vye, took the other, and they scrambled down to the floor of the gap
+passage.</p>
+
+<p>Wass did not lead his men, he came behind the reeling trio as if he
+had joined the blasts as driver. And while his men wavered, staggered,
+gave the appearance of nearly complete exhaustion, he still walked
+with a steady tread, in command of his wits, his fears, and the
+company.</p>
+
+<p>As the first of the men blundered on, a fresh trickle of red running
+down his bruised face, Hume called:</p>
+
+<p>"Wass!"</p>
+
+<p>The Veep stopped short. He made no move to unsling the needler he
+carried, its barrel pointing skyward over his shoulder, but his round
+head with its upstanding comb of hair swung slightly from side to
+side.</p>
+
+<p>"Stop&mdash;Wass&mdash;this is a trap!"</p>
+
+<p>His three men kept on. Vye moved, for Peake leading that wavering
+group, stumbled, would have fallen had not the younger man advanced
+from the shadows to steady him.</p>
+
+<p>"Vye!" Hume made his name a warning.</p>
+
+<p>He had only time to glance around. Wass, his broad face impassive
+except for the eyes&mdash;those burning madman's eyes&mdash;was aiming a ray
+tube.</p>
+
+<p>Broken free of his hold, Peake fell to the right, came up against
+Hume. As Vye went down he saw Wass dart forward at a speed he wouldn't
+have believed a driven man could summon. The Veep lunged, escaping the
+shot the Hunter had no time to aim, rolled, and came up with the
+needler Vye had dropped.</p>
+
+<p>Then Hume, hampered by Peake's feeble clawing, met<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span> head on the
+swinging barrel of that weapon. He gave a startled grunt and smashed
+back against the cliff, a wave of scarlet blood streaming down the
+side of his head.</p>
+
+<p>The momentum of Wass' charge carried him on. He collided with his men,
+and the last thing Vye saw, was the huddle of all four of them,
+flailing arms and legs, spinning on through the gate into the valley
+with Wass' hoarse, wordless shouting, bringing echoes from the cliffs.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>13</h2>
+
+
+<p>He lay against a rock, and it was quiet again, except for a small
+whimpering sound which hurt, joined with the eating pain in his side.
+Vye turned his head, smelled burned cloth and flesh. Cautiously he
+tried to move, bring his hand across his body to the belt at his
+waist. One small part of his mind was very clear&mdash;if he could get his
+fingers to the packet there, and the contents of that packet to his
+mouth, the pain would go away, and maybe he could slip back into the
+darkness again.</p>
+
+<p>Somehow he did it, pulled the packet out of its container pouch,
+worked the fingers of his one usable hand until he shredded open the
+end of the covering. The tablets inside, spilled out. But he had three
+or four of them in his grasp. Laboriously he brought his hand up,
+mouthed them all together, chewing their bitterness, swallowing them
+as best he could without water.</p>
+
+<p>Water&mdash;the lake! For a moment he was back in time, feeling for the
+water bulbs he should be carrying. Then the incautious movement of his
+questing fingers brought a sudden stab of raw, red agony and he
+moaned.</p>
+
+<p>The tablets worked. But he did not slide back into unconsciousness
+again as the throbbing torture became something remote and
+untroubling. With his good arm he braced himself against the cliff,
+managed to sit up.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Sun flashed on the metal barrel of a needler which lay in the trampled
+dust between him and another figure, still very still, with a pool of
+blood about the head. Vye waited for a steadying breath or two, then
+started the infinitely long journey of several feet which separated
+him from Hume.</p>
+
+<p>He was panting heavily when he crawled close enough to touch the
+Hunter. Hume's face, cheek down in the now sodden dust, was dabbled
+with congealing blood. As Vye turned the hunter's head, it rolled
+limply. The other side was a mass of blood and dust, too thick to
+afford Vye any idea of how serious a hurt Hume had taken. But he was
+still alive.</p>
+
+<p>With his good hand Vye thrust his numb and useless left one into the
+front of his belt. Then, awkwardly he tried to tend Hume. After a
+close inspection he thought that the mass of blood had come from a
+ragged tear in the scalp above the temple and the bone beneath had
+escaped damage. From Hume's own first-aid pack he crushed tablets into
+the other's slack mouth, hoping they would dissolve if the Hunter
+could not swallow. Then he relaxed against the cliff to wait&mdash;for what
+he could not have said.</p>
+
+<p>Wass' party had gone on into the valley. When Vye turned his head to
+look down the slope he could see nothing of them. They must have tried
+to push on to the lake. The flitter was at the top of the cliff, as
+far out of his reach now as if it were in planetary orbit. There was
+only the hope that a rescue party from the safari camp might come.
+Hume had set the directional beam on the flyer, when he had brought
+her down, to serve as a beacon for the Patrol, if and when Starns was
+lucky enough to contact a cruiser.</p>
+
+<p>"Hmmm...." Hume's mouth moved, cracked the drying bloody mask on his
+lips and chin. His eyes blinked open and he lay staring up at the sky.</p>
+
+<p>"Hume&mdash;" Vye was startled at the sound of his own voice, so thready
+and weak, and by the fact that he found it difficult to speak at all.</p>
+
+<p>The other's head turned; now the eyes were on him and there was a
+spark of awareness in them.</p>
+
+<p>"Wass?" The whisper was as strained as his own had been.</p>
+
+<p>"In there." Vye's hand lifted from Hume's chest indicating the
+valley.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Not good." Hume blinked again. "How bad?" His attention was not for
+his own hurt; his eyes searched Vye. And the latter glanced down at
+his side.</p>
+
+<p>By some chance, perhaps because of his struggle with Peake, Wass' beam
+had not struck true, the main core of the bolt passing between his arm
+and his side, burning both. How deeply he could not tell, in fact he
+did not want to find out. It was enough that the tablets had banished
+the pain now.</p>
+
+<p>"Seared a little," he said. "You've a bad cut on your head."</p>
+
+<p>Hume frowned. "Can we make the flitter?"</p>
+
+<p>Vye moved, then relaxed quickly into his former position. "Not now,"
+he evaded, knowing that neither of them would be able to take that
+climb.</p>
+
+<p>"Beam on?" Hume repeated Vye's thoughts of moments before. "Patrol
+coming?"</p>
+
+<p>Yes, eventually the Patrol would come&mdash;but when? Hours&mdash;days? Time was
+their enemy now. He did not have to say any of that, they both knew.</p>
+
+<p>"Needler&mdash;" Hume's head had turned in the other direction; now his
+hand pointed waveringly to the weapon in the dust.</p>
+
+<p>"They won't be back," Vye stated the obvious. Those others had been
+caught in the trap, the odds on their return without aid were very
+high.</p>
+
+<p>"Needler!" Hume repeated more firmly, and tried to sit up, falling
+back with a sharp intake of breath.</p>
+
+<p>Vye edged around, stretched out his leg and scraped the toe of his
+boot into the loop of the carrying sling, drawing the weapon up to
+where he could get his hand on it. As he steadied it across his knee
+Hume spoke again:</p>
+
+<p>"Watch for trouble!"</p>
+
+<p>"They all went in," Vye protested.</p>
+
+<p>But Hume's eyes had closed again. "Trouble&mdash;maybe...." His voice
+trailed off. Vye rested his hand on the stock of the needler.</p>
+
+<p>"Hoooooo!"</p>
+
+<p>That beast wail&mdash;as they had heard it in the valley! Somewhere from
+the wood. Vye brought the needler around, so that the sights pointed
+in that direction. There death might be hunting, but there was nothing
+he could do.</p>
+
+<p>A scream, filled with all the agony of a man in torment,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span> caught up on
+the echoes of that other cry. Vye sighted a wild waving of bushes. A
+figure, very small and far away, crawled into the open on hands and
+knees and then crumpled into only a shadowy blot on the moss. Again
+the beast's cry, and a shouting!</p>
+
+<p>Vye watched a second man back out of the trees, still facing whatever
+pursued him. He caught the glint of sun on what must be a ray tube.
+Leaves crisped into a black hole, curls of smoke arose along the path
+of that blast.</p>
+
+<p>The man kept on backing, passed the inert body of his companion,
+glancing now and then over his shoulder at the slope up which he was
+making a slow but steady way. He no longer rayed the bush, but there
+was the crackle of a small fire outlining the ragged hole his beam had
+cut.</p>
+
+<p>Back two strides, three. Then he turned, made a quick dash, again
+facing around after he had gained some yards in the open. Vye saw now
+it was Wass.</p>
+
+<p>Another dash and an about face. But this time to confront the enemy.
+There were three of them, as monstrous as those Vye and Hume had
+fought in the same place. And one of them was wounded, swinging a
+charred forepaw before it, and giving voice to a wild frenzy of roars.</p>
+
+<p>Wass leveled the ray tube, centered sights on the beast nearest to
+him. The man hammered at the firing button with the flat of his other
+hand, and almost paid for that second of distraction with his life,
+for the creature made one of those lightning swift dashes Vye had so
+luckily escaped. The clawed forepaw tore a strip from the shoulder of
+Wass' tunic, left sprouting red furrows behind. But the man had thrown
+the useless tube into its face, was now running for the gap.</p>
+
+<p>Vye held the needler braced against his knee to fire. He saw the dart
+quiver in the upper arm of the beast, and it halted to pull out that
+sliver of dangerously poisoned metal, crumpled it into a tight twist.
+Vye continued to fire, never sure of his aim, but seeing those slivers
+go home in thick legs, in outstretched forelimbs, in wide, pendulous
+bellies. Then there were three blue shapes lying on the slope behind
+the man running straight for the gap.</p>
+
+<p>Wass hit the invisible barrier full force, was hurled back, to lie
+gasping on the turf, but already raising himself to crawl again to the
+gateway he saw and could not believe<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span> was barred. Vye closed his eyes.
+He was very tired now&mdash;tired and sleepy&mdash;maybe the pain pills were
+bringing the secondary form of relief. But he could hear, just beyond,
+the man who beat at that unseen curtain, first in anger and fear, and
+then just in fear, until the fear was a lonesome crying that went on
+and on until even that last feeble assault on the barrier failed.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>"We have here the tape report of Ras Hume, Out-Hunter of the Guild."</p>
+
+<p>Vye watched the officer in the black and silver of the Patrol, a black
+and silver modified with the small, green, eye badge of X-Tee, with
+level and hostile gaze.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you know the story." He was going to make no additions nor
+explanations. Maybe Hume had cleared him. All right, that was all he
+would ask, to be free to go his way and forget about Jumala&mdash;and Ras
+Hume.</p>
+
+<p>He had not seen the Hunter since they had both been loaded into the
+Patrol flitter in the gap. Wass had come out of the valley a witless,
+dazed creature, still under the mental influence of whoever, or
+whatever, had set that trap. As far as Vye knew the Veep had not yet
+recovered his full senses, he might never do so. And if Hume had not
+dictated that confession to damn himself before the Patrol, he might
+have escaped. They could suspect&mdash;but they would have had no proof.</p>
+
+<p>"You continue to refuse to tape?" The officer favored him with one of
+the closed-jaw looks Vye had often seen on the face of authority.</p>
+
+<p>"I have my rights."</p>
+
+<p>"You have the right to claim victim compensation&mdash;a good compensation,
+Lansor."</p>
+
+<p>Vye shrugged and then winced at a warning from the tender skin over
+ribs.</p>
+
+<p>"I make no claim, and no tape," he repeated. And he intended to go on
+saying that as long as they asked him. This was the second visit in
+two days and he was getting a little tired of it all. Perhaps he
+should do as prudence dictated and demand to be returned to Nahuatl.
+Only his odd, unexplainable desire to at least see Hume kept him from
+making the request they would have to honor.</p>
+
+<p>"You had better reconsider." Authority resumed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Rights of person&mdash;" Vye almost grinned as he recited that. For the
+first time in his pushed-around life he could use that particular
+phrase and make it stick. He thought there was a sour twist to the
+officer's mouth, but the other still retained his impersonal tone as
+he spoke into the intership com:</p>
+
+<p>"He refused to make a tape."</p>
+
+<p>Vye waited for the other's next move. This should mark the end of
+their interview. But instead the officer appeared to relax the
+restraint of his official manner. He brought a viv-root case from an
+inner pocket, offered a choice of contents to Vye, who gave an instant
+and suspicious refusal by shake of head. The officer selected one of
+the small tubes, snapped off the protecto-nib, and set it between his
+lips for a satisfying and lengthy pull. Then the panel of the cabin
+door pushed open, and Vye sat up with a jerk as Ras Hume, his head
+banded with a skin-core covering, entered.</p>
+
+<p>The officer waved his hand at Vye with the air of one turning over a
+problem. "You were entirely right. And he's all yours, Hume."</p>
+
+<p>Vye looked from one to the other. With Hume's tape in official hands
+why wasn't the Hunter under restraint? Unless, because they were
+aboard the Patrol cruiser, the officers didn't think a closer
+confinement was necessary. Yet the Hunter wasn't acting the role of
+prisoner very well. In fact he perched on a wall-flip seat with the
+ease of one completely at home, accepted the viv-root Vye had refused.</p>
+
+<p>"So you won't make a tape," he asked cheerfully.</p>
+
+<p>"You act as if you want me to!" Vye was so completely baffled by this
+odd turn of action that his voice came out almost plaintively.</p>
+
+<p>"Seeing as how a great deal of time and effort went into placing you
+in the position where you <i>could</i> give us that tape, I must admit some
+disappointment."</p>
+
+<p>"Give <i>us</i>?" Vye echoed.</p>
+
+<p>The officer removed the viv-root from between his lips. "Tell him the
+whole sad story, Hume."</p>
+
+<p>But Vye began to guess. Life in the Starfall, or as port-drift, either
+sharpened the wits or deadened them. Vye's had suffered the burnishing
+process. "A set-up?"</p>
+
+<p>"A set-up," Hume agreed. Then he glanced at the Patrol officer a
+little defensively. "I might as well tell the whole<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> truth&mdash;this
+didn't quite begin on the right side of the law. I had my reasons for
+wanting to make trouble for the Kogan estate, only not because of the
+credits involved." He moved his plasta-flesh hand. "When I found that
+L-B from the Largo Drift and saw the possibilities, did a little day
+dreaming&mdash;I worked out this scheme. But I'm a Guild man and as it
+happens, I want to stay one. So I reported to one of the Masters and
+told him the whole story&mdash;why I hadn't taped on the records my
+discovery on Jumala.</p>
+
+<p>"When he passed along the news of the L-B to the Patrol, he also
+suggested that there might be room for fraud along the way I had
+thought it out. That started a chain reaction. It happened that the
+Patrol wanted Wass. But he was too big and slick to be caught in a
+case which couldn't be broken in court. They thought that here was
+just the bait he might snap at, and I was the one to offer it to him.
+He could check on me, learn that I had excellent reason to do what I
+said I was doing. So I went to him with my story and he liked it. We
+made the plan work just as I had outlined it. And he planted Rovald on
+me as a check. But I didn't know Yactisi was a plant, also."</p>
+
+<p>The Patrol officer smiled. "Insurance," he waved the viv-root, "just
+insurance."</p>
+
+<p>"What we didn't foresee was this complicating alien trouble. You were
+to be collected as the castaway, brought back to the Center and then,
+once Wass was firmly enmeshed, the Patrol would blow the thing wide
+open. Now we do have Wass, with your tape we'll have him for good,
+subject to complete reconditioning. But we also have an X-Tee puzzle
+which will keep the services busy for some time. And we would like
+your tape."</p>
+
+<p>Vye watched Hume narrowly. "Then you're an agent?"</p>
+
+<p>Hume shook his head. "No, just what I said I am, an Out-Hunter who
+happened to come into some knowledge that will assist in straightening
+out a few crooked quirks in several systems. I have no love for the
+Kogan clan, but to help bring down a Veep of Wass' measure does aid in
+reinstating one's self-esteem."</p>
+
+<p>"This victim compensation&mdash;I <i>could</i> claim it, even though the deal
+was a set-up?"</p>
+
+<p>"You'll have first call on Wass' assets. He has plenty invested in
+legitimate enterprises, though we'll probably never<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span> locate all his
+hidden funds. But everything we can get open title to will be
+impounded. Have something to do with your share?" inquired the
+officer.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>Hume was smiling subtly. He was a different man from the one Vye had
+known on Jumala. "Premium for the Guild is one thousand credits down,
+two thousand for training and say another for about the best field
+outfit you can buy. That'll give you maybe another two or three
+thousand to save for your honorable retirement."</p>
+
+<p>"How did you know?" Vye began and then had to laugh in spite of
+himself as Hume replied:</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't. Good guess, eh? Well, zoom out your recorder, Commander. I
+think you are going to have some very free speech now." He got to his
+feet. "You know, the Guild has a stake in this alien discovery. We may
+just find that we haven't seen the last of that valley after all,
+recruit."</p>
+
+<p>He was gone and Vye, eager to have the past done with, and the future
+beginning, reached for the dictation mike.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+
+<h2>TWO COMPLETE SPACE ADVENTURE NOVELS</h2>
+<h3>PLANET OF ALIEN MONSTERS....</h3>
+<p class="blockquot">Somewheres on the jungle world of Jumala, there was a man in hiding&mdash;a
+man whose mind had been reconditioned with another's brain pattern and
+for whom there was a fabulous reward. STAR HUNTER is a thrill-packed
+account of that other-worldly game of hide-and-seek between a man who
+did not know all his own powers and an interstellar safari that sought
+something no man had a right to find....</p>
+
+
+<h3>PLANET OF MIND MAGICIANS....</h3>
+<p class="blockquot">Dane Thorson of the space-trader Solar Queen found himself embroiled
+in a desperate battle of minds between the rational science of the
+spaceways and the hypnotic witchcraft of the mental wizard that ruled
+the VOODOO PLANET.</p>
+
+
+<p class="center"><i>Here is a double prize-package of Andre Norton space treasures!</i></p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>Andre Norton novels available
+from Ace Books include:</p>
+
+
+<ul>
+<li>THE LAST PLANET (M-151)</li>
+<li>SEA SIEGE (F-147)</li>
+<li>CATSEYE (G-654)</li>
+<li>THE DEFIANT AGENTS (M-150)</li>
+<li>STAR BORN (M-148)</li>
+<li>THE STARS ARE OURS! (M-147)</li>
+<li>WITCH WORLD (G-655)</li>
+<li>HUON OF THE HORN (F-226)</li>
+<li>STAR GATE (M-157)</li>
+<li>THE TIME TRADERS (F-386)</li>
+<li>LORD OF THUNDER (F-243)</li>
+<li>WEB OF THE WITCH WORLD (F-263)</li>
+<li>SHADOW HAWK (G-538)</li>
+<li>SARGASSO OF SPACE (F-279)</li>
+<li>JUDGMENT ON JANUS (F-308)</li>
+<li>PLAGUE SHIP (F-291)</li>
+<li>KEY OUT OF TIME (F-287)</li>
+<li>ORDEAL IN OTHERWHERE (F-325)</li>
+<li>NIGHT OF MASKS (F-365)</li>
+<li>QUEST CROSSTIME (G-595)</li>
+<li>STAR GUARD (G-599)</li>
+<li>YEAR OF THE UNICORN (F-357)</li>
+<li>THREE AGAINST THE WITCH WORLD (F-332)</li>
+<li>THE SIOUX SPACEMAN (F-408)</li>
+<li>WARLOCK OF THE WITCH WORLD (G-630)</li>
+<li>MOON OF THREE RINGS (H-33)</li>
+<li>DAYBREAK&mdash;2250 A.D. (G-717)</li>
+<li>THE X FACTOR (G-646)</li>
+<li>VICTORY ON JANUS (G-703)</li>
+</ul>
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+<pre>
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+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Star Hunter, by Andre Alice Norton
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Star Hunter, by Andre Alice Norton
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Star Hunter
+
+Author: Andre Alice Norton
+
+Release Date: August 21, 2006 [EBook #19090]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STAR HUNTER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Greg Weeks, Sankar Viswanathan, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                         Transcriber's Note:
+
+       Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the
+       copyright on this publication was renewed.
+
+
+
+                            [Illustration]
+
+
+                             STAR HUNTER
+
+
+                             ANDRE NORTON
+
+
+
+
+
+                           ACE BOOKS, INC.
+
+                     1120 Avenue of the Americas
+
+                         New York, N.Y. 10036
+
+
+
+                 Copyright, 1961, by Ace Books, Inc.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+STAR HUNTER
+
+I
+
+
+Nahuatl's larger moon pursued the smaller, greenish globe of its
+companion across a cloudless sky in which the stars made a speckled
+pattern like the scales of a huge serpent coiled around a black bowl.
+Ras Hume paused at the border of scented spike-flowers on the top
+terrace of the Pleasure House to wonder why he thought of serpents. He
+understood. Mankind's age-old hatred, brought from his native planet
+to the distant stars, was evil symbolized by a coil in a twisted,
+belly-path across the ground. And on Nahuatl, as well as a dozen other
+worlds, Wass was the serpent.
+
+A night wind was rising, stirring the exotic, half-dozen other worlds'
+foliage planted cunningly on the terrace to simulate the mystery of an
+off-world jungle.
+
+"Hume?" The inquiry seemed to come out of thin air over his head.
+
+"Hume," he repeated his own name calmly.
+
+A shaft of light brilliant enough to dazzle the eyes struck through
+the massed vegetation, revealing a path. Hume lingered for a moment,
+offering a counterstroke of indifference in what he had always known
+would be a test of wits. Wass was Veep of a shadowy empire, but that
+was apart from the world in which Ras Hume moved.
+
+He strode deliberately down the corridor illuminated between leaf and
+blossom walls. A grotesque lump of crystal leered at him from the
+heart of a tharsala lilly bed. The intricate carving of a devilish
+nonhuman set of features was a work of alien art. Tendrils of smoke
+curled from the thing's flat nostrils, and Hume sniffed the scent of a
+narcotic he recognized. He smiled. Such measures might soften up the
+usual civ Wass interviewed here. But a star pilot turned out-hunter
+was immunized against such mind clouding.
+
+There was a door, the lintel and posts of which had more carving, but
+this time Terran, Hume thought--old, very old. Perhaps rumor was
+right, Milfors Wass might be truly native Terran and not second,
+third, nor fourth generation star stock as most of those who reached
+Nahuatl were.
+
+The room beyond that elaborately carved entrance was, in contrast,
+severe. Rust walls were bare of any pattern save an oval disk of
+cloudy golden shimmer behind the chair at the long table of solid ruby
+rock from Nahuatl's poisonous sister planet of Xipe. Without a pause
+he walked to the chair and seated himself without invitation to wait
+in the empty room.
+
+That clouded oval might be a com device. Hume refused to look at it
+after his first glance. This interview was to be person to person. If
+Wass did not appear within a reasonable length of time he would leave.
+
+And Hume hoped to any unseen watcher he presented the appearance of a
+man not impressed by stage settings. After all he was now in the
+seller's space boots, and it was a seller's market.
+
+Ras Hume rested his right hand on the table. Against the polished glow
+of the stone, the substance of it was flesh-tanned brown--a perfect
+match for his left. And the subtle difference between true flesh and
+false was no hindrance in the use of those fingers or their strength.
+Save that it had pushed him out of command of a cargo-cum-liner and
+hurled him down from the pinnacle of a star pilot. There were bitter
+brackets about his mouth, set there by that hand as deeply as if
+carved with a knife.
+
+It had been four years--planet time--since he had lifted the Rigal
+Rover from the launch pad on Sargon Two. He had suspected it might be
+a tricky voyage with young Tors Wazalitz, who was a third owner of the
+Kogan-Bors-Wazalitz line, and a Gratz chewer. But one did not argue
+with the owners, except when the safety of the ship was concerned. The
+Rigal Rover had made a crash landing at Alexbut, and a badly injured
+pilot had brought her in by will, hope and a faith he speedily lost.
+
+He received a plasta-hand, the best the medical center could supply
+and a pension for life, forced by the public acclaim for a man who had
+saved ships and lives. Then--the sack because a crazed Tors Wazalitz
+was dead. They dared not try to stick Hume with a murder charge; the
+voyage record tapes had been shot straight through to the Patrol
+Council, and the evidence on those could be neither faked nor tampered
+with. They could not give him a quick punishment, but they could try
+to arrange a slow death. The word had gone out that Hume was off pilot
+boards. They had tried to keep him out of space.
+
+And they might have done it, too, had he been the usual type of pilot,
+knowing only his trade. But some odd streak of restlessness had always
+led him to apply for the rim runs, the very first flights to newly
+opened worlds. Outside of the survey men, there were few qualified
+pilots of his seniority who possessed such a wide and varied knowledge
+of the galactic frontiers.
+
+So when he learned that the ships' boards were irrevocably closed to
+him, Hume had signed up with the Out-Hunters' Guild. There was a vast
+difference between lifting a liner from a launching pad and guiding
+civ hunters to worlds surveyed and staked out for their trips into the
+wild. Hume relished the exploration part--he disliked the
+leading-by-the-hand of nine-tenths of the Guild's clients.
+
+But if he had not been in the Guild service he would never have made
+that find on Jumala. That lucky, lucky find! Hume's plasta-flesh
+fingers curved, their nails drew across the red surface of the table.
+And where was Wass? He was about to rise and go when the golden oval
+on the wall smoked, its substance thinning to a mist as a man stepped
+through to the floor.
+
+The newcomer was small compared to the former pilot, but he had
+breadth of shoulder which made the upper part of his torso overbalance
+his thin hips and legs. He was dressed most conservatively except for
+a jeweled plaque resting on the tightly stretched gray silk of his
+upper tunic at heart level. Unlike Hume he wore no visible arms belt,
+but the other did not doubt that there were a number of devices
+concealed in that room to counter the efforts of any assassin.
+
+The man from the mirror spoke with a flat, toneless voice. His black
+hair had been shaven well above his ears, the locks left on top of his
+skull trained into a kind of bird's crest. As Hume, his visible areas
+of flesh were deeply browned, but by nature rather than exposure to
+space, the pilot guessed. His features were harsh, with a prominent
+nose, a back-slanting forehead, eyes dark, long and large, with heavy
+lids.
+
+"Now--" He spread both his hands, palm down and flat on the table, a
+gesture Hume found himself for some unknown reason copying. "You have
+a proposition?"
+
+But the pilot was not to be hurried, any more than he was to be
+influenced by Wass' stage-settings.
+
+"I have an idea," he corrected.
+
+"There are many ideas." Wass leaned back in his chair, but he did not
+remove his hands from the table. "Perhaps one in a thousand is the
+kernel of something useful. For the rest, there is no need to trouble
+a man."
+
+"Agreed," Hume returned evenly. "But that one idea in a thousand can
+also pay off in odds of a million to one, when and if a man has it."
+
+"And you have such a one?"
+
+"I have such a one." It was Hume's role now to impress the other by
+his unshakable confidence. He had studied all the possibilities. Wass
+was the right man, perhaps the only partner he could find. But Wass
+must not know that.
+
+"On Jumala?" Wass returned.
+
+If that stare and statement was intended to rattle Hume it was a
+wasted shot. To discover that he had just returned from that frontier
+planet required no ingenuity on the Veep's part.
+
+"Perhaps."
+
+"Come, Out-Hunter Hume. We are both busy men, this is no time to play
+tricks with words and hints. Either you have made a find worth the
+attention of my organization or you have not. Let me be the judge."
+
+This was it--the corner of no return. But Wass had his own code. The
+Veep had established his tight control of his lawless organization by
+set rules, and one of them was, don't be greedy. Wass was never
+greedy, which is why the patrol had never been able to pull him down,
+and those who dealt with him did not talk. If you had a good thing,
+and Wass accepted temporary partnership, he kept his side of the
+bargain rigidly. You did the same--or regretted your stupidity.
+
+"A claimant to the Kogan estate--that good enough for you?"
+
+Wass showed no surprise. "And how would such a claimant be profitable
+to us?"
+
+Hume appreciated that "us"; he had an in now. "If you supply the
+claimant, surely you can claim a reward, in more ways than one."
+
+"True. But one does not produce a claimant out of a Krusha dream. The
+investigation for any such claim now would be made by a verity lab and
+no imposture will pass those tests. While a real claimant would not
+need your help or mine."
+
+"Depends upon the claimant."
+
+"One you discovered on Jumala?"
+
+"No." Hume shook his head slowly. "I found something else on
+Jumala--an L-B from Largo Drift intact and in good shape. From the
+evidence now in existence it could have landed there with survivors
+aboard."
+
+"And the evidence of such survivors living on--that exists also?"
+
+Hume shrugged, his plasta-flesh fingers flexed slightly. "It has been
+six planet years, there is a forest where the L-B rests. No, no
+evidence at present."
+
+"The Largo Drift," Wass repeated slowly, "carrying, among others,
+Gentlefem Tharlee Kogan Brodie."
+
+"And her son Rynch Brodie, who was at the time of the Largo Drift's
+disappearance a boy of fourteen."
+
+"You have indeed made a find." Wass gave that simple statement enough
+emphasis to assure Hume he had won. His one-in-a-thousand idea had
+been absorbed, was now being examined, amplified, broken down into
+details he could never have hoped to manage for himself, by the most
+cunning criminal brain in at least five solar systems.
+
+"Is there any hope of survivors?" Wass attacked the problem straight
+on.
+
+"No evidence even of there being any passengers when the L-B planeted.
+Those are automatic and released a certain number of seconds after an
+accident alarm. For what it's worth the hatch of this one was open. It
+could have brought in survivors. But I was on Jumala for three months
+with a full Guild crew and we found no sign of any castaways."
+
+"So you propose--?"
+
+"On the basis of my report Jumala has been put up for a safari choice.
+The L-B could well be innocently discovered by a client. Every one
+knows the story with the case dragging through the Ten Sector-Terran
+Courts now. Gentlefem Brodie and her son might not have been news ten
+years ago. Now, with a third of the Kogan-Bors-Wazalitz control going
+to them, any find linked with the Largo Drift would gain full galactic
+coverage."
+
+"You have a choice of survivor? The Gentlefem?"
+
+Hume shook his head. "The boy. He was bright, according to the stories
+since, and he would have the survival manual from the ship to study.
+He could have grown up in the wilds of an unopened planet. To use a
+woman is too tricky."
+
+"You are entirely right. But we shall require an extremely clever
+imposter."
+
+"I think not." Hume's cool glance met Wass'. "We only need a youth of
+the proper general physical description and the use of a conditioner."
+
+Wass' expression did not change, there was no sign that Hume's hint
+had struck home. But when he replied there was a slight change in the
+monotone of his voice.
+
+"You seem to know a great deal."
+
+"I am a man who listens," Hume replied, "and I do not always discount
+rumor as mere fantasy."
+
+"That is true. As one of the guild you would be interested in the root
+of fact beneath the plant of fiction," Wass acknowledged. "You appear
+to have done some planning on your own."
+
+"I have waited and watched for just such an opportunity as this," Hume
+answered.
+
+"Ah, yes. The Kogan-Bors-Wazalitz combine incurred your displeasure. I
+see you are also a man who does not forget easily. And that, too, I
+understand. It is a foible of my own, Out-Hunter. I neither forget
+nor forgive my enemies, though I may seem to do so and time separates
+them from their past deeds for a space."
+
+Hume accepted that warning--both must keep any bargain. Wass was
+silent for a moment, as if to leave time for the thought to root
+itself, then he spoke again.
+
+"A youth with the proper physical qualifications. Have you any such in
+mind?"
+
+"I think so." Hume was short.
+
+"He will need certain memories; those take time to tape."
+
+"Those dealing with Jumala, I can supply."
+
+"Yes. You will have to provide a tape beginning with his arrival on
+that world. For such family material as is necessary I shall have
+ready. An interesting project, even apart from its value to us. This
+is one to intrigue experts."
+
+Expert psycho-techs--Wass had them. Men who had slipped over the
+border of the law, had entered Wass' organization and prospered there.
+There were some techs crooked enough to enjoy such a project for its
+own sake, indulging in forbidden experimentation. For a moment, but
+only for a moment, something in Hume jibbed at the intent of carrying
+through his plan. Then he shrugged that tinge aside.
+
+"How soon do you wish to move?"
+
+"How long will preparation take?" Hume asked in return, for the second
+time battling a taste of concern.
+
+"Three months, maybe four. There's research to be done and tapes to be
+made."
+
+"It will be six months probably before the Guild sets up a safari for
+Jumala."
+
+Wass smiled. "That need not worry us. When the time comes for a
+safari, there shall also be clients, impeccable clients, asking for it
+to be planned."
+
+There would be, too, Hume knew. Wass' influence reached into places
+where the Veep himself was totally unknown. Yes, he could count on an
+excellent, well above suspicion, set of clients to discover Rynch
+Brodie when the time came.
+
+"I can deliver the boy tonight, or early tomorrow morning. Where?"
+
+"You are sure of your selection?"
+
+"He fulfills the requirements, the right age, general appearance. A
+boy who will not be missed, who has no kin, no ties, and who will
+drop out of sight without any questions to be asked."
+
+"Very well. Get him at once. Deliver him here."
+
+Wass swept one hand across the table surface. On the red of the stone
+there glowed for seconds an address. Hume noted it, nodded. It was one
+in the center of the port town, one which could be visited at an odd
+hour without exciting any curiosity. He rose.
+
+"He will be there."
+
+"Tomorrow, at your convenience," Wass added, "you will come to this
+place." Again the palm moved and a second address showed on the table.
+
+"There you will begin your tape for our use. It may take several
+sessions."
+
+"I'm ready. I still have the long report to make to the Guild, so the
+material is still available on my note tapes."
+
+"Excellent. Out-Hunter Hume, I salute a new colleague." At last Wass'
+right hand came up from the table. "May we both have luck equal to our
+industry."
+
+"Luck to equal our desires," Hume corrected him.
+
+"A very telling phrase, Out-Hunter. Luck to equal our desires. Yes,
+let us both deserve that."
+
+
+
+
+2
+
+
+The Starfall was a long way down scale from the pleasure houses of the
+upper town. Here strange vices were also merchandise, but not such
+exotics as Wass provided. This was strictly for crewmen of the star
+freighters who could be speedily and expertly separated from a
+voyage's pay in an evening. The tantalizing scents of Wass' terraces
+were reduced here to simply smells, the majority of which were not
+fragrant.
+
+There had already been two fatal duels that evening. A tubeman from a
+rim ship had challenged a space miner to settle a difference with
+those vicious whips made from the tail casings of Flangoid flying
+lizards, an encounter which left both men in ribbons, one dead, one
+dying. And a scarred, ex-space marine had blaster-flamed one of the
+Star-and-Comet dealers into charred human ash.
+
+The young man who had been ordered to help clear away the second loser
+retired to the stinking alley outside to lose the meal which was part
+of his meager day's pay. Now he crawled back inside, his face
+greenish, one hand pressed to his middle section.
+
+He was thin, the fine bones of his face tight under the pallid skin,
+his ribs showing even through the sleazy fabric of the threadbare
+tunic with its house seal. When he leaned his head back against the
+grime encrusted wall, raising his face to the light, his hair had the
+glint of bright chestnut, a gold which was also red. And for his
+swamper's labor he was almost fastidiously clean.
+
+"You--Lansor!"
+
+He shivered as if an icy wind had found him and opened his eyes. They
+seemed disproportionately large in his skin and bone face and were of
+an odd shade, neither green nor blue, but somewhere between.
+
+"Get going, you! Ain't paying out good credits for you to sit there
+like you was buying on your own!" The Salarkian who loomed above him
+spoke accentless, idiomatic Basic Space which came strangely from
+between his yellow lips. A furred hand thrust the handle of a mop-up
+stick at the young man, a taloned thumb jerked the direction in which
+to use that evil-smelling object. Vye Lansor levered himself up the
+wall, took the mop, setting his teeth grimly.
+
+Someone had spilled a mug of Kardo and the deep purple liquid was
+already patterning the con-stone floor past any hope of cleaning. But
+he set to work slapping the fringe of the noisome mop back and forth
+to sop up what he could. The smell of the Kardo uniting with the
+general effluvia of the room and its inhabitants heightened his
+queasiness.
+
+Working blindly in a half stupor, he was not aware of the man sitting
+alone in the booth until his mop spattered the ankle of one of the
+drinking girls. She struck him sharply across the face with a
+sputtering curse in the tongue of Altar-Ishtar.
+
+The blow sent him back against the open lattice of the booth. As he
+tried to steady himself another hand reached up, fingers tightened
+about his wrist. He flinched, tried to jerk away from that hold, only
+to discover that he was the other's prisoner.
+
+And looking down at his captor in apprehension, he was aware even then
+of the different quality of this man. The patron wore the tunic of a
+crewman, lighter patches where the ship's badges should have been to
+show that he was not engaged. But, though his tunic was shabby, dirty,
+his magnetic boots scuffed and badly worn, he was not like the others
+now enjoying the pleasures of the Starfall.
+
+"This one--he makes trouble?" The vast bulk of the Vorm-man who was
+the Starfall's private law moved through the crowd with serene
+confidence in his own strength, which no one there, unless blind,
+deaf, and out-of-the-senses drunk, could dispute. His scaled,
+six-fingered, claw hand reached out for Lansor and the boy cringed.
+
+"No trouble!" There was the click of authority in the voice of the man
+in the booth. His face, moments earlier taut and sharp with
+intelligence, was suddenly slack, his tone slurred as he answered:
+"Looks like an old shipmate. No trouble, just want a drink with an old
+shipmate."
+
+But the grip which had pulled Vye forward, swung him around and down
+on the other bench in the booth, was anything but slack. The Vorm-man
+glanced from the patron of the Starfall to its least important
+employee and then grinned, thrusting his fanged jaws close to
+Lansor's.
+
+"If the master wants to drink, you dirt-rat, you drink!"
+
+Vye nodded vigorously, and then put his hand to his mouth, afraid his
+stomach was about to betray him again. Apprehensive, he watched the
+Vorm-man turn away. Only when that broad, green-gray back was lost in
+the smoky far reaches of the room did he expel his breath again.
+
+"Here--" The grip was gone from his wrist, but fingers now put a mug
+into his hand. "Drink!"
+
+He tried to protest, knew it was hopeless, and used both hands to get
+the mug to his lips, mouthing the stinging liquid in dull despair.
+Only, instead of bringing nausea with it, the stuff settled his
+stomach, cleared his head, with an after glow with which he managed
+to relax from the tense state of endurance which filled his hours in
+the Starfall.
+
+Half of the mug's contents inside him and he dared to raise his eyes
+to the man opposite him. Yes, this was no common crewman, nor was he
+drunk as he had pretended for the Vorm-man. Now he watched the milling
+crowd with a kind of detachment, though Vye was sure he was aware of
+every move he himself made.
+
+Vye finished the liquid. For the first time since he had come into
+this place two months earlier he felt like a real person again. And he
+had wits enough to guess that the potion he had just swallowed
+contained some drug. Only now he did not care at all. Anything which
+could wipe out in moments all the shame, fear, and sick despair the
+Starfall had planted in him was worth swallowing. Why the other had
+drugged him was a mystery, but he was content to wait for
+enlightenment.
+
+Lansor's companion once more applied that compelling pressure to the
+younger man's bony forearm. Linked by that hold they left the
+Starfall, came into the cooler, far more pleasant atmosphere of the
+street. They were a block away before Vye's guide halted, though he
+did not release his prisoner.
+
+"Forty names of Dugor!" he spat.
+
+Lansor waited, breathing in the air of early morning. The confidence
+of the drug still held. At the moment he was certain nothing could be
+as bad as the life behind him, he was willing to face what this
+strange patron of the Starfall had in mind.
+
+The other slapped his hand down on an air-car call button, stood
+waiting until one of the city flitters landed on beam before them.
+
+From the seat of the air-car Vye noted they were heading into the
+respectability of the upper city, away from the stews ringing the
+launch port. He tried to guess their destination or purpose, not that
+either mattered much. Then the car descended on a landing stage.
+
+The stranger waved Lansor through a doorway, down a short corridor
+into a room of private quarters. Vye sat down gingerly on the foam
+seat extending from the wall as he neared. He stared about. Dimly he
+could just remember rooms which had this degree of comfort, but so
+dimly now he could not be sure they did not exist only in his vivid
+imagination. For Vye's imagination had buoyed him first through the
+drab existence in a State Child's Creche, then through a state-found
+job which he had lost because he could not adapt to the mechanical
+life of a computer tender, and had been an anchor and an escape when
+he had sunk through the depths of the port to the last refuge in the
+Starfall.
+
+Now he pressed both his hands into the soft stuff of the seat and
+gaped at a small tri-dee on the wall facing him, a miniature scene of
+life on some other planet wherein a creature enveloped in short black
+and white striped fur crept belly flat, to stalk long-legged,
+short-winged birds making blood-red splotches against yellow reed
+banks under a pale violet sky. He feasted on its color, on the sense
+of freedom and off-world wonders which it raised in him.
+
+"Who are you?"
+
+The stranger's abrupt question brought him back, not only to the room
+but to his own precarious position. He moistened his lips, no longer
+quite so aglow with confidence.
+
+"Vye--Vye Lansor." Then he added his other identification, "S. C. C.
+425061."
+
+"State child, eh?" The other had pushed a button for a refresher cup,
+then was sipping its contents slowly. He did not ring for a second to
+offer Vye. "Parents?"
+
+Lansor shook his head. "I was brought in after the Five-Hour Fever
+epidemic. They didn't try to keep records, there were too many of us."
+
+The man was watching him levelly over the rim of that cup. There was
+something cold in that study, something which curbed Vye's pleasant
+feeling of only moments earlier. Now the other set down his drink,
+crossed the room. Cupping his hand under Lansor's chin, he brought up
+his head in a way which stirred a sullen resentment in the younger
+man, yet something told him resistance would only bring trouble.
+
+"I'd say Terran stock--not more than second generation." He was
+talking to himself more than to Vye. He loosed his hold on the boy's
+chin, but he still stood there surveying him from head to foot. Lansor
+wanted to squirm, but he fought that impulse, and managed to meet the
+other's gaze when it reached his face again.
+
+"No--not the usual port-drift. I was right all the way." Now he
+looked at Vye again as if the younger man did have a brain, emotions,
+some call on his interest as a personality. "Want a job?"
+
+Lansor pressed his hand deeper into the foam seat. "What--what kind?"
+He was angry and ashamed at that small betraying break in his voice.
+
+"You have scruples?" The stranger appeared to think that amusing. Vye
+reddened, but he was also more than a little surprised that the man in
+the worn space uniform had read hesitancy right. Someone out of the
+Starfall should not be too particular about employment, and he could
+not tell why he was.
+
+"Nothing illegal, I assure you." The man crossed to set his refresher
+cup in the empty slot. "I am an Out-Hunter."
+
+Lansor blinked. This had all taken on some of the fantastic aura of a
+dream. The other was eyeing him impatiently, as if he had expected
+some reaction.
+
+"You may inspect my credentials if you wish."
+
+"I believe you," Vye found his voice.
+
+"I happen to need a gearman."
+
+But this wasn't happening! Of course, it couldn't happen to him, Vye
+Lansor, state child, swamper in the Starfall. Things such as this did
+not happen, except in a thaline dream, and he wasn't a smoke eater! It
+was the kind of dream a man didn't want to wake from, not if he was
+port-drift.
+
+"Would you be willing to sign on?"
+
+Vye tried to clutch reality to himself, to remain level-headed. A
+gearman for an Out-Hunter! Why five men out of six would pay a large
+premium for a chance at such rating. The chill of doubt cut through
+the first hazy rosiness. A swamper from a port-side dive simply did
+not become a gearman for a Guild Hunter.
+
+Again it was as if the stranger read his thoughts. "Look here," he
+spoke abruptly. "I had a bad time myself, years ago. You resemble
+someone to whom I owe a debt. I can't repay him, but I can make the
+scales a little even this way."
+
+"Make the scales even." Vye's fading hope brightened. Then the
+Out-Hunter was a follower of the Fata Rite. That would explain
+everything. If you could not repay a good deed to the one you owed,
+you must balance the Eternal Scales in another fashion. He relaxed
+again, a great many of his unasked questions so answered.
+
+"You will accept?"
+
+Vye nodded eagerly. "Yes, Out-Hunter." He still could not believe that
+this was happening.
+
+The other pressed the refresher button, and this time he handed Lansor
+the brimming cup. "Drink on the bargain." His words had the ring of
+command.
+
+Lansor drank, gulping down the contents of the cup, and suddenly was
+aware of being tired. He leaned back against the wall, his eyes
+closed.
+
+Ras Hume took the cup from the lax fingers of the young man. So far,
+very good. Chance appeared to be playing on his side of the board. It
+had been chance which had steered him into the Starfall just three
+nights ago when he had been in quest of his imposter. And Vye Lansor
+was better than he dared hope to find. The boy had the right coloring,
+he had been batted around enough to fall for the initial story, he was
+malleable now. And after Wass' techs worked on him he would be Rynch
+Brodie--heir to one-third of Kogan-Bors-Wazalitz!
+
+"Come!" He touched Vye on the shoulder. The boy opened his eyes but
+his gaze did not focus as he got slowly to his feet. Hume glanced at
+his planet-time watch. It was still very early; the chance he must run
+in getting Lansor out of this building was small if they went at once.
+Guiding the younger man with a light hold above the elbow, he walked
+him out back to the flitter landing stage. The air-car was waiting.
+Hume's sense of being a gambler facing a run of good luck grew as he
+shepherded the boy into the flitter, punched a cover destination and
+took off.
+
+On another street he transferred himself and his charge into a second
+air-car, set the destination to within a block of the address Wass had
+given him. Not much later he walked Vye into a small lobby with a
+discreet list of names posted in its rack. No occupations attached to
+those colored streamers Hume noted. This meant either that their
+owners represented luxury trades, where a name signified the
+profession or service, or that they were covers--perhaps both. Wass'
+world fringed many different circles, intermingled with some quite
+surprising professions dedicated to the comfort, pleasure or health of
+the idle rich, off-world nobility, and the criminal elite.
+
+Hume fingered the right call button, knowing that the thumb pattern
+he had left on Wass' conference table would have already been relayed
+as his symbol of admission here. A flicker of light winked below the
+name, the wall to the right shimmered, and produced a doorway.
+Steering Vye to it, Hume nodded to the man waiting there. He was a
+flat-faced Eucorian of the servant caste, and now he reached out to
+draw Lansor over the threshold.
+
+"I have him, gentlehomo." His voice was as expressionless as his face.
+There was another shimmer and the door disappeared.
+
+Hume brushed his hand down the outer side of his thigh, wiping flesh
+against the coarse stuff of the crew uniform. He left the lobby
+frowning at his own thoughts.
+
+Stupid! A swamper from one of the worst rat holes in the port. Like as
+not that youngster would have had his brains kicked out in a brawl, or
+been fried to a crisp when some drunk got wild with a blaster, before
+the year was out. He'd done him a real kindness, given him a chance at
+a future less than one man in a billion ever had the power to even
+dream about. Why, if Vye Lansor had known what was going to happen to
+him, he would have been so willing to volunteer, that he would have
+dragged Hume here. There was no reason to have any regrets over the
+boy, he had never had it so good--never! There was only one small
+period of risk for Vye to face. Those days he would have to spend
+alone on Jumala between the time Wass' organization would plant him
+there and the coming of Hume's party to "discover" him. Hume himself
+would tape every possible aid to cover that period. All the knowledge
+of a Guild Out-Hunter, added to the information gathered by the
+survey, would be used to provide Rynch Brodie with the training
+necessary for wilderness survival. Hume was already listing the items
+to be included as he strode down the street, his tread once more
+assured.
+
+
+
+
+3
+
+
+His head ached dully, of that he was conscious first. As he turned,
+without opening his eyes, he felt the brush of softness against his
+cheek, and a pungent odor fill his nostrils.
+
+He opened his eyes, stared up past a rim of broken rock toward the
+cloudless, blue-green sky. A relay clicked into proper place deep in
+his mind.
+
+Of course! He had been trying to lure a strong-jaws out of its
+traphole with hooked bait, then his foot had slipped. Rynch Brodie sat
+up, flexed his bare thin arms, and moved his long legs experimentally.
+No broken bones, anyway. But still he frowned. Odd--that dream which
+jarred with the here and now.
+
+Crawling to the side of the creek, he dipped head and shoulders into
+the water, letting the chill of the stream flush away some of his
+waking bewilderment. He shook himself, making the drops fly from his
+uncovered torso and arms, and then discovered his hunting tackle.
+
+He stood for a moment fingering each piece of his scanty clothing,
+recalling every piece of labor or battle which had added pouch, belt,
+strip of fabric to his equipment. Yet--there was still that odd sense
+of strangeness, as if none of this was really his.
+
+Rynch shook his head, wiped his wet face with his arm. It was all his,
+that was sure, every bit of it. He'd been lucky, the survival manual
+on the L-B had furnished him with general directions and this was a
+world which was not unfriendly--not if one was prepared for trouble.
+
+He climbed up and loosened the net, coiling its folds into one hand,
+taking the good spear in his other. A bush stirred ahead, against the
+pull of the light breeze. Rynch froze, then the haft of his spear slid
+into a new hand grip, the coils of his net spun out. A snarl cut over
+the purr of water.
+
+The scarlet blot which sprang for his throat was met with the flail of
+the net. Rynch stabbed twice at the creature he had so swept off
+balance. A water-cat, this year's cub. Dying, its claws, over-long in
+proportion to its paws, drew inch deep furrows in the earth and
+gravel. Its eyes, almost the same shade as its long, burr-entangled
+body fur, glared up at him in deathly enmity.
+
+As Rynch watched, that feeling that he was studying something strange,
+utterly alien, came to him once again. Yet he had hunted water-cats
+for many seasons. Fortunately they were solitary, evil-tempered beasts
+that marked out a roaming territory to defend it from others of their
+kind, and not too many were to be encountered in cross-country travel.
+
+He stooped to pull his net from the now still paws. Some definite
+place he must reach. The compulsion to move on in that sudden flash
+shook him, raised the dull ache still troubling his temples into a
+punishing throb. Going down on his knees, Rynch once more turned to
+the stream water; this time after splashing it onto his face, he drank
+from his cupped hands.
+
+Rynch swayed, his wet hands over his eyes, digging fingertips into the
+skin of his forehead to ease that pain bursting in his skull. Sitting
+in a room, drinking from a cup--it was as if a shadow picture fitted
+over the reality of the stream, rocks and brush about him. He had sat
+in a room, had drank from a cup--that action had been important!
+
+A sharp, hot pain made him lose contact with that shadow. He looked
+down. From the gravel, from under rocks, gathered an army of
+blue-black, hard-shelled things, their clawed forelimbs extended, blue
+sense organs raised on fleshy stalks well above their heads, all
+turned towards the dead feline.
+
+Rynch slapped out vigorously, stumbled into the water loosening the
+hold of two vicious scavengers on the torn skin of his ankle when he
+waded out knee-deep. Already that black tongue of small bodies licked
+across the red-haired side of the hunter. Within minutes the corpse
+would be only well-cleaned bones.
+
+Retrieving his spear and net, Rynch immersed both in the water to
+clean off attackers, and hurried on, splashing through the creek until
+he was well away from the vicinity of the kill. A little later he
+flushed a four-footed creature from between two rocks and killed it
+with one blow from his spear haft. He skinned his kill, feeling the
+substance of the skill. Was it exceedingly rough hide, or rudimentary
+scales? And knew a return of that puzzlement.
+
+He felt, he thought painfully as he toasted the dry looking, grayish
+meat on a sharpened stick, as if a part of him knew very well what
+manner of animal he had killed. And yet, far inside him, another
+person he could not understand stood aloof watching in amazement.
+
+He was Rynch Brodie, and he had been traveling on the Largo Drift with
+his mother.
+
+Memory presented him automatically with a picture of a thin woman with
+a narrow, rather unhappy face, a twist of elaborately dressed hair in
+which jeweled lights sparkled. There had been something bad--memory
+was no longer exact but chaotic. And his head ached as he tried to
+recall that time with greater clarity. Afterwards the L-B and a man
+with him in it--
+
+"Simmons Tait!"
+
+An officer, badly hurt. He had died when the L-B landed here. Rynch
+had a clear memory of himself piling rocks over Tait's twisted body.
+He had been alone then with only the survival manual and some of the
+L-B supplies. The important thing was that he must never forget he was
+Rynch Brodie.
+
+He licked grease from his fingers. The ache in his head made him
+drowsy. He curled up on a patch of sun-warmed sand and slept.
+
+Or did he? His eyes were open again. Now the sky above him was no
+longer a bowl of light, but rather a muted halo of evening. Rynch sat
+up, his heart pounding as if he had been racing to outdistance the
+rising wind now pushing against his half-naked body.
+
+What was he doing here? Where _was_ here?
+
+Panic, carried through from that awakening, dried his mouth, roughened
+his skin, made wet the palms of the hands he dug into the sand on
+either side of him. Vaguely, a picture projected into his mind--he had
+sat in a room, and watched a man come to him with a cup. Before that,
+he had been in a place of garish light and evil smells.
+
+But he was Rynch Brodie, he had come here on an L-B when he was a boy,
+he had buried the ship's officer under a pile of rocks, managed to
+survive by himself because he had applied the aids in the boat to
+learn how. This morning he had been hunting a strong-jaw, tempting it
+out of its hiding by a hook and line and a bait of fresh killed
+skipper.
+
+Rynch's hands went to his face, he crouched forward on his knees. That
+all was true, he could prove it--he would prove it! There was the
+strong-jaw's den back there, somewhere on the rise where he had left
+the snapped haft of the spear he had broken in his fall. If he could
+find the den, then he would be sure of the reality of everything else.
+
+He had only had a very real dream--that was it! Only, why did he
+continue to dream of that room, that man, and the cup? Of the place of
+lights and smells, which he hated so much that the hate was a sour
+taste in his fright-dried mouth? None of it had ever been a part of
+Rynch Brodie's world.
+
+Through the dusk he started back up the stream bed, towards the narrow
+little valley where he had wakened after that fall. Finally, finding
+shelter within the heart of a bush, he crouched low, listening to the
+noises of another world which awoke at night to take over the stage
+from the day dwellers.
+
+As he plodded back, he fought off panic, realizing that some of those
+noises he could identify with confidence, while others remained
+mysteries. He bit down hard on the knuckles of his clenched fist,
+attempting to bend that discovery into evidence. Why did he know at
+once that that thin, eerie wailing was the flock call of a
+leather-winged, feathered tree dweller, and that a coughing grunt from
+downstream was just a noise?
+
+"Rynch Brodie--Largo Drift--Tait." He tasted the blood his teeth drew
+from his own skin as he recited that formula. Then he scrambled up.
+His feet tangled in the net, and he went down again, his head cracking
+on a protruding root.
+
+Nothing tangible reached him in that brush shelter. What did venture
+out of hiding to investigate was a substance none of his species could
+have named. It was neither body, nor mind--perhaps it was closest to
+alien emotion.
+
+Making contact stealthily, but with confidence, it explored after its
+own fashion. Then, puzzled, it withdrew to report. And since that to
+which it reported was governed by a set pattern which had not been
+altered for eons, its only answer was a basic command reaffirmed.
+Again it made contact, strove to carry out that order fruitlessly.
+Where it should have found easy passage, a clear channel to carry
+influence to the sleeper's brain, it found a jumble of impressions,
+interwoven until they made a protective barrier.
+
+The invader strove to find some pattern, or meaning--withdrew baffled.
+But its invasion, as ghostly as that had been, loosened a knot here,
+cleared a passage there.
+
+Rynch awoke at dawn, slowly, dazedly, sorting out sounds, smells,
+thoughts. There was a room, a man, trouble and fear, then there was
+he, Rynch Brodie, who had lived in this wilderness on an unmapped
+frontier world for the passage of many seasons. That world was about
+him now, he could feel its winds, hear its sounds, taste, smell. It
+was not a dream--the other was the dream. It had to be!
+
+Prove it. Find the L-B, retrace the trail of yesterday past the point
+of the fall which had started all this. Right there was the slope down
+which he must have tumbled. Above, he would find the den he had been
+exploring when the accident had occurred.
+
+Only--he did not find it. His mind had produced a detailed picture of
+that rounded depression, at the bottom of which the strong-jaw lurked.
+But when he reached the crown of the bluff, nowhere did he sight the
+mounded earth of the pit's rim. He searched carefully for a good
+length, both north and south. No den--no trace of one. Yet his memory
+told him that there had been one here yesterday.
+
+Had he fallen elsewhere and stumbled on, dazed, to fall a second time?
+
+Some disputant inside him said no to that. This was where he had
+regained consciousness yesterday and there was no den!
+
+He faced away from the river, breathing fast. No den--was there also
+no L-B? If he had passed this way dazed from a former fall, surely he
+would have left some trace.
+
+There was a crushed, browned plant flattened by weight. He stooped to
+finger the wilted leaves. Something had come in this direction. He
+would back-track. Rynch gave a hunter's attention to the ground.
+
+A half-hour later he found nothing but some odd, almost obliterated
+marks on grass too resilient to hold traces very long. And from them
+he could make nothing.
+
+He knew where he was, even if he did not know how he got here. The
+L-B--if it did exist--was to the west. He had a vivid mental picture
+of the rocket shape, its once silvery sides dulled by exposure, canted
+crookedly amid trees. And he was going to find it!
+
+Beyond the edge of any conscious sense there was a new stir. He was
+contacted again, tested. A forest called delicately in its alien way.
+Rynch had a fleeting thought of trees, was not aware of more than a
+mild desire to see what lay in their shade.
+
+For the present his own problem held him. That which beckoned was
+defeated, repulsed by his indifference. While Rynch started at a
+steady distance to trot towards the east, far away a process akin to a
+relay clicked into a second set of impulse orders.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Well above the planet Hume spun a dial to bring in the image of the
+wide stretches of continents, the small patches of seas. They would
+set down on the western land mass. Its climate, geographical features
+and surface provided the best site. And he had the very important
+co-ordinates for their camp already taped in the directo.
+
+"That's Jumala."
+
+He did not glance around to see what effect that screen view had on
+the other four men in the control cabin of the safari ship. Just now
+he was striving to master his impatience. The slightest hint could
+give birth to a suspicion which would blast their whole scheme. Wass
+might have had a hand in the selection of the three clients, but they
+would certainly be far from briefed on the truth of any discovery made
+on Jumala--they had to be for the safety of the whole enterprise.
+
+The fourth man, serving as his gearman for this trip, was Wass' own
+insurance against any wrong move on Hume's part. And the Out-Hunter
+respected him as being man enough to be wary of giving any suspicion
+of going counter to the agreed plan.
+
+Dawn was touching up the main points of the western continent, and he
+must set this spacer down within a day's journey of the abandoned L-B.
+Exploration in that direction would be the first logical move for his
+party. They could not be openly steered to the find, but there were
+ways of directing a hunt which would do as well.
+
+Two days ago, according to schedule, their castaway had been deposited
+here with a sub-conscious command to remain in the general area. There
+had been a slight element of risk in leaving him alone, armed only
+with the crude weapons he could manipulate, but that was part of the
+gamble.
+
+They were down--right on the mark. Hume saw to the unpacking and
+activating of those machines and appliances which would protect and
+serve his civ clients. He slapped the last inflate valve on a bubble
+tent, watched it critically as it billowed from a small roll of fabric
+into a weather resistant, one-room, air-conditioned and heated
+shelter.
+
+"Ready and waiting for you to move in, Gentlehomo," he reported to the
+small man who stood gazing about him with a child's wondering interest
+in the new and strange.
+
+"Very ingenious, Hunter. Ah--now just what might that be?" His voice
+was also eager as he pointed a finger to the east.
+
+
+
+
+4
+
+
+Hume glanced up alertly. There was a bare chance that "Brodie" might
+have witnessed their arrival and might be coming in now to save them
+all a great amount of time and trouble by acting the overjoyed,
+rescued castaway.
+
+But he could sight nothing at all in that direction to excite any
+attention. The distant mountains provided a stark, dark blue
+background. Up their foothills and lower slopes was a thick furring
+of trees with foliage of so deep a green as to register black from
+this distance. And on the level country was the lighter blue-green of
+the other variety of wood edging the open country about the river. In
+there rested the L-B.
+
+"I don't see anything!" he snapped, so sharply the little man stared
+at him in open surprise. Hume forced a quick smile.
+
+"Just what did you sight, Gentlehomo Starns? There is no large game in
+the woodlands."
+
+"This was not an animal, Hunter. Rather a flash of light, just about
+there." Again he pointed.
+
+Sun, Hume thought, could have been reflected from some portion of the
+L-B. He had believed that small spacer so covered with vines and
+ringed in by trees that it could not have been so sighted. But a storm
+might have disposed of some of nature's cloaking. If so Starns'
+interest must be fed, he would make an ideal discoverer.
+
+"Odd." Hume produced his distance glasses. "Just where, Gentlehomo?"
+
+"There." Starns obligingly pointed a third time.
+
+If there had been anything to see it was gone now. But it did lie in
+the right direction. For a second or two Hume was uneasy. Things
+seemed to be working too well; his cynical distrust was triggered by
+fitting so smoothly.
+
+"Might be the sun," he observed.
+
+"Reflected from some object you mean, Hunter? But the flash was very
+bright. And there could be no mirror surface in there, surely there
+could not be?"
+
+Yes, things were moving too fast. Hume might be overly cautious but he
+was determined that no hint of any pre-knowledge of the L-B must ever
+come to these civs. When they would find the Largo Drift's life boat
+and locate Brodie, there would be a legal snarl. The castaway's
+identity would be challenged by a half dozen distant and unloving
+relatives, and there would be an intense inquiry. These civs must be
+the impartial witnesses.
+
+"No, I hardly believe in a mirror in an uninhabited forest,
+Gentlehomo," he chuckled. "But we are on a hunting planet and not all
+its life forms have yet been classified."
+
+"You are thinking of an intelligent native race, Hunter?" Chambriss,
+the most demanding of the civ party, strode up to join them.
+
+Hume shook his head. "No native intelligence on a hunting world,
+Gentlehomo. That is assured before the planet is listed for a safari.
+However, a bird or flying thing, perhaps with metallic plumage or
+scales to catch the sunlight, might under the right circumstances seem
+a flash of light. That has happened before."
+
+"It was _very_ bright," Starns said doubtfully. "We might look over
+there later."
+
+"Nonsense!" Chambriss spoke briskly as one used to overriding the
+conflicting wishes in any company. "I came here for a water-cat, and a
+water-cat I'm going to have. You don't find those in wooded areas."
+
+"There will be a schedule," Hume announced. "Each of you has signed
+up, according to contract, for a different trophy. You for a
+water-cat, Gentlehomo. And you, Gentlehomo Starns, want to make
+tri-dees of the pit-dragons. While Gentlehomo Yactisi wishes to try
+electo fishing in the deep holes. To alternate days is the fair way.
+And, who knows, each of you may discover your own choice near the
+other man's stake out."
+
+"You are quite right, Hunter," Starns nodded. "And since my two
+colleagues have chosen to try for a water creature, perhaps we should
+start along the river."
+
+It was two days, then, before they could work their way into the
+woods. One part of Hume protested, the more cautious section of his
+mind was appeased. He saw, beyond the three clients now turning over
+and sorting space bags, Wass' man glanced at the woods and then back
+to Starns. And, being acutely aware of all undercurrents here, Hume
+wondered what the small civ had actually seen.
+
+The camp was complete, a cluster of seven bubble tents not too far
+from the ship. At least this crowd did not appear to consider that the
+Hunter was there to do all the serious moving and storing of supplies.
+All three of the clients pitched in to help, and Wass' man went down
+to the river to return with half a dozen silver-fins cleaned and
+threaded on a reed, ready to broil over the cook unit.
+
+A fire in the night was not needed except to afford the proper stage
+setting. But it was enjoyed. Hume leaned forward to feed the flames,
+and Starns pushed some lengths of driftwood closer.
+
+"You have said, Hunter, that hunting worlds never contain intelligent
+native life. Unless the planet is minutely explored how can your
+survey teams be sure of that fact?" His voice bordered on the
+pedantic, but his interest was plain.
+
+"By using the verifier." Hume sat crosslegged, his plasta-hand resting
+on one knee. "Fifty years ago, we would have had to keep rather a
+lengthy watch to be sure of a free world. Now, we plant verifiers at
+suitable test points. Intelligence means mental activity of some
+sort--any of which would be recorded on the verifier."
+
+"Amazing!" Starns extended his plump hands to the flames in the
+immemorial gesture of a human attracted not only to the warmth of the
+burning wood, but to its promise of security against the forces of the
+dark. "No matter how few, or how scattered your native thinkers may
+be, you record them without missing any?"
+
+Hume shrugged. "Maybe one or two," he grinned, "might get through such
+a screening. But we have yet to discover a planet with such a sparse
+native life as that at the level of intelligence."
+
+Yactisi juggled a cup in and out of the firelight. "I agree, this is
+most interesting." He was a thin man, with scanty drab gray hair and
+dark skin, perhaps the result of the mingling of several human races.
+His eyes were slightly sunken, so that it was difficult in this light
+to read their expression. He was, Hume had already decided, a class
+one brain and observant to a degree, which could either be a help or a
+menace. "There have been no cases of failure?"
+
+"None reported," Hume returned. All his life he had relied on machines
+operating, of course, under the competent domination of men trained to
+use them properly. He understood the process of the verifier, had seen
+it at work. At the Guild Headquarters there were no records of its
+failure; he was willing to believe it was infallible.
+
+"A race residing in the sea now--could you be sure your machine would
+discover its presence?" Starns continued to question.
+
+Hume laughed. "Not to be found on Jumala, you may be sure of that--the
+seas here are small and shallow. Such, not to be picked up by the
+verifier, would have to exist at great depths and never venture on
+land. So we need not fear any surprises here. The Guild takes no
+chances."
+
+"As it always continues to assure one," Yactisi replied. "The hour
+grows late. I wish you rewarding dreams." He arose to go to his own
+bubble tent.
+
+"Yes, indeed!" Starns blinked at the fire and then scrambled up in
+turn. "We hunt along the river, then, tomorrow?"
+
+"For water-cat," Hume agreed. Of the three, he believed Chambriss the
+most impatient. Might as well let him pot his trophy as soon as
+possible. The ex-pilot deduced there would be little cooperation in
+exploration from that client until he was satisfied in his own quest.
+
+Rovald, Wass' man, lingered by the fire until the three civs were safe
+in their bubbles.
+
+"River range tomorrow?" he asked.
+
+"Yes. We can't rush the deal."
+
+"Agreed." Rovald spoke with a curtness he did not use when the civs
+were present. "Only don't delay too long. Remember, our boy's roaming
+around out there. He might just be picked off by something before
+these stumble-footed civs catch up with him."
+
+"That's the chance we knew we'd have to take. We don't dare raise any
+suspicion. Yactisi, for one, is no fool, neither is Starns. Chambriss
+just wants to get his water-cat, but he could become nasty if anyone
+tried to steer him."
+
+"Too long a wait might run us into trouble. Wass doesn't like
+trouble."
+
+Hume spun around. In the half light of the fire his features were set,
+his mouth grim. "Neither do I, Rovald, neither do I!" he said softly,
+but with an icy promise beneath the words.
+
+Rovald was not to be intimidated. He grinned. "Set your fins down,
+fly-boy. You need Wass--and I'm here to hold his stakes for him. This
+is a big deal, we won't want any misses!"
+
+"There won't be any--not from my side." Hume stepped away from the
+fire, approached a post which gleamed with a dull, red line of fire
+down either side. He pressed a control button. That red line flared
+into a streak of brilliance. Now encircling the bubble tents and the
+space ship was a force field: routine protection of a safari camp on a
+strange world and one Hume had set as a matter of course.
+
+He stood for a long moment staring through that invisible barrier
+toward the direction of the wood. It was a dark night, there were
+scudding clouds to hide the stars, which meant rain probably before
+morning. This was no time to be plagued by uncertain weather.
+
+Somewhere out there Brodie was holed up. He hoped the boy had long ago
+reached the "camp" so carefully erected and left for his occupancy.
+The L-B, that stone covered "grave" showing signs of several years'
+occupancy, was all assembled and constructed to the last small detail.
+Far less might have deceived the civs in this safari. But as soon as
+the story of their find leaked, there would be others on the scene,
+men trained to assess the signs of a castaway's fight for survival.
+His own Guild training and the ability of Wass' renegade techs should
+bring them through that test.
+
+What had Starns seen? The glint of sun on the tail of the L-B, tilted
+now to the sky? Hume walked slowly back to the fire, when he saw
+Rovald going up the ramp into the spacer. He smiled. Did Wass think he
+was stupid enough not to guess that the Veep's man would be in com
+touch with his employer? Rovald was about to report along some channel
+of the shadow world that they had landed and that the play was about
+to begin. Hume wondered idly how far and through how many relays that
+message would pass before it reached its destination.
+
+He stretched and yawned, moving to his sleeping pad. Tomorrow they
+must find Chambriss a water-cat. Hume shoved Brodie into the back of
+his mind to center his thoughts on the various ways of delivering, to
+the waiting sportsman, a fair-sized alien feline.
+
+The lights in the bubbles went out one by one. Within the circle
+barrier of the force field men slept. And by midnight the rain began
+to fall, streaming down the sides of the bubbles, soaking the ashes of
+the fire.
+
+Out of the dark crept that which was not thought, not substance, but
+alien to the off-world men. But the barrier, meant to deter
+multi-footed creatures, with wings or no visible limbs at all, proved
+to be a better protection than its creators had hoped. There was no
+penetration--only a baffled butting of one force against another. And
+then the probe withdrew as undetected as it had come.
+
+Only, the thing which had no intelligence, as humankind rated
+intelligence, did possess the ability to fathom the nature of that
+artificial barrier. The force field was examined, its nature digested.
+First approach had failed. The second was now ready--ready as it had
+not been months before when the first coming of these creatures had
+alerted the very ancient watchdog on Jumala.
+
+Deep in the darker woods on the mountain sides there was a stirring.
+Things whimpered in their sleep, protested subconsciously commands
+they could never understand, only obey. With the coming of dawn there
+would be a marshaling of hosts, a new assault--not on the camp, but on
+any leaving its protection. And also on the boy now sleeping in a
+shallow cave formed by the swept roots of a tree--a tree which had
+crashed when the L-B landed.
+
+Again, fortune favored Hume. With the dawn the rain was over. There
+was a cloudy sky overhead, but he believed the day would clear. The
+roily, rushing water of the river would aid Chambriss' quest.
+Water-cats holed up in the banks, but rising water often forced them
+out of such dens. A course parallel to the stream bed could well show
+them the tracks of one of the felines.
+
+They started off in a group, Hume leading, with Chambriss treading
+briskly behind him, Rovald bringing up the rear in the approved trail
+technique. Chambriss carried a needler, Starns was unarmed except for
+a small protection stunner, his tri-dee box slung on his chest by
+well-worn carrying straps. Yactisi shouldered an electric pole, wore
+its control belt buckled about his middle, though Hume had warned him
+that the storm would prevent any deep hole fishing.
+
+Only a short distance from the campsite they came upon the
+unmistakable marks of a water-cat's broad paws, pressed in so heavy
+and distinct a pattern that Hume knew the animal could not be far
+ahead. The indentations were deep, and he measured the distance
+between them with the length of his hand.
+
+"Big one!" Chambriss exclaimed in satisfaction. "Going away from the
+river, too."
+
+That point puzzled Hume slightly. The red coated felines might be
+washed out of their burrows, but they did not willingly head so
+sharply away from the water. He squatted on his heels and surveyed the
+stretch of countryside between them and the distant wood with care.
+
+The grass was this season's, still growing, not tall enough to afford
+cover for an animal with paws as large as these prints. There were two
+clumps of brush. It could have holed up in either, waiting to attack
+any trailer--but why? It had not been wounded, nor frightened by their
+party, there was no reason for it to set an ambush on its back trail.
+
+Starns and Yactisi dropped back, though Starns was fussing with his
+tri-dee. Rovald caught up. He had drawn his ray tube in answer to
+Hume's hand wave. Any action foreign to the regular habits of an
+animal was to be mistrusted.
+
+Getting to his feet Hume paced along the line of marks. They were
+fresh--hot fresh. And they still led in a straight line for the woods.
+With another wave of his hand he stopped Chambriss. The civ was
+trained in spite of his eagerness and obeyed. Hume left the tracks,
+made a detour which brought him to a point from which he could study
+those clumps of brush. No sign except that line of prints pointed to
+the woods. And if the party kept on, they might well come upon the
+L-B!
+
+He decided to risk it. But when they were less than a couple of yards
+from the tree fringe his hand shot up to direct Chambriss to fire
+towards the quivering bush.
+
+Only, that formless half seen thing, hardly to be distinguished in
+color from the vegetation, was no water-cat. There was a thin, ragged
+cry. Then the creature plunged backward, was gone.
+
+"What in the name of nine Gods was that?" Chambriss demanded.
+
+"I don't know." Hume went forward, jerked the needler dart from a tree
+trunk. "But don't shoot again--not unless you are sure of what you are
+aiming at!"
+
+
+
+
+5
+
+
+Moisture from the night's rain hung on the tree leaves, clung in
+globules to Rynch's sweating body. He lay on a wide branch trying to
+control the heavy panting which supplied his laboring lungs. And he
+could still hear the echoes of the startled cries which had come from
+the men who had threaded through the woods to the up-pointed tail fins
+of the L-B.
+
+Now he tried to reason why he had run. They were his own kind, they
+would take him out of the loneliness of a world heretofore empty of
+his species. But that tall man--the one who had led the party into the
+irregular clearing about the life boat--
+
+Rynch shivered, dug his nails into the wood on which he lay. At the
+sight of that man, dream and reality had crashed together, sending him
+into panic-stricken flight. That was the man from the room--the man
+with the cup!
+
+As his heart quieted he began to think more coherently. First, he had
+not been able to find the strong-jaws's den. Then the marks on the
+ground at the point from which he had fallen and the L-B were here,
+just as he remembered. But not far from the small ship he had
+discovered something more--a campsite with a shelter fashioned out of
+spalls and vines, containing possessions a castaway might have
+accumulated.
+
+That man would come, Rynch was sure of that, but he was too spent to
+struggle on.
+
+No, the answer to every part of the puzzle lay with that man. To go
+back to the ship clearing was to risk capture--but he had to know.
+Rynch looked with more attention at his present surroundings. Deep
+mold under the trees here would hold tracks. There might just be
+another way to move. He eyed the spread of limbs on a neighbor tree.
+
+His journey through those heights was awkward and he sweated and
+cringed when he disturbed vocal treetop dwellers. He was also to
+discover that close to the site of the L-B crash others waited.
+
+He huddled against the bole of a tree when he made out the curve of a
+round bulk holding tight to the tree trunk aloft. Though it was balled
+in upon itself he was sure the creature was fully as large as he, and
+the menacing claws suggested it was a formidable opponent.
+
+When it made no move to follow him Rynch began to hope it had only
+been defending its own hiding place, for its present attitude
+suggested concealment.
+
+Still facing that featureless blob in the tree, the man retreated,
+alert for the first sign of advance on the part of the creature above.
+None came, and he dared to slip around the bole of the tree under
+which he stood, listening intently for any corresponding movement
+overhead. Now he was facing that survivor's camp.
+
+Another object crouched in the dark of the lean-to shelter, just as
+its fellow was on sentry duty in the tree! Only this one did not have
+the self-color of the foliage to disguise it. Four-limbed, its long
+forearms curved about its bent knees, its general outline almost that
+of a human--if a human went clothed in a thick fuzz. The head hunched
+right against the shoulders as if the neck were very short, or totally
+lacking, was pear-shaped, with the longer end to the back, and the
+sense organs of eyes and nose squeezed together on the lower quarter
+of the rounded portion, with a line of wide mouth to split the blunt
+round of the muzzle. Dark pits for eyes showed no pupil, iris, or
+cornea. The nose was a black, perfectly rounded tube jutting an inch
+or so beyond the cheek surface. Grotesque, alien and terrifying, it
+made no hostile move. And, since it had not turned its head, he could
+not be sure it had even sighted him. But it knew he was there, he was
+certain of that. And was waiting--for what? As the long seconds
+crawled by Rynch began to believe that it was not waiting for him.
+Heartened, he pulled at the vine loop, climbed back into the tree.
+
+Minutes later he discovered that there were more than two of the
+beasts waiting quietly about the camp, and that their sentry line ran
+between him and the clearing of the L-B. He withdrew farther into the
+wood, intent upon finding a detour which would bring him out into the
+open lands. Now he wanted to join forces with his own kind, whether
+those men were potential enemies or not.
+
+As time passed the beasts closed about the clearing of the camp.
+Afternoon was fading into evening when he reached a point several
+miles downstream near the river. Since he had come into the open he
+had not sighted any of the watchers. He hoped they did not willingly
+venture out of the trees where the leaves were their protection.
+
+Rynch went flat on the stream bank, made a worm's progress up the
+slope to crouch behind a bush and survey the land immediately ahead.
+There stood an off-world spacer, fins down, nose skyward, and grouped
+not too far from its landing ramp, a collection of bubble tents. A
+fire burned in their midst and men were moving about it.
+
+Now that he was free from the wood and its watchers and had come so
+near to his goal, Rynch was curiously reluctant to do the sensible
+thing, to rise out of concealment and walk up to that fire, to claim
+rescue by his own kind.
+
+The man he sought stood by the fire, shrugging his arms into a webbing
+harness which brought a box against his chest. Having made that fast
+he picked up a needler by its sling. By their gestures the others were
+arguing with him, but he shook his head, came on, to be a shadow
+stalking among other shadows. One of the men trailed him, but as they
+reached a post planted a little beyond the bubble tents he stopped,
+allowed the explorer to advance alone into the dark.
+
+Rynch went to cover under a bush. The man was heading to the stream
+bed. Had they somehow learned of his own presence nearby, were they
+out to find him? But the preparations the tall man had made seemed
+more suited to going on patrol. The watchers! Was the other out to spy
+on them? That idea made sense. And in the meantime he would let the
+other past him, follow along behind until he was far enough from the
+camp so that his friends could not interfere--then, they would have a
+meeting!
+
+Rynch's fingers balled into fists. He would find out what was real,
+what was a dream in this crazy, mixed up mind of his! That other would
+know, and would tell him the truth!
+
+Alert as he was, he lost sight of the stranger who melted into the
+dusky cover of the shadows. Then came a quiet ripple of water close to
+his own hiding place. The man from the spacer camp was using the
+stream as his road.
+
+In spite of his caution Rynch was close to betrayal as he edged around
+a clump of vegetation growing half in, half out of the stream. Only a
+timely rustle told him that the other had sat down on a drift log.
+
+Waiting for him? Rynch froze, so startled that he could not think
+clearly for a second. Then he noted that the outline of the other's
+body was visible, growing brighter by the moment.
+
+Minute particles of pale-greenish radiance were gathering about the
+other. The dark shadow of an arm flapped, the radiance swirled, broke
+again into pinpoint sparks.
+
+Rynch glanced down at his own body--the same sparks were drifting in
+about him, edging his arms, thighs, chest. He pushed back into the
+bushes while the sparks still flitted, but they no longer gathered in
+strength enough to light his presence. Now he could see they drifted
+about the vegetation, about the log where the man sat, about rocks and
+reeds. Only they were thicker about the stranger as if his body were a
+magnet. He continued to keep them whirling by means of waving hand and
+arm, but there was enough light to show Rynch the fingers of his other
+hand, busy on the front panel of the box he wore.
+
+That fingering stopped, then Rynch's head came up as he heard a very
+faint sound. Not a beast's cry--or was it?
+
+Again those fingers moved on the panel. Was the other sending a
+message by that means? Rynch watched him check the webbing, count the
+equipment at his belt, settle the needler in the crook of his arm.
+Then the stranger left the stream, headed towards the woods.
+
+Rynch jumped to his feet, a cry of warning shaping, but not to be
+uttered. He padded after the other. There was plenty of time to stop
+the man before he reached the danger which might lurk under the trees.
+
+However the other was as wary of that dark as if he suspected what
+might lie in wait there. He angled along northward, avoiding clumps of
+scattered brush, keeping in the open where Rynch dared not tail him
+too closely.
+
+Their course, parallel to the woods, brought them at last to a second
+stream, the size of a river, into which the first creek emptied. Here
+the other settled down between two rocks with every indication of
+remaining there for a period.
+
+Thankfully Rynch found his own lurking place from which he could keep
+the other in sight. The light points gathered, hung in a small
+luminous cloud over the rocks. But Rynch had prudently withdrawn under
+a bush, and the scent of its aromatic leaves must have discouraged the
+sparks, for no such crown came to his sentry post.
+
+Drugged with fatigue, the younger man slept, awaking to full day, a
+fog of bewilderment and disorientation. To open his eyes to this
+blue-green pocket instead of to four dirty walls, was wrong.
+
+Remembering, he started up and slunk down the slope, angry at his
+failure. He found the other's track, not turning back as he had half
+feared, cleanly printed on level spots of wet earth--eastward now.
+What was the purpose of the other's expedition? Was he going to use
+the open cut through which the river ran as a way of penetrating the
+wooded country?
+
+Now Rynch considered the problem from his own angle. The man from the
+spacer had made no effort to conceal his trail, in fact it would
+almost seem that he had deliberately gone out of his way to leave boot
+prints on favorable stretches of ground. Did he guess that Rynch
+lurked behind, was now leading him on for some purpose of his own? Or
+were those traces left to guide another party from the camp?
+
+To advance openly up the stream bed was to invite discovery. Rynch
+surveyed the nearer bank. Clumps of small trees and high growing
+bushes dotted that expanse, an ideal cover.
+
+He was hardly out of sight of the bush which had sheltered him when he
+heard the coughing roar of a water-cat. And the feline was attacking
+an enemy, enraged to the pitch of vocal frenzy. Rynch ran a zigzag
+course from one clump of bush to the next. That sound of snarling,
+spitting hate ended in mid-cry as Rynch crawled to the river bank.
+
+The man from the spacer camp had been the focus of a three-prong
+attack from a female and her cubs. Three red bodies were flat and
+still on the gravel as the off-worlder leaned back against a rock
+breathing heavily. As Rynch sighted him, he stooped to recover the
+needler he had dropped, lurched away from the rock towards the water,
+and so blundered straight into another Jumalan trap.
+
+His unsteady foot advancing for another step came down on a slippery
+surface, and he fell forward as his legs were engulfed in the trap
+burrow of a strong-jaws. With a startled cry the man dropped the
+needler again, clawed at the ground about him. Already he was buried
+to his knees, then his mid-thighs, in the artificial quicksand. But he
+had not lost his head and was jerking from side to side in an effort
+to pull free.
+
+Rynch got to his feet, walked with slow deliberation down to the
+river's brink. The trapped prisoner had shied halfway around,
+stretching out his arms to find a firmer grip on some rock large and
+heavy enough to anchor him. After his first startled cry he had made
+no sound, but now, as he sighted Rynch, his eyes widened and his lips
+parted.
+
+The box on his chest caught on a stone he had dragged to him in a
+desperate try for support. There was a spitting of sparks and the
+stranger worked frantically at the buckle of the webbing harness to
+loosen it and toss the whole thing from him. The box struck one of the
+dead water-cats, flashed as fur and flesh were singed.
+
+Rynch watched dispassionately before he caught the needler, jerking it
+away from the prisoner. The man eyed him steadily, and his expression
+did not alter even when Rynch swung the off-world weapon to center its
+sights on the late owner.
+
+"Suppose," Rynch's voice was rusty sounding in his own ears, "we talk
+now."
+
+The man nodded. "As you wish, Brodie."
+
+
+
+
+6
+
+
+"Brodie?" Rynch squatted on his heels.
+
+Those gray eyes, so light in the other's deeply tanned face, narrowed
+the smallest fraction, Rynch noted with an inner surge of triumph.
+
+"Were you looking for me?" he added.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"We found an L-B--we wondered if there were survivors."
+
+Slowly Rynch shook his head. "No--you knew I was here. Because you
+brought me!" He fashioned his suspicions into one quick thrust.
+
+This time there was not the slightest hint of self-betrayal from the
+other.
+
+"You see," Rynch leaned forward, but still well out of reach from the
+captive, "I remember!"
+
+Now there was a faint flicker of answer in the man's eyes. He asked
+quietly:
+
+"What do you remember, Brodie?"
+
+"Enough to know that I am not Brodie. That I did not get here on the
+L-B, did not build that camp."
+
+He ran one hand over the stock of the needler. Whatever motive lay
+behind this weird game into which he had been unwillingly introduced,
+he was now sure that it was serious enough to be dangerous.
+
+"You have no cup this time."
+
+"So you do remember." The other accepted that calmly. "All right. That
+need not necessarily spoil our plans. You have nothing to return to on
+Nahuatl--unless you _liked_ the Starfall." His voice was icy with
+contempt. "To play our roles will be for your advantage, too." He
+paused, his gaze centering on Rynch with the intensity of one willing
+the desired answer out of his inferior.
+
+Nahuatl. Rynch caught at that. He had been on or in Nahuatl--a planet?
+a city? If he could make this man believe he remembered everything
+clearly, more than just the scattered patches that he did....
+
+"You had me planted here, then came back to hunt me. Why? What makes
+Rynch Brodie so important?"
+
+"Close to a billion credits!" The man from the spacer leaned well back
+in the hole, his arms spread flat out on either side to keep his body
+from sinking deeper. "A billion credits," he repeated softly.
+
+Rynch laughed. "You'll have to think of a better one than that,
+fly-boy."
+
+"The stakes would have to be high, wouldn't they, for us to go to all
+this staging? You've been conditioned, Brodie, illegally
+brain-channeled!"
+
+To Rynch the words meant nothing. If they ever had, that was gone,
+lost in the maze of other things which had been blotted out of his
+mind by the Brodie past. But he would not give the other the advantage
+of knowing his uncertainty.
+
+"You need a Brodie for a billion credits. But you don't have a Brodie
+now!"
+
+To his surprise the prisoner in the earth trap laughed. "I'll have a
+Brodie when he's needed. Think about a good share of a billion
+credits, boy, keep thinking of that hard."
+
+"I will."
+
+"Thoughts alone won't work it, you know." For the first time there was
+a hint of some emotion in the man's voice.
+
+"You mean I need you? I don't think so. I've stopped being a plaque
+for someone to play across the board." That expression brought another
+momentary flash of hazy memory--a smoky, crowded room where men slid
+counters back and forth across tables--not one of Brodie's edited
+recalls, but his own.
+
+Rynch stood up, started for the rise of the slope, but before he
+topped that he glanced back. The damaged com box still smoked where
+its wearer had flung it. Now the man was already straining forward
+with both arms, trying to reach a rock just a finger space beyond.
+Lucky for him the burrow was an old one, uninhabited. In time he
+should be able to work his way out. Meanwhile there was the whole of a
+wide countryside in which Rynch could discover a hideout--no one would
+find him now against his will.
+
+He tried, as he strode along, to piece together more of his memories
+and the scanty information he had had from the Nahuatl man. So he had
+been "brain-channeled," given a set of false memories to fit a Rynch
+Brodie whose presence on this world meant a billion credits for
+someone. He could not believe that this was the spaceman's game alone,
+for hadn't he spoken of "we"?
+
+A billion credits! The sum was fantastic, the whole story
+unbelievable.
+
+There was a hot stab of pain on his instep. Rynch cried out, stamped
+hard. One of the clawed scavengers was crushed. The man leaped back in
+time to avoid another step into a swarming mass of them at work on
+some unidentifiable carrion. Staring down at the welter of scaled,
+segmented bodies and busy claws, he gasped.
+
+Three dead water-cats were near the man trapped in the pit. Bait to
+draw these voracious eaters straight to the prisoner. Rynch's empty
+stomach heaved. He swung around, ran across the grassy verge of the
+upper bank, hoping he was not too late.
+
+As he half fell, half slid down to the water, he saw that the man had
+managed to hook the webbing of the smouldering box to him, was casting
+it out and dragging it back patiently, aiming at the nearest rock of
+size, fruitlessly attempting to hitch its straps over the round of
+stone.
+
+Rynch dashed on, caught at that loop of webbing, and dug his heels
+into the loose gravel as he began a steady pull. With his aid the
+other crawled out, lay panting. Rynch grabbed the man's shoulder,
+jerked him away from the body of the female water-cat. He was sure he
+had seen a telltale scurrying around the smaller of the dead cubs.
+
+The man straightened, glanced toward Rynch who was backing off, the
+needler up and ready between them.
+
+"My turn to ask why?"
+
+Then his gaze followed Rynch's. The smallest cub twitched from side to
+side. Not with any faint trace of life, but under the attack of the
+scavengers. More scuttled towards the second cub.
+
+"Thanks!" The stranger was on his feet. "My name is Ras Hume. I don't
+think I told you that when we last met."
+
+"This doesn't make any difference. I'm not your man, not Brodie!"
+
+Hume shrugged. "You think about it, Brodie, think about it with care.
+Come back to camp with me and--"
+
+"No!" Rynch interrupted. "You go your way, I go mine from here on."
+
+Again the other laughed. "Not so simple as all that, boy. We've
+started something which can't just be turned off as easily as you snap
+down a switch." He took a step or two in Rynch's direction.
+
+The younger man brought up the needler. "Stay right where you are!
+Your game, Hume? All right, you play it--but not with me."
+
+"And what are you going to do, take to the woods?"
+
+"What I do is my business, Hume."
+
+"No, my business, too, very much so. I'm giving you a warning, boy, in
+return for your help here." He nodded at the pit. "There's something
+in that woods--something which didn't show up when the Guild had their
+survey exploration here."
+
+"The watchers." Rynch retreated step by step, keeping the needler
+ready. "I saw them."
+
+"You've seen them!" Hume was eager. "What do they look like?"
+
+In spite of his desire to be rid of Hume, Rynch found himself
+answering that in detail, discovering that on demand he could recall
+minutely the description of the animal hiding in the tree, the one who
+had waited in the shelter, and those he had glimpsed drawing in about
+the L-B clearing.
+
+"No intelligence." Hume turned his head to survey the distant wood.
+"The verifier reported no intelligence."
+
+"These watchers--you don't know them?"
+
+"No. Nor do I like what you've seen of them, Brodie. So I'm willing to
+call a truce. The Guild believed Jumala an open planet, our records
+accredited it so. If that is not true we may be in for bad trouble. As
+an Out-Hunter I am responsible for the safety of three civs back there
+in the safari camp."
+
+Hume made sense, much as Rynch disliked admitting it. And the Hunter
+must have read something of his agreement in his face for now he
+nodded and added briskly:
+
+"Best place now is the safari camp. We'll head back at once."
+
+Only time had run out. A noise sounded with a metallic ring. Rynch
+whirled, needler cocked. A glittering ball about the size of his fist
+rolled away from contact with a boulder, came to rest in the deep
+depression of one of Hume's boot tracks. Then another flash through
+the air, a clatter as a second ball spun across a patch of gravel.
+
+The balls seemed to appear out of the air. Displaying rainbow glints
+they rolled in a semicircle about the two men. Rynch stooped, then
+Hume's fingers latched about his wrist, dragging his hand away from
+the globe. It was only then that he realized that sharp action had
+detached his attention from that ball he had wanted to take up.
+
+"Don't touch!" Hume barked. "And don't look at that too closely! Come
+along!" He pulled Rynch forward through the yet unclosed arc of the
+globe circle.
+
+Hume detoured around the feasting scavengers and brought Rynch with
+him at a trot. They could hear behind them the plop and tinkle of more
+globes. Glancing back Rynch saw one fall close to the bodies of the
+water-cats.
+
+"Wait a minute!" He pulled back against Hume's hold. Here was a chance
+to see what effect that crystal had on the clawed carrion eater.
+
+There was a change in the crystal: Yellow now, then red--red as the
+few scraps of fur remaining on the rapidly disappearing body.
+
+"Look!"
+
+The pulsating carpet which had covered the dead feline ceased to move.
+But towards that spot rolled two more of the globes, approaching the
+scavengers. Now the clawed things were stirring, dropping away from
+their prey. They spread out in a patch, moved purposefully forward.
+Behind them, as guardians might head a flock, rolled three globes,
+flushing scarlet, then more.
+
+Hume's hand came up. From the cone tip of the ray tube spat a lance of
+fire, to strike the middle crystal. The beam was reflected into the
+block of scavengers. Scaled bodies, twisted, crisped, were ash. But
+the crystal continued to roll at the same pace.
+
+"Move!" Hume's other hand hit Rynch's shoulder, knocked him forward in
+an impetuous shove which nearly took him off his feet. Both men began
+to run.
+
+"What--what are those things?" Rynch appealed between panting breaths.
+
+"I don't know--and I don't like their looks. They're between us and
+the safari camp if we keep to the river--"
+
+"Between us and the river now." Rynch saw that glittering swoop
+through the air, marked the landing of a ball near the water's edge.
+
+"Might be trying to box us in. But that's not going to work.
+See--ahead there where that log's caught between two rocks? Run out on
+that when we reach there and take to the water. I don't think those
+things can float and if they sink to the bottom that ought to fix them
+as far as we are concerned."
+
+Rynch ran, still holding the needler. He balanced along the drift log
+Hume had pointed out and a jump sent him floundering in the brown
+stream thigh deep. Hume joined him, his face grim.
+
+"Downstream--"
+
+Rynch looked. One shape--two--three--Clearly detailed where matching
+vegetation gave them no covering camouflage, the watchers had come out
+of the woods at last. A line of them were walking quietly and upright
+towards the humans, their blue-green fuzz covering like a mist under
+the direct rays of the sun. Quiet as they seemed at present, the
+things out of the Jumalan forest were a picture of sheer brute
+strength as they moved.
+
+"Let's get out of here--fast!"
+
+The men kept moving, and always after them padded that silent line of
+green-blue, pushing them farther and farther away from the safari
+camp, on towards the rising mountain peaks. Just as the globes had
+shaken the scavengers loose from their meal and sent them marching on,
+so were the humans being herded for some unknown purpose.
+
+At least, once the march of the beasts began, they saw and heard no
+more of the globes. And as they reached a curve in the river, Hume
+stopped, swung around, stood studying the line of decorously pacing
+animals.
+
+"We can pick them off with the needler or the ray."
+
+The Hunter shook his head. "You don't kill," he recited the credo of
+his Guild, "not until you are sure. There is a method behind this, and
+method means intelligence."
+
+Handling of X-tee creatures and peoples was a part of Guild training.
+In spite of his devious game here on Jumala, Hume was Guild educated
+and Rynch was willing to leave such decisions to him.
+
+The other held out the ray tube. "Take this, cover me, but don't use
+it until I say so. Understand?"
+
+He waited only for Rynch's nod before he started, at a deliberate pace
+which matched that of the beasts, back through the river shallows to
+meet them. But that advancing line halted, stood waiting in silence.
+Hume's hands went up, palm out, he spoke slowly in Basic-X-Tee clicks:
+
+"Friend." This was all Rynch could make out of that sing-song of
+syllables Rynch knew to be a contact pattern.
+
+The dark eye pits continued to stare. A light breeze ruffled the fuzz
+covering of wide shoulders, long muscular arms. Not a head moved, not
+one of those heavy, rounded jaws opened to emit any answering sound.
+Hume halted. The silence was threatening, a portending atmosphere
+spread from the alien things as might a tangible wave.
+
+For perhaps two breaths they stood so, man facing alien. Then Hume
+turned, walked back, his face set. Rynch offered him the ray tube.
+
+"Fight our way out?"
+
+"Too late. Look!"
+
+Moving lines of blue-green coming down to the river. Not five or six
+now--a dozen--twenty. There was a small trickle of moisture down the
+side of the Hunter's brown face.
+
+"We're penned--except straight ahead."
+
+"But we're going to fight!" Rynch protested.
+
+"No. Move on!"
+
+
+
+
+7
+
+
+It was some time before Hume found what he wanted, an islet in
+midstream lacking any growth and rising to a rough pinnacle. The sides
+were seamed with crevices and caves which promised protection for
+one's back in any desperate struggle. And they had discovered it none
+too soon, for the late afternoon shadows were lengthening.
+
+There had been no attack, just the trailing to herd the men to the
+northeast. And Rynch had lost the first tight pinch of panic, though
+he knew the folly of underestimating the unknown.
+
+They climbed with unspoken consent, going clear to the top, where they
+huddled together on a four-foot tableland. Hume unhooked his distance
+lenses, but it was toward the rises of the mountains that he aimed
+them, not along the back trail.
+
+Rynch wriggled about, studied the river and its banks. The beasts
+there were quiet, blue-green lumps, standing down on the river bank or
+squatting in the grass.
+
+"Nothing." Hume lowered the lenses, held them before his broad chest
+as he still watched the peaks.
+
+"What did you expect?" Rynch snapped. He was hungry, but not hungry
+enough to abandon the islet.
+
+Hume laughed shortly. "I don't know. Only I'm sure they are heading us
+in that direction."
+
+"Look here," Rynch rounded on him. "You know this planet, you've been
+here before."
+
+"I was one of the survey team that approved it for the Guild."
+
+"Then you must have combed it pretty thoroughly. How is it that you
+didn't know about them?" He gestured to their pursuers.
+
+"That is what I would like to ask a few assorted experts right about
+now," Hume returned. "The verifiers registered no intelligent native
+life here."
+
+"No native life." Rynch chewed that over, came up with the obvious
+explanation. "All right--so then maybe our blue-backed friends are
+imported. Suppose someone's running a private business of his own here
+and wants to get rid of visitors?"
+
+Hume looked thoughtful. "No." He did not enlarge upon his negative.
+Sitting down he pulled a cylinder container from a belt loop and shook
+out four tablets, handing two to Rynch, mouthing the others.
+
+"Vita-blocks--good for twenty-four hours sustenance."
+
+The iron rations depended upon by all exploring services did not have
+the satisfying taste of real food. However Rynch swallowed them
+dutifully before he descended with Hume to river level. The Hunter
+splashed water from the stream into a depression in the rock and
+dropped a pinch of clarifying powder into it.
+
+"With the dark," he announced, "we might be able to get through their
+lines."
+
+"You believe that?"
+
+Hume laughed. "No--but one doesn't overlook the factor of sheer luck.
+Also, I don't care to finish up at the place they may have chosen for
+us." He tilted his chin to study the sky. "We'll take watches and rest
+in turn. No use trying anything until it is dark--unless they start to
+move in. You take the first one?"
+
+As Rynch nodded, Hume edged back into a crevice as a shelled creature
+withdrawing to natural protection, going to sleep as easily as if he
+could control that state by will. Rynch, watching him curiously for a
+second or two before climbing up to a position from which he judged he
+could see all sides of their refuge, determined not to be surprised.
+
+The watchers were crouched down, waiting with that patience which had
+impressed him from his first sight of the camp sentries back in the
+forest. There was no movement, no sound. They were simply there--on
+guard. And Rynch did not believe that the darkness of night would
+bring any relaxation of that vigilance.
+
+He leaned back, feeling the grit of the rocky surface against his bare
+back and shoulders. Under his hand was the most efficient and
+formidable weapon known to the frontier worlds, from this post he
+could keep the enemy under surveillance and think.
+
+Hume had had him planted here, in the first place, provided with the
+memory of Rynch Brodie--the reward for him was to be a billion
+credits. Too much staff work had gone into his conditioning for just a
+small stake.
+
+So Rynch Brodie was on Jumala, and Hume had come with witnesses to
+find him. Another part of his mind stood aloof now, applauding the
+clearness of his reasoning. Rynch Brodie was to be discovered a
+castaway on Jumala. Only, matters had not worked out according to
+Hume's plan. In the first place he was certain he had not been
+intended to know that he was not Rynch Brodie. For a fleeting second
+he wondered why that conditioning had not completely worked, then went
+back to the problem of his relationship with Hume.
+
+No, the Out-Hunter had expected a castaway who would be just what he
+ordered. Then this affair of the watchers--creatures the Guild men had
+not found here a few months ago--Rynch felt a small cold chill along
+his spine. Hume's game was one thing, something he could understand,
+but the silent beasts were another and somehow far more disturbing
+threat.
+
+Rynch edged forward, watching the mist on the water, his brain
+striving to solve this other puzzle as neatly as he thought he had
+discovered the reason for his scrambled memories and his being on
+Jumala.
+
+The mist was an added danger. Thick enough and those watchers could
+move in under its curtain. A needler was efficient, yes, but it could
+wipe out only an enemy at which it was aimed. Blind cross sweeping
+with its darts would only exhaust the clip without results, save by
+lucky chance.
+
+On the other hand, suppose they could turn that same gray haze to
+their own advantage--use it to blanket their withdrawal? He was about
+to go to Hume with that suggestion when he sighted the new move in
+their odd battle with the aliens.
+
+A wink of light--two more--blinking, following the erratic course by
+the pull of the stream. All bobbing along toward the rugged coastline
+of the islet. Those had appeared out of nothingness as suddenly as the
+globes when this chase had begun.
+
+The globes and the winking lights on the water connected in his mind,
+argued new danger. Rynch took careful aim, fired a dart at one which
+had grounded on the pointed tip of the rocks where the river current
+came together after its division about the island. For the first time
+Rynch realized those things below were moving _against_ the
+current--they had come upstream as if propelled.
+
+He had fired and the light was still there, two more coming in behind
+it, so that now there was an irregular cluster of them. And there was
+activity on the water-washed rocks before them. Just as the scavengers
+had moved ahead of the globes on land, so now aquatic creatures had
+come out of the river, were flopping higher on the islet. And those
+lights were changing color--from white to reddish-yellow.
+
+Rynch scrabbled with one hand in a rock crevice, found a stone he had
+noted earlier. He hurled that at the cluster of lights. There was a
+puff of brilliant red, one was gone. Something flopping on the rocks
+gave a mewling cry and somersaulted back into the water. Then a finger
+of mist drew between Rynch and the lights which were now only faint,
+glowing patches. He swung down from his perch, shook Hume awake.
+
+The Out-Hunter made that instant return to full consciousness which
+was another defense for the men who live long on the rim of wild
+worlds.
+
+"What--?"
+
+Rynch pulled him forward. The mist had thickened, but there were more
+of those ominous lights at water level, spreading down both sides of
+the point, forming a wall. Dark forms moved out of the water ahead of
+them, flopping on the rocks, pressing higher, towards the ledge where
+the men stood.
+
+"Those globes--I think they're moving in the river now." Rynch found
+another stone, took careful aim, and smashed a second one. "The
+needler has no effect on them," he reported. "Stones do--but I don't
+know why."
+
+They searched about them in the crevices for more ammunition, laying
+up a line of fist-sized rocks, while the lights gathered in, spreading
+farther and farther down the shores of the islet. Hume cried out
+suddenly, and aimed his ray tube below. The lance of its blast cut the
+dark as might a bolt of lightning.
+
+With a shrill squeal, a blot shadow detached from the slope
+immediately below them. A vile, musky scent, now mingled with the
+stench of burning flesh, set them coughing.
+
+"Water spider!" Hume identified. "If they are driving those out and up
+at...."
+
+He fumbled at his equipment belt and then tossed an object downward to
+disintegrate in a shower of fiery sparks. Wherever those sparks
+touched rock or ground they flared up in tall thin columns of fire,
+lighting up the nightmare on the rocks and up the ledges.
+
+Rynch fired the needler, Hume's ray tube flashed and flashed again.
+Things squealed, or grunted, or died silently, while clawing to reach
+the upper ledges. He could not be sure of the nature of some of those
+things. One, armed and clawed as the scavengers, was nearly as large
+as a water-cat. And a furry, man-legged creature, with a double-jawed
+head, bore also a ring of phosphorescent eyes set in a complete circle
+about its skull. They were alien life routed out of the water.
+
+"The lights--smash the lights!" Hume ordered.
+
+Rynch understood. The lights had driven these attackers out of the
+river. Put out the lights and the boiling broth of water dwellers
+might conceivably return to their homes. He dropped the needler, took
+up stones and set about the business of finishing off as many of the
+lights as he could.
+
+Hume fired into the crawling mass, pausing only once to send another
+of those flame bombs crashing to illuminate the scene. The water
+creatures bewildered, clumsy out of their element, were so far at his
+mercy. But their numbers, in spite of the piling dead, were still a
+dangerous threat.
+
+Rynch tore gapping holes in that line of lights. But he could see,
+through the mist, more floating sparks, gathering to take their
+places, perhaps herding before them more water things to attack.
+Except for those few gaps he had wrought, the islet was now completely
+enveloped.
+
+"Ahhhh--" Hume's voice arose in a roar of anger and defiance. He
+stabbed his ray down at a spot just below their ledge. A huge
+segmented, taloned leg kicked, caught on the edge of the stone at the
+level of their feet, twisted aloft again and was gone.
+
+"Up!" Hume ordered. "To the top!"
+
+Rynch caught up two handsful of stones, holding them to his chest with
+his left arm as he made a last cast to see one light puff out in
+answer. Then they both scrambled on to that small platform at the top
+of the islet. By the aid of the burning flame-torches the Hunter had
+set, they could see that most of the rocky slopes below them now
+squirmed with a horrible mass of water life.
+
+Where Hume had fired his ray there was fierce activity, as the living
+feasted on the slain and quarreled over the bounty. But from other
+quarters the crawling advance pressed on.
+
+"I have only one more flame flare," Hume stated.
+
+One more flare--then they would be in the dark with the mist hiding
+the forward-moving enemy.
+
+"I wonder if they are watching out there?" Rynch scowled into the
+dark.
+
+"They--or what sent them. They know what they are doing."
+
+"You mean they must have done this before?"
+
+"I think so. That L-B back there--it made a good landing, and there
+are supplies missing from its lockers."
+
+"Which you removed--" Rynch countered.
+
+"No. There might have been real castaways landed here. Not that we
+found any trace of them. Now I can guess why--"
+
+"But you Guild men were here, and you didn't run into this!"
+
+"I know." Hume sounded baffled. "Not a sign then."
+
+Rynch threw the last of his stones, heard it clink harmlessly against
+a rock. Hume balanced an object on the palm of his hand.
+
+"Last flare!"
+
+"What's that? Over there?"
+
+Rynch had sighted the flashing out of the dark from the river bank,
+making a pattern of flickers which bore no relation to the infernal
+lights at the water's edge.
+
+Hume's ray tube pointed skyward as he answered with a series of short
+bursts.
+
+"Take cover!" The call came weirdly out over the water, the tone
+dehumanized. Hume cupped his mouth with one hand, shouted back:
+
+"We're on top--no cover."
+
+"Then flatten down--we're blasting!"
+
+They flattened, lay almost in each other's arms, curled on that narrow
+space. Even through his closed eyelids Rynch caught the flash of
+vivid, man-made lightning crashing first on one side of the islet and
+then on the other, and sweeping every crawling horror out of life,
+into odorous ash. The backlash of that blast must have caught the
+majority of the lights also. For when Rynch and Hume cautiously sat
+up, they saw only a handful of widely scattered and dulling globes
+below.
+
+They choked, coughed, rubbed watering eyes as the fumes from the
+scorched rocks wreathed up about their perch.
+
+"Flitter with life line--above you!"
+
+That voice had come out of what should have been empty air over their
+heads. A gangling line trailed across their bodies, a line with a
+safety belt locked to it, and a second was uncoiling in a slow loop as
+they watched.
+
+In unison they grabbed for those means of escape, buckled the belts
+about them.
+
+"Haul away!" Hume called. The lines tightened, their bodies swung up
+clear of the blasted river island, as their unseen transport headed
+for the eastern shore.
+
+
+
+
+8
+
+
+A subdued but steady light all around him issued from stark gray
+walls. He lay on his back in an empty cell-room. And he'd better be on
+the move before Darfu comes to enforce a rising order with a powerful
+kick or one of these backhanded blows which the Salarkian used to
+reduce most humans to helpless obedience.
+
+Vye blinked again. But this wasn't his cubby hole at the Starfall, his
+nose as well as his eyes told him that. There was no hint of
+uncleanliness or corruption here. He sat up stiffly, looked down at
+his own body in dull wonder. The only covering on his bare, brown self
+was a wide, scaled belt and a loin cloth. Clumsy sandals shod his
+feet, and his legs, up to thigh level, were striped with healing
+scratches and blotched with bruises.
+
+Painfully, with mental processes as stiff as his arms and his legs, he
+tried to think back. Sluggishly, memory associated one picture with
+another.
+
+Last night--or yesterday--Rynch Brodie had been locked in here. And
+"here" was one of the storage compartments of a spacer belonging to a
+man named Wass. It had been Wass' pilot in the flitter which snaked
+them from the river islet where the monsters had besieged them.
+
+This was a concealed, fortified camp--Wass' hideout. And he was a
+prisoner with a very uncertain future, depending upon the will of the
+Veep and a man named Hume.
+
+Hume, the Out-Hunter, had shown no surprise when Wass stood up in the
+lamplight to greet the rescued. "I see you have been hunting." His
+eyes had moved from Hume to Rynch and back again.
+
+"Yes--but that does not matter!" the Hunter had returned impatiently.
+
+"No? Then what does?"
+
+"This is not a free world, I have to report that. Get my civs off
+planet before something happens to them!"
+
+"I thought all safari worlds were certified as free," Wass countered.
+
+"This one isn't. I don't know how or why. But that fact has to be
+reported and the civs lifted--"
+
+"Not so fast." Wass' voice had been quiet, almost gentle. "Such a
+report would interest the Patrol, would it not?"
+
+"Of course--" Hume began and then stopped abruptly.
+
+Wass smiled. "You see--complications already. I do not wish to explain
+anything to the Patrol. Nor do you either, my young friend, not when
+you stop to think about what might result from such explanations."
+
+"There wouldn't have been any trouble if you'd kept away from Jumala."
+Hume's control had returned; both voice and manner were under tight
+rein. "Weren't Rovald's reports explicit enough to satisfy you?"
+
+"I have risked a great deal on this project," Wass replied. "Also, it
+is well from time to time for a Veep to check upon his field
+operatives. Men do not grow careless when personal supervision is ever
+in mind. And it is well that I did arrive here, is it not, Hunter? Or
+would you have preferred remaining on that island? Whether any of our
+project may be salvaged is a point we must consider. But for the
+moment we make no moves. No, Hume, your civs will have to take their
+chances for a time."
+
+"And if there is trouble?" Hume challenged him. "A report of an alien
+attack will bring in the Patrol quickly enough."
+
+"You forget Rovald," Wass corrected. "The chance that one of your civs
+can activate and transmit from the spacer is remote, and Rovald will
+see that it is impossible. You have picked up Brodie, I see."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"No!" What had possessed him at that moment to contradict? He had
+realized the folly of his outburst the moment Wass had looked at him.
+
+"This becomes more interesting," the Veep had remarked with that
+deceptive gentleness. "You are Rynch Brodie, castaway from the Largo
+Drift, are you not? I trust that Out-Hunter Hume has made plain to you
+our concern with your welfare, Gentlehomo Brodie."
+
+"I'm not Brodie." Having taken the leap into the dangerous truth he
+was stubborn enough to continue swimming.
+
+"I find this enlightening indeed. If you are not Brodie--then who are
+you?"
+
+That had been it. At that moment he couldn't have told Wass who he
+was, explain that his patchwork of memories had gaping holes.
+
+"And you, Out-Hunter," Wass' reptilian regard had moved again to Hume,
+"perhaps you have an adequate explanation for this discovery."
+
+"None of his doing," he burst out, "I remembered--"
+
+Some inexplicable emotion made Rynch defend Hume then.
+
+Hume laughed, and there was a reckless edge to that sound. "Yes, Wass,
+your techs are not as good as they pretend to be. He didn't follow the
+pattern of action they set for him."
+
+"A pity. But there are always errors when one deals with the human
+factor. Peake!" One of the other three men moved towards them. "You
+will escort this young man to the spacer, see him safely stowed for
+the present. Yes, a pity. Now we must see just how much can be
+salvaged."
+
+Then Vye had been brought into the shop, supplied with a ration
+container, and left to himself within this bare-walled cabin to
+meditate upon the folly of talking too freely. Why had he been so
+utterly stupid? Veeps of Wass' calibre did not swim through the murky
+channels of the Starfall, but their general breed had smaller but just
+as vicious representatives there, and he knew the man for what he was,
+ruthless, powerful and thorough.
+
+A sound, slight, but easily heard in the silent vacuum of the storage
+cabin, alerted him. The crack of the sliding panel door opened and Vye
+crouched, his hand cupping the only possible weapon, the ration
+container. Hume edged through, shut the door behind him. He stood
+there, his head turned so his ear rested against the wall; obviously
+he was listening.
+
+"You brain-smoothed idiot!" The Hunter's voice was a thread of
+whisper. "Why couldn't you have kept that swinging jaw of yours closed
+last night? Now listen and listen good. This is a slim try, but it's
+one we have to take."
+
+"We?" Vye was startled into asking.
+
+"Yes, we! By rights I ought to leave you right here to do the rest of
+your big, brave speechmaking for Wass' benefit. If I didn't need you,
+that's just what I would do! If it weren't for those civs--" His head
+snapped back, cheek to panel, he was listening again. After a long
+moment his whisper came once more. "I don't have time to repeat this.
+In about five minutes Peake'll be here with rations. I'll leave this
+door unlatched. There's another storage cabin across the corridor--see
+if you can hide there, then trick him into getting in here and lock
+him in. Got it?"
+
+Vye nodded.
+
+"Then--make for the exit port. Here." He snapped a packet loose from
+his belt. "This is a flare pak, you saw how they worked on the island.
+When you get on the ramp beyond the atom lamp, throw this. It should
+hit the camp force barrier. And the result ought to hold their
+attention. Then you head for the flitter. Understand?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+The flitter, yes, that was the perfect escape. With a camp force
+barrier on, any fugitive could only break out by going straight up.
+
+Hume gazed at him soberly, listened once more, and then went. Vye
+counted a slow five before he followed. The cabin across the corridor
+was open, just as Hume had promised. He slipped inside, waited.
+
+Peake was coming now, the metallic plates on his spaceboots clicking
+in regular pattern of sound. He earned another ration container and
+crooked it in his arm as he snapped up the lock bar on the other
+cabin.
+
+There was an exclamation of surprise. Vye went into action. His hand,
+backed by all the strength of his thrusting arm, thumped between
+Peake's shoulders, sending him staggering into the prison compartment.
+Before the other could recover either his balance or his wits, Vye had
+the panel shut, the bar locked into place.
+
+He ran down the corridor to the well ladder, swung down its rungs with
+an agility born of necessity. Then he was in the air lock, getting his
+bearings. The flitter stood to his left, the flashing atom lamp, where
+the men were gathered, to his right.
+
+Vye stepped out on the ramp. He wiped his sweating hand across his
+thigh. There had to be no failures in the tossing of the flare pak.
+
+Choosing a spot, not directly in line with the lamp but near enough to
+dazzle the men, he hurled it with all the force he could muster. Then
+he was running down the ramp, forward to the area of the ship.
+
+There was a flash--shouting--Vye curbed the impulse to look back,
+darted for the flitter. He jerked open the cabin compartment,
+scrambled into the cramped space behind the pilot's seat, leaving that
+free for Hume's quick entrance. More shouting--now he saw the lines of
+fire wavering from earth to sky along the barrier.
+
+A black shape put on a burst of speed, was silhouetted against that
+flaming wall, then passed the spacer, grabbed at the open cockpit, and
+slid in behind the controls. Hume pulled the levers with flying
+fingers. They arose vertically at a pace which practically slapped
+Vye's stomach up into the lower regions of his throat.
+
+The searing line of at least one blaster reached after them--too
+slowly, too low. He heard Hume grunt, and they again leaped higher.
+Then the Hunter spoke:
+
+"Half an hour at the most--"
+
+"The safari camp?
+
+"Yes."
+
+They no longer climbed. The flitter was boring forwards on a
+projectile flight, into the dark of the night.
+
+"What're those?" Vye suddenly leaned forward.
+
+Had some of the stars across the space void broken free from their
+fixed orbits? Flecks of light, moving in an arc, headed towards the
+speeding flitter.
+
+Hume hit a button. Again they arose in a violent leap above those
+wandering lights. But ahead on this new level more such dots flocked,
+moving fast to close in on the flyer.
+
+"A straight ram course," Hume muttered, more to himself than Vye.
+
+Again the flyer drove forward in a rising thrust of speed. Then the
+smooth purr of the propulsion unit faltered, broke into protesting
+coughs. Hume worked over the controls, beads of sweat showing on his
+forehead and cheek in the gleam of the cabin light.
+
+"Deading--deading out!"
+
+He brought the flitter around in a wide circle, the purr smoothed out
+once more in a steady reassuring beat.
+
+"Out run them!"
+
+But Vye feared they were back again on the losing side of a struggle
+with the unknown alien power. As they had been herded along the river,
+so now they were being pushed across the sky, towards the mountains.
+The enemy had followed them aloft!
+
+Some core of stubborn will in Hume would not yet allow him to admit
+that. Time and time again he climbed higher--always to meet climbing,
+twisting, spurting lines of lights which reacted on the engine of the
+flitter and threatened it with complete failure.
+
+Where they were now in relation to Wass' camp or that of the safari,
+Vye had no idea, and he guessed that Hume could not be too certain.
+
+Hume switched on the flitter's com unit, tried a channel search until
+he picked up a click of signal--the automatic reply of the safari
+camp. His fingertip beat out in return the danger warning, then the
+series of code sounds to give an edited version of what must be
+guarded against.
+
+"Wass has a man in your camp. His skin is in just as much danger as
+the rest. He may not relay it to the Patrol, but he'll keep the force
+barrier up and the civs inside--anything else would be malicious
+neglect and a murder charge when the Guild check tape goes in. This
+call is on the spacer tape now and will be a part of that--he can't
+possibly alter such a report and he knows it. This is the best we can
+do now--"
+
+"We're close to the mountains, aren't we?"
+
+"Do you know much about this part of the country?" Vye persisted.
+Hume's knowledge might be their only hope.
+
+"Flew over the range twice. Nothing to see."
+
+"But there has to be something there."
+
+"If there is, it didn't show up during our survey." Hume's voice was
+dull with fatigue.
+
+"You're a Guild man, you've dealt with alien life forms before--"
+
+"The Guild doesn't deal with intelligent aliens. That's X-Tee Patrol
+business. We don't land on any planet with unknown intelligent life
+forms. Why should we court trouble--couldn't run a safari in under
+those conditions. X-Tee certified Jumala as a wild world, our survey
+confirmed that."
+
+"Someone or something landed here after you left?"
+
+"I don't believe so. This is too well organized an action. And since
+we have a satellite guard in space, any ship landing would be taped
+and recorded. No such record appeared on the Guild screens. One small
+spacer--such as Wass'--could slip through by knowing procedure--just
+as he did. But to land all those beasts and equipment they'd need a
+regular transport. No--this must be native." Hume leaned forward
+again, flipped a switch.
+
+A small red light answered on the central board.
+
+"Radar warn-off," he explained.
+
+So they wouldn't end up smeared against some cliff face anyway. Which
+was only small comfort amid terrifying possibilities.
+
+Hume had taken the precaution just in time. The light blinked faster,
+and the speed of the flyer was checked as the automatic control
+triggered by the warn-off came into command. Hume's hands were still
+on the board, but a system of relays put safety devices into action
+with a speed past that which a human pilot could initiate.
+
+They were descending and had to accept that, since the warn-off,
+operating for the sake of the passengers, had ruled that move best.
+The directive would glide the flitter to the best available landing.
+It was only moments before the shock gear did touch surface. Then the
+engine was silent.
+
+"This is it," Hume observed.
+
+"What do we do now?" Vye wanted to know.
+
+"Wait--"
+
+"Wait! For what?"
+
+Hume consulted his planet-time watch in the light of the cabin.
+
+"We have about an hour until dawn--if dawn arrives here at the same
+time it does in the plains. I don't propose to go out blindly in the
+dark."
+
+Which made sense. Except that to sit here, quietly, in their cramped
+quarters, not knowing what might be waiting outside, was an ordeal Vye
+found increasingly harder to bear. Maybe Hume guessed his discomfort,
+maybe he was following routine procedure. But he turned, thumbed open
+one of the side panels in Vye's compartment, and dug out the emergency
+supplies.
+
+
+
+
+9
+
+
+They sorted the crash rations into small packs. A blanket of the
+water-resistant, feather-heavy Ozakian spider silk was cut into a
+protective covering for Vye. That piece of tailoring occupied them
+until the graying sky permitted them a full picture of the pocket in
+which the flitter had landed. The dark foliage of the mountain growth
+was broken here by a ledge of dark-blue stone on which the flyer
+rested.
+
+To the right was a sheer drop, and a land slip had cut away the ledge
+itself a few feet behind the flitter. There was only a steadily
+narrowing path ahead, slanting upward.
+
+"Can we take off again?" Vye hoped to be reassured that such a feat
+was possible.
+
+"Look up!"
+
+Vye backed against the cliff wall, stared up at the sky. Well above
+them those globes still swam in unwearied circles, commanding the air
+lanes.
+
+Hume had cautiously approached the outer rim of the ledge, was using
+his distance glasses to scan what might lie below.
+
+"No sign yet."
+
+Vye knew what he meant. The globes were overhead, but the blue beasts,
+or any other fauna those balls might summon, had not yet appeared.
+
+Shouldering their packs they started along the ledge. Hume had his ray
+tube, but Vye was weaponless, unless somewhere along their route he
+could pick up some defensive and offensive arm. Stones had burst the
+lights of the islet, they might prove as effective against the blue
+beasts. He kept watch for any of the proper size and weight.
+
+The ledge narrowed, one shoulder scraped the cliff now as they
+rounded a pinnacle to lose sight of the flitter. But the globes
+continued to hover over them.
+
+"We are still traveling in the direction they want," Vye speculated.
+
+Hume had gone to hands and knees to negotiate an ascent so steep he
+had to search for head and toe holds. When they were safely past that
+point they took a breather, and Vye glanced aloft again. Now the sky
+was empty.
+
+"We may have arrived, or are about to do so," said Hume.
+
+"Where?"
+
+Hume shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine. And both of us can be
+wrong."
+
+The steep ascent did not quite reach the top of the cliff around the
+face of which the ledge curled. Instead their path now leveled off and
+began to widen out so that they could walk with more confidence. Then
+it threaded into a crevice between two towering rock walls and sloped
+downward.
+
+A path unnaturally smooth, Vye thought, as if shaped to funnel
+wayfarers on. And they came out on the rim of a valley, a valley
+centered with a wood-encircled lake. They stepped from the rock of the
+passage onto a springy turf which gave elastically to their tread.
+
+Vye's sandal struck a round stone. It started from its bed in the
+black-green vegetation, turned over so that round pits stared
+eyelessly up at him. He was faced by the fleshless grin of a human
+skull.
+
+Hume went down on one knee, examined the ground growth, gingerly
+lifted the lace of vertebrae forming a spine. That ended in a crushed
+break which he studied briefly before he laid the bones gently back
+into the concealing cover of the mossy stuff.
+
+"That was done by teeth!"
+
+The cup of green valley had not changed, it was the same as it had
+been when they had emerged from the crevice. But now every clump of
+trees, every wind-rippled mound of brush promised cover.
+
+Vye moistened his lips, diverted his eyes from the skull.
+
+"Weathered," Hume said slowly, "must have been here for seasons, maybe
+planet years."
+
+"A survivor from the L-B?" Yet this spot lay days of travel from that
+clearing back in the plains.
+
+"How did he get here?"
+
+"Probably the same way we would have, had we not holed up on that
+river island."
+
+Driven! Perhaps the lone human on Jumala herded up into this dead-end
+valley by the globes or the blue beasts. "This process must have been
+in action for some time."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I can give you two reasons." Hume studied the nearest trees narrowly.
+"First--for some purpose, whatever we are up against wants all
+interlopers moved out of the lowlands into this section, either to
+imprison them, or to keep them under surveillance. Second--" He
+hesitated.
+
+Vye's own imagination supplied a second reason, a revolting one he
+tried to deny to himself even as he put it into words:
+
+"That broken spine--food...." Vye wanted Hume to contradict him, but
+the Hunter only glanced around, his expression already sufficient
+answer.
+
+"Let's get out of here!" Vye was fighting down panic with every ounce
+of control he could summon, trying not to bolt for the crevice. But he
+knew he could not force himself any farther into that sinister valley.
+
+"If we can!" Hume's words lingered direly in his ears.
+
+Stones had smashed the globes by the river. If they still waited out
+there Vye was willing to try and break them with his bare hands,
+should escape demand such action. Hume must have agreed with those
+thoughts, he was already taking long strides back to the cliff
+entrance.
+
+But that door was closed. Hume's foot, raised for the last step toward
+the crevice corridor, struck an invisible obstruction. He reeled back,
+clutching at Vye's shoulder.
+
+"Something's there!"
+
+The younger man put out his hand questingly. What his fingers
+flattened against was not a tight, solid surface, but rather an unseen
+elastic curtain which gave a little under his prodding and then drew
+taut again.
+
+Together they explored by touch what they could not see. The crevice
+through which they had entered was now closed with a curtain they
+could not pierce or break. Hume tried his ray tube. They watched thin
+flame run up and down that invisible barrier, but not destroy it.
+
+Hume relooped the tube. "Their trap is sprung."
+
+"There may be another way out!" But Vye was already despondently sure
+there was not. Those who had rigged this trap would leave no bolt
+holes. But because they were human and refused to accept the
+inevitable without a fight, the captives set off, not down into the
+curve of the cup, but along its slope.
+
+Tongues of brush and tree clumps brought about detours which forced
+them slowly downward. They were well away from the crevice when Hume
+halted, flung up a hand in silent warning. Vye listened, trying to
+pick up the sound which had alarmed his companion.
+
+It was as Vye strained to catch a betraying noise that he was first
+conscious of what he did not hear. In the plains there had been
+squeaking, humming, chitterings, the vocalizing of myriad grass
+dwellers. Here, except for the sighing of the wind and a few insect
+sounds--nothing. All inhabitants bigger than a Jumalan fly might have
+long ago been routed out of the land.
+
+"To the left." Hume faced about.
+
+There was a heavy thicket there, too stoutly grown for anything to be
+within its shadow. Whatever moved must be behind it.
+
+Vye looked about him frantically for anything he could use as a
+weapon. Then he grabbed at the long bush knife in Hume's belt sheath.
+Eighteen inches of tri-fold steel gleamed wickedly, its hilt fitting
+neatly into his fist as he held it point up, ready.
+
+Hume advanced on the bush in small steps, and Vye circled to his left
+a few paces behind. The Hunter was an expert with ray tube; that, too,
+was part of the necessary skill of a safari leader. But Vye could
+offer other help.
+
+He shrugged out of the blanket pack he had been carrying on his back,
+tossed that burden ahead.
+
+Out of cover charged a streak of red, to land on the bait. Hume
+blasted, was answered by a water-cat's high-pitched scream. The feline
+writhed out of its life in a stench of scorched fur and flesh. As Vye
+retrieved his clawed pack Hume stood over the dead animal.
+
+"Odd." He reached down to grasp a still twitching foreleg, stretched
+the body out with a sudden jerk.
+
+It was a giant of its species, a male, larger than any he had seen.
+But a second look showed him those ribs starting through mangy fur in
+visible hoops, the skin tight over the skull, far too tight. The
+water-cat had been close to death by starvation; its attack on the men
+probably had been sparked by sheer desperation. A starving carnivore
+in a land lacking the normal sounds of small birds and animal life, in
+a valley used as a trap.
+
+"No way out and no food." Vye fitted one thought to another out loud.
+
+"Yes. Pin the enemy up, let them finish off one another."
+
+"But why?" Vye demanded.
+
+"Least trouble that way."
+
+"There are plenty of water-cats down on the plains. All of them
+couldn't be herded up here to finish each other off; it would take
+years--centuries."
+
+"This one's capture may have been only incidental, or done for the
+purpose of keeping some type of machinery in working order," Hume
+replied. "I don't believe this was arranged just to dispose of
+water-cats."
+
+"Suppose this was started a long time ago, and those who did it are
+gone, so now it goes on working without any real intelligence behind
+it. That could be the answer, couldn't it?"
+
+"Some process triggers into action when a ship sets down on this
+portion of Jumala, maybe when one planet's under certain conditions
+only? Yes, that makes sense. Only why wasn't the first Patrol explorer
+flaming in here caught? And the survey team--we were here for months,
+cataloguing, mapping, not a whisper of any such trouble."
+
+"That dead man--he's been here a long time. And when did the Largo
+Drift disappear?"
+
+"Five--six years ago. But I can't give you any answers. I have none."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It began as a low hum, hardly to be distinguished from the distant
+howling of the wind. Then it slid up scale until the thin wail became
+an ululating scream torturing the ears, dragging out of hiding those
+fears of a man confronting the unknown in the dark.
+
+Hume tugged at Vye, drew the other by force back into the brush.
+Scratched, laced raw by the whip of branches, they stood in a small
+hollow with the drift of leaves high about their ankles. And the
+Hunter pulled into place the portions of growth they had dislodged in
+their passage into the thicket's heart. Through gaps they could see
+the opening where lay the body of the water-cat.
+
+The wail was cut off short, that cessation in itself a warning. Vye's
+body, touching earth with knee and hand as he crouched, picked up a
+vibration. Whatever came towards them walked heavily.
+
+Did the smell of death draw it now? Or had it trailed them from the
+closed gate? Hume's breath hissed lightly between his teeth. He was
+sighting the ray tube through a leaf gap.
+
+A snuffling, heavier than a man's panting. A vast blot, which was
+neither clearly paw nor hand, swept aside leaves and branches on the
+other side of the small clearing, tearing them casually from the
+shrubs.
+
+What shuffled into the open might be a cousin of the blue beasts. But
+where they had given only an impression of brutal menace, this was
+savagery incarnate. Taller than Hume, but hunched forward in its
+neckless outline, the thing was a monster. And over the round of the
+lower jaw, tusks protruded in ugly promise.
+
+Being carnivorous and hungry, it scooped up the body of the water-cat
+and fed without any prolonged ceremony. Vye, remembering the crushed
+spine of the human skeleton, was sickened.
+
+Done, it reared on hind feet once again, the pear-shaped head swung in
+their direction. Vye was half certain he had seen that tube-nose
+expand to test the air and scent them.
+
+Hume pressed the button of the ray tube. That soundless spear of death
+struck in midsection of that barrel body. The thing howled, threw
+itself in a mad forward rush at their bush. Hume snapped a second
+blast at the head, and the fuzz covering it blackened.
+
+Missing them by a precious foot, the creature crashed straight on
+through the thicket, coming to its knees, writhing in a rising chorus
+of howls. The men broke out of cover, raced into the open where they
+took refuge behind a chimney of rock half detached from the parent
+cliff. Down the slope the bushes were still wildly agitated.
+
+"What was that?" Vye got out between sobbing breaths.
+
+"Maybe a guardian, or a patrol stationed to dispose of any catch.
+Probably not alone, either." Hume fingered his ray tube. "And I am
+down to one full charge--just one."
+
+Vye turned the knife he held around in his fingers, tried to imagine
+how one could face up to one of those tusked monsters with only this
+for a weapon. But if that thing had companions, none were coming in
+answer to its dying wails. And after it had been quiet for a while
+Hume motioned them out of hiding.
+
+"From now on we'll keep to the open, better see trouble like that
+before it arrives. And I want to find a place to hole up for the
+night."
+
+They trailed along the steep upper slope and in time found a place
+where a now dried stream had once formed a falls. The empty
+watercourse provided an overhang, not quite a cave, but shelter.
+Gathering brush and stones, they made a barricade and settled behind
+it to eat sparingly of their rations.
+
+"Water--a whole lake of it down there. The worst of it is that a water
+supply in a dry country is just where hunters congregate. That lake's
+entirely walled in by woodland and provides cover for a thousand
+ambushes."
+
+"We might find a way out before our water bulbs fail," Vye offered.
+
+Hume did not answer directly. "A man can live for quite a while on
+very thin rations, and we have tablets from the flitter emergency
+supplies. But he can't live long without water. We have two bulbs.
+With stretching that is enough for two days--maybe three."
+
+"We ought to get completely around the cliffs in another day."
+
+"And if we do find a way out, which I doubt, we're still going to need
+water for the trek out. It's right down there waiting until our need
+is greater than either our fear or our cunning."
+
+Vye moved impatiently, his blanket-clad shoulders scraping the rock at
+their backs. "You don't think we have a chance!"
+
+"We aren't dead. And as long as a man is breathing, and on his feet,
+with all his wits in his skull, he always has a chance. I've blasted
+off-world with odds stacked high on the other side of the board." He
+flexed that plasta-flesh hand which was so nearly human and yet not by
+the fraction which had changed the course of his life. "I've lived on
+the edge of the big blackout for a long time now--after a while you
+can get used to anything."
+
+"One thing I would like--to get at the one who set this trap,"
+commented Vye.
+
+Hume laughed with dry humor. "After me, boy, after me. But I think we
+might have to wait a long time for that meeting."
+
+
+
+
+10
+
+
+Vye crawled weakly from the area of a rock outcrop. The sun, reflected
+from the cliff side, was a lash of fire across his emaciated body. His
+swollen tongue moved a pebble back and forth in his dry mouth. He
+stared dimly down the slope to that beckoning platter of water open
+under the sun, rimmed with the deadly woodland.
+
+What had happened? They had gone to sleep that first night under the
+ledge of the dried waterfall. And all of the next day was only a haze
+to him now. They must have moved on, though he could remember nothing,
+save Hume's odd behavior--dull-eyed silence while stumbling on as a
+brainless servio-robot, incoherent speech wherein all the words came
+fast, running together unintelligibly. And for himself--patches of
+blackout.
+
+At some time they had come to the cave and Hume had collapsed, not
+rousing in answer to any of Vye's struggles to awaken him. How long
+they had been there Vye could not tell now. He had the fear of being
+left alone in this place. With water perhaps Hume could be returned to
+consciousness, but that was all gone.
+
+Vye believed he could scent the lake, that every breeze up slope
+brought its compelling enticement. Just in case Hume might awake to a
+state of semi-consciousness and wander off, Vye tethered him with
+blanket bonds.
+
+Vye fingered Hume's knife, which had been painstakingly lashed to a
+trimmed shaft of wood. Since he had emerged from that clouding of mind
+which still gripped the Hunter, he had done what he could to prepare
+for another attack from any roving beast. And he also had Hume's ray
+tube--its single charge to be used only in dire need.
+
+Water! His cracked lips moved, ejected the pebble. Their four empty
+water bulbs were in the front of his blanket tunic, pressing against
+his ribs. It was now--or die, because soon he would be too weak to
+make the attempt at all. He darted for the first stand of bush
+downhill.
+
+As the brooding silence of the valley continued, he reached the edge
+of the wood unhindered, intent on his mission with a concentration
+which shut out everything save his need and the manner of satisfying
+it.
+
+He squatted in the bush, eyeing the length of woodland ahead. Then he
+tried the only action he had been able to think out. That beast Hume
+had killed had been too heavy to swing up in trees. But Vye's own
+weight now did not prohibit that form of travel.
+
+With spear and ray tube firmly attached to him, Vye climbed into the
+first tree. A slim chance--but his only defense against a possible
+ambush. A wild outward swing brought him, heart-thudding, to the next
+set of limbs. Then he had a piece of luck, a looped vine tied together
+a whole group of branches from one treetop to the next.
+
+Hand grips, balance, sometimes a walk along a branch--he threaded
+towards the lake. Then he came to a gap. With hands laced into
+tendrils, Vye hunched to look down on a beaten ribbon of gray earth--a
+trail well used by the evidence of its pounded surface.
+
+That area had to be crossed on foot, but his passage through the brush
+below would leave traces. Only--there was no other way. Vye checked
+the lashings of his weapons again before leaping. Almost in the same
+instant his sandals hit the packed earth he was running. His palms
+skinned raw on rough bark as he somehow scrambled aloft once more.
+
+No more vines, but broad limbs shooting well out. He dropped from one
+to another-stopped for breath--listened.
+
+The dark gloom of the wood was broken by sunlight. He was at the final
+ring of trees. To get to the water he must descend again. A dead trunk
+extended over the water. If he could run out on that and lower the
+bulb, it could work.
+
+Eerie silence. No flying things, no tree dwelling reptiles or animals,
+no disturbance of any water creature on the unruffled surface of the
+lake. Yet the sensation of life, inimical life, lurking in the depths
+of the wood, under the water, bore in upon him.
+
+Vye made the light leap to the bole of the dead tree, balanced out on
+it over the water, moving slowly as the trunk settled a little under
+his weight. He hunkered down, brought out the first bulb tied fast to
+a blanket string.
+
+The water of the river had been brown, opaque. But here the liquid was
+not so cloudy. He could see snags of dead branches below its surface.
+
+And something else!
+
+Down in those turgid depths he made out a straight ridge running with
+a trueness of line which could not be nature's unassisted product.
+That ridge joined another in a squared corner. He leaned over,
+strained his eyes to follow through the murk the farther extent of
+those two ridges. Looked along both pointed protuberances aimed at the
+surfaces of the lake, like fangs in an open jaw. Down there was
+something--something artificially fashioned which might be the answer
+to all their questions. But to venture into the lake himself--he could
+not do it! If he could bring the Out-Hunter to his senses the other
+might find the solution to this puzzle.
+
+Vye filled his bulbs, working speedily, but still studying what he
+could see of the strange erection under the lake. He thought it was
+curiously free of silt, and its color, as far as he could distinguish,
+allowing for the dark hue of the water, was light gray--perhaps even
+white. He lowered his last bulb.
+
+Down in the bleached forest of dead branches, well to one side of the
+mysterious walls, there was movement, a slow rolling of a shadow so
+hidden by a stirring of bottom mud that Vye could not make out its
+true form. But it was rising to the bulb.
+
+Vye hated to lose a single precious drop. Once he might have the luck
+to make this journey unmolested, a second time the odds could be too
+high.
+
+A flash--the slowly rising shadow was transformed into a whizzing
+spear of attack. Vye snapped the bulb out of the water just as a
+nightmarish, armored head arose on a whiplash of coiled, scaled neck,
+and a blunt nose thudded against the tree trunk with a hollow boom.
+Vye clung to his perch as the thing flopped back into deeper water
+from a froth of beaten foam, leaving a patch of odorous scum and slime
+to bracelet the waterlogged wood.
+
+He ran for the shelter of the trees to get away. This time there was
+no rear, no thump of feet in warning. Out of the ground itself, or so
+it seemed to Vye's startled terror, reared one of the tusked beasts.
+To reach his tree and its dubious safety he had to wind past that
+chimera. And the creature waited with a semblance of ease for him to
+come to it.
+
+Vye brought around his spear. The length of the haft might afford him
+a fighting chance if he could send the point home in some vulnerable
+spot. Yet he knew that the beasts were hard to kill.
+
+The mouth opened in a wide grin of menace. Vye noted a telltale
+tightening of shoulder muscles. It was going to rush for him now with
+those clawed forepaws out to rip.
+
+To wait was to court disaster. Vye shouted, his battle cry piercing
+the silence of the lake and wood. He sprang, aiming the spear point at
+the beast's protuberant belly, and then swerved to the side as the
+knife bit home, raking his weapon to open a gaping wound.
+
+The spear was jerked from Vye's hold as both those taloned paws closed
+on it. Then the creature pulled it free, snapped the haft in two. Vye
+fired a short blast from the ray tube before it could turn on him, saw
+fur-fuzz afire, as he ran for the tree.
+
+Beneath its branches he looked back. The beast was pawing at the
+burning fur on its head, and he had perhaps a second or two. He jumped
+and his fingers caught on the low hanging branch, then he made a
+superhuman effort, was up out of the path of the thing which rushed
+blindly for the tree, shrieking in frenzied complaint.
+
+The huge body crashed against the trunk with force which nearly shook
+Vye from his hold. As the giant forepaws belabored the wood, strove to
+lift the body from the ground, Vye worked his way out on another
+branch. In the end it was the shaking of that limb under him which
+aided his swing to the next tree. And from there he traveled
+recklessly, intent only on getting out of the woods as fast as he
+could.
+
+By the noise the beast was still assaulting the tree, and Vye marveled
+at its vitality, for the belly wound would long ago have killed any
+creature he knew. Whether it could trace his flight aloft, or whether
+its howls would bring more of its kind, he could not guess, but every
+second he could gain was all important now.
+
+At the gap over the trail he hesitated. That path ran in the direction
+of the open, and to go on foot meant the possibility of greater speed.
+Vye slipped from the bough, hit the ground, and ran. His ragged
+lungsful of air came in great gasps and he doubted if he could take
+the exertion of more tree travel now. He raced down the path.
+
+Those mewling cries were louder, he was sure of it. Now he heard the
+thump of the beast's blundering pursuit behind him. But its bulk and
+hurts slowed it. In the open he could find cover behind a rock, use
+the ray again.
+
+The trees began to thin. Vye summoned power for a last burst of speed,
+came out of the shadow of the wood as might a dart expelled from a
+needler. Before him, up slope, was the closed door of the valley. And
+moving in from the left was another of the blue beasts.
+
+He could not retreat to the trees. But the newcomer was moving with
+the same ponderous self-confidence its fellow had shown earlier. Vye
+dodged right, headed for the rocks by the gap. As he pulled himself
+into that temporary fortification, the wounded beast dragged out of
+the woods below. He thought it was blind, yet some instinct drove it
+after him.
+
+Shaking from fatigue, Vye steadied his forearm on the top of the rock,
+brought up the ray tube. Less than two yards away now was the
+deceptively open mouth of the gap. If he threw himself at that, would
+the elasticity of the unseen curtain hurl him back into the claws of
+the enemy?
+
+He fired his blast at the head of the unwounded beast. It screeched,
+threw out its arms, and one of those paws struck against its wounded
+fellow. With a cry, that one flung itself at its companion in the
+hunt, and they tangled in a body-to-body battle terrible in its utter
+ferocity. Vye edged along the cliff determined to reach the cave and
+Hume. And the two blue things seemed intent on finishing each other
+off.
+
+The one from the wood was done, the fangs of the other ripping out its
+throat. Tearing viciously the victor made sure of its kill, then its
+seared head came up, swung about to face Vye. He guessed it was aware
+of his movements whether it could see or not.
+
+But he was not prepared for the speed of its attacking lunge.
+Heretofore the creatures had given the impression of brute strength
+rather than agility. And he had been almost fatally deceived. He
+jumped backwards, knowing he must elude that attack, for he could not
+survive hand-to-hand combat with the alien thing.
+
+There was a moment of dazed disorientation, a weird sensation of
+falling through unstable space in which there had never been and never
+would be firm footing again. He was rolling across rock--outside the
+curtain of the gap.
+
+He sat up, the feeling of being adrift in unmeasurable nothingness
+making him sick, to watch mistily as the blue beast came to a halt.
+Whimpering it turned, but before it reached the level of the woods, it
+sagged to its knees, fell face forward and was still, a destructive
+machine no longer controlled by life.
+
+Vye tried to understand what had happened. He had somehow broken
+through that barrier which made the valley a prison. For a moment all
+that mattered was his freedom. Then he looked apprehensively behind
+him along the road to the open, more than half expecting to see a
+gathering of the globes, or of the less impressive lowland beasts that
+acted as herders. But there was nothing.
+
+Freedom! He dragged himself to his feet. Free to go! He slipped Hume's
+ray tube back into his belt. Hume was still in the valley!
+
+Vye rubbed his shaking hands across his face. Through the barrier and
+free--but Hume was back there, without a weapon, defenseless against
+any questing beast able to nose him out. Sickly, without water and
+protection, he was a dead man even while he still breathed.
+
+Keeping one hand against the wall of the gap in support, Vye started
+to walk, not out of the gap towards the distant lowlands, but back
+into the valley, forcing himself to that by his will alone and
+screaming inside against such suicidal folly. He put out his hand
+tentatively when he reached the two points of rock where that curtain
+had hung. There was no obstruction--the barrier was down! He must get
+back to Hume.
+
+Still keeping his wall hold, Vye lurched through the gate, was once
+more in the valley. He stood swaying, listening. But once again there
+was silence, not even the wind moved through trees or bushes. Placing
+one foot carefully before the other he went on towards Hume's cave.
+The haze which had clouded his thinking processes since that first
+morning's awakening in this bowl was gone now. Except for the physical
+weakness that weighted his body, he felt once more entirely alive and
+alert.
+
+Wriggling in the cave's entrance was the Hunter. He had freed the
+bonds Vye had put on his legs, but his hands were still tied. His
+face, grimy, sweat-covered, was turned up to the sunlight, and his
+eyes were again bright with reason.
+
+Vye found the strength to run the last few feet between them. He was
+fumbling with those ties about Hume's wrists as he blurted out the
+news. The barrier was out--they could go.
+
+Then he was bringing one of those precious bulbs, raising it to Hume's
+eager mouth, squeezing a portion of its contents between the man's
+cracked and bleeding lips.
+
+Somehow they made that trip back to the valley gate. When they saw
+their goal, Hume broke from Vye's hold, tottered forward with a cry
+not far removed from a sob. He rebounded to slip full length to the
+ground and lie there. Sobbing dryly, his gaunt face, eyes closed,
+turned up to the sky. The trap had snapped shut once again.
+
+"Why--why?" Vye found he was repeating the same words over and over,
+his gaze blank, unfocussed, yet turned to the woods of the lake.
+
+"Tell me what happened again."
+
+Vye's head came around. Hume had pulled himself up so that his
+shoulders rested against the rock wall. His plasta-hand was out-flung,
+slipping up and down what seemed empty air, but which was the barrier
+against freedom. And now his eyes seemed entirely sane.
+
+Slowly, hesitating between words, Vye went over the full account of
+his visit to the lake, his retreat before the beasts, his fortunate
+stumble through the gap.
+
+"But you came back."
+
+Vye flushed. He was not going to try to explain that. Instead he said:
+
+"If it went away once, it can again."
+
+Hume did not press the subject of his return. Rather he fastened upon
+the end of that action with the wounded beast, made Vye go through it
+verbally a third time.
+
+"There is just this," he said when the other was done. "When you fell
+you were not thinking of the barrier at all--and your wits were
+working again. You had come out of the daze we both had."
+
+Vye tried to remember, decided that the Hunter was correct. He had
+been trying to elude the charge of the beast, only, fear and that
+desperate desire had occupied his mind at that moment. But what did
+that signify?
+
+To test just what he did not know, he crawled now to Hume's side, put
+up his own hand to the space where the plasta-flesh palm slid back and
+forth on nothingness. But he almost fell on his face, forward into the
+gap. Where he had been expecting the resistance of the unseen curtain
+there had been nothing at all! He turned to Hume with the expression
+of a man who had been stunned by an unexpected blow.
+
+
+
+
+11
+
+
+"It is open for you!" Hume broke the quiet first. His eyes were very
+bleak in his bony face.
+
+Vye stood up, took one step and was on the other side of the curtain
+where Hume's hand still found substance. He came back with the same
+lack of hindrance. Yes, to him there was no longer a barrier. But
+why--why him when Hume was still a prisoner?
+
+The Hunter raised his head so his eyes could meet Vye's with the
+authority of an order. "Go, get away while you can!"
+
+Instead Vye dropped down beside the other. "Why?" he asked baldly. And
+then the most obvious of all answers came.
+
+He glanced at Hume. The Hunter's head lolled back against the rock
+which supported him, his eyes were closed now, and he had the look of
+a man who had been driven to the edge of endurance and was now willing
+to relinquish his grip and let go.
+
+Deliberately Vye brought up his right hand, balled his fingers into a
+fist. And just as deliberately he struck home, square on the point of
+that defenseless chin. Hume sagged, would have slipped down the
+surface of the rock had Vye's hands not caught in his armpits.
+
+Since he had not the strength left to get to his feet with such a
+burden, Vye crawled, dragging the inert body of the Hunter with him.
+And this time, as he had hoped, there was no resistance at the gap.
+Unconscious, Hume was able to cross the barrier. Vye stretched him as
+comfortably flat as he could, used a portion of their water on his
+face until he moaned, muttered, and raised his hand feebly to his
+head.
+
+Then those gray eyes opened, focussed on Vye.
+
+"What--"
+
+"We're both through now, both of us!" The younger man saw Hume glance
+around him with waking belief.
+
+"But how--?"
+
+"I knocked you out, that's how," Vye returned.
+
+"Knocked me out? I crossed when I was unconscious!" Hume's voice
+steadied, strengthened. "Let me see!" He rolled over on his side,
+threw out his arm, and this time the hand found no wall. For him, too,
+the barrier was gone.
+
+"Once through, you are free," he added wonderingly. "Maybe they never
+foresaw any escapes." He struggled up, sitting with his hands hanging
+loosely between his knees.
+
+Vye turned his head, looked down the trail. The length of distance
+lying between them and the safari camp now faced them with a new
+problem. Neither of them could make that trek on foot.
+
+"We're out, but we aren't back--yet," Hume echoed his thought.
+
+"I was wondering, if _this_ door is open--" Vye began.
+
+"The flitter!" Again Hume's mind matched his. "Yes, if those globes
+aren't hanging around just waiting for us to try."
+
+"They might act only to get us here, not to keep us once we're in."
+That might be wishful thinking, they wouldn't know until they tried to
+prove it.
+
+"Give me a hand." Hume held out his own, let Vye pull him to his feet.
+Weak as he was, he was clear-eyed, plainly clear-headed once more.
+"Let's go!"
+
+Together they went back through the gap, then tested the absence of
+the barrier once more, to make sure. Hume laughed. "At least the front
+door remains open, even if we find the back one closed."
+
+Vye left him sitting by that entrance while he made a quick trip to
+the cave to pick up the small pack of supplies left them. When he
+returned they crammed tablets into their mouths, drank feverishly of
+the lake water, and, with the stimulation of the new energy, set off
+along the cliff face.
+
+"This wall in the lake," Hume asked suddenly, "you are sure it is
+artificial?"
+
+"Runs too straight to be anything else, and those projections are
+evenly spaced. I don't see how it could be natural."
+
+"We'll have to be sure."
+
+Vye thought of that attacking water creature. "No diving in there," he
+protested. Hume smiled, a stretch of skin far too tight over his jaw
+now.
+
+"Not us, at least not us now," he agreed. "But the Guild will send
+another survey."
+
+"What could be the reason for all this?" Vye helped his companion over
+the loose debris of a cliff slide.
+
+"Information."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Someone--or something--picked our brains while we were out of our
+heads. Or--" Hume paused suddenly, looked directly at Vye. "I have a
+vague feeling that you were able to keep going a lot better than I
+was. That so?"
+
+"Some of the time," Vye admitted.
+
+"That checks. Part of me knew what was going on, but was helpless
+while that other thing," his smile of moments earlier was wiped away,
+there was a chill edge in his voice, "picked over my brains, sorted
+out what it wanted."
+
+Vye shook his head. "I didn't feel that way. Just thick-headed--as if
+I were sleep walking and yet awake."
+
+"So it took me over, but didn't go all the way with you. Why? Another
+question for our list."
+
+"Maybe--maybe Wass' techs fixed it so I couldn't be brain-picked, as
+you call it," Vye offered.
+
+Hume nodded. "Could be--would well be. Come on." He pressed the pace
+now.
+
+Vye turned to look down the slope suspiciously. Had Hume another
+warning of menace out of the wood? He could sight no movement there.
+And from this distance the lake was a topaz sheet of calm which could
+hide anything. Hume was already several paces ahead, scrambling as if
+the valley monsters were again on their track.
+
+"What's the matter?" Vye demanded, as he caught up.
+
+"Night coming." Which was true. Then Hume added, "If we can reach the
+flitter before sunset, we'll have a chance to fly over the lake down
+there, to make a taping of it before we go."
+
+The energy of the tablets strengthened them so that by the time they
+reached the crevice door they were moving with their former agility.
+For a single second Hume hesitated before that slit, almost as if he
+feared the test he must make. Then he stepped forward and this time
+into freedom.
+
+They reached the ledge where the flitter perched just as they had seen
+it last. How long ago that had been they could not have told, but they
+suspected that days of haze hung in between. Vye searched the sky. No
+globes winking there--just the flyer alone.
+
+He took his old seat behind the pilot, watched Hume test the relays
+and responses in the quick run down of a man who has done this chore
+many times before. But the other gave a little sigh of relief when he
+finished.
+
+"She's all right, we can lift."
+
+Again they both looked aloft, half fearing to see those malignant
+herders wink into being to forbid flight. But the sky was as serenely
+clear of even a drifting cloud as they could hope. Hume pressed a
+button and they arose vertically with an even progress totally unlike
+the leap which had taken them out of Wass' camp.
+
+Well above the cliff wall they hovered, and were able to see below the
+round bowl of the valley prison. Hume touched controls, the flitter
+descended slowly just above the center of the lake. And from this
+position they were able to sight the other peculiarity of that body of
+water, that it was perfectly oval in shape, far too perfect to be an
+undeveloped product of nature. Hume took a round disk from his
+equipment belt, fitted it carefully into a slot on the control board
+and pressed the button below. Then he sent the flitter in a weaving
+zigzag course well above the surface of the water, so that eventually
+the flyer passed over every foot of its surface.
+
+And from above, in spite of the turgid quality of the liquid, they
+could see what did rest on the bottom of that oval. The wall with its
+sharp corner which Vye had noted from shore level was only part of a
+water covered erection. It made a design when seen from overhead, a
+six-pointed star surrounding an oval and in the midst of that oval a
+black blot which they could not identify.
+
+Hume brought the flitter over in one last sweep. "That's it. We have a
+full taping."
+
+"What do you think it is?"
+
+"A device set there by an intelligent being, and set a long time ago.
+This valley wasn't arranged over night, six months ago--or even a year
+ago. We'll have to let the experts tell us when and for what reason.
+Now, let's head for home!"
+
+He brought the flitter up and over the valley wall, flying southwest
+so that they passed over the gap which was the main entrance to the
+trap. And now he tried the com unit, endeavoring to pick up a signal
+on which they could beam in for a safe ride.
+
+"That's odd." Under Hume's control the direction finder passed back
+and forth without bringing any answering code click from the mike. "We
+may be too far in the mountains to pick up the beam. I wonder...." He
+swept the needle in another direction, slightly to the left.
+
+A crackle spat from the mike. Vye could not read code but the very
+fury and intensity of that sound suggested panic--even terror.
+
+"What's that?"
+
+Hume spoke without looking away from the control board. "Alarm."
+
+"From the safari?"
+
+"No. Wass." For a long second Hume sat very still, his fingers quiet.
+The flitter was on the automatic course, taking them out of the
+mountains, and Vye thought that their air speed was such they were
+already well removed from that sinister valley.
+
+Hume made a slight adjustment to a dial, and the flitter banked,
+coming around on another course. Once more he spun the finder of the
+com. This time he was answered with a series of well-spaced clicks
+which lacked the urgency of that other call. Hume listened until the
+code rattled into silence again.
+
+"They're all right at the safari camp."
+
+"But Wass is in trouble. So what does that matter?" Vye wanted to
+know.
+
+"It matters this much." Hume spoke slowly as if he must convince
+himself as well as Vye. "I'm the Guild man on Jumala, and the Guild
+man is responsible for all civs."
+
+"You can't call him your client!"
+
+Hume shook his head. "No, he's no client. But he's human."
+
+It narrowed down to that when a man was on the frontier worlds--humans
+stood together. Vye wanted to deny it, but his own emotions, as well
+as the centuries of age-old tradition, argued him down. Wass was a
+Veep, one of the criminal parasites dabbling in human misery along
+more than one solar lane. But he was also human and, as one of their
+own species, had his claim on them.
+
+Vye watched Hume take over the controls, felt the flitter answer
+another change of course, then heard the frantic yammer of the
+distress call as they leveled off to ride its beam in to the hidden
+camp.
+
+"Automatic." Hume had turned down the volume of the receiver so that
+the clicks in the mike no longer were so strident. "Set on maximum and
+left that way."
+
+"They had a force barrier around the camp and they knew about the
+globes and the watchers." Vye tried to imagine what had happened in
+that woods clearing.
+
+"The barrier might have shorted. And without the flitter they would
+have been pinned."
+
+"Could have taken off in the spacer."
+
+"Wass doesn't have the reputation of letting any project get out of
+his hands."
+
+Vye remembered. "Oh--your billion credit deal."
+
+To his surprise Hume laughed. "Seems all very far and out of orbit
+now, doesn't it, Lansor? Yes, our billion credit deal--but that was
+thought out before we knew there were more players around the table
+than we counted. I wonder...."
+
+But what he wondered he did not put into words and a moment later he
+added over his shoulder, "Better try to get some rest, boy. We've some
+time to a set-down."
+
+Vye did sleep, deeply, dreamlessly. And he roused after a gentle
+shaking to see a beam of light in the sky ahead, though around them
+was the solid darkness of night.
+
+"That's a warning," Hume explained. "And I can't raise any reply from
+the camp except a repeat of the distress call. If there is anyone
+there now, he can't or won't answer."
+
+Against that column of light they could make out the sky-pointed taper
+of the spacer and the auto-pilot landed them beside that ship in the
+middle of an area well lighted by the steady shaft of light from the
+tripod standing where the atom lamp had been on the night they had
+made their escape from camp.
+
+Climbing stiffly from the small flyer they advanced with caution. A
+very few minutes later Hume slid his ray tube back into its belt loop.
+
+"Unless they've holed up in the spacer--and I can't see why they'd do
+that--this camp's deserted. And they haven't taken any equipment with
+them except maybe a few items they could back-pack."
+
+The ship proved as empty of life as the campsite. A wall seat pulled
+out too hastily so that it was jammed awry, the com cabin suggested
+that the leave-taking, when and for what reason, had been a matter of
+some emergency. Hume did not touch the tape set to keep on
+broadcasting the call for assistance.
+
+"What now?" Vye wanted to know as they completed the search.
+
+"The safari camp first--and a call for the Patrol."
+
+"Look here," Vye set down the ration container he had found, was
+emptying it with vast satisfaction of one who had been too long on
+tablets, "if you beam the Patrol you'll have to talk, won't you?"
+
+Hume went on fitting new charges into his ray tube. "The Patrol has to
+have a full report. There's no way of bypassing that. Yes, we'll have
+to give all the story. You needn't worry." He snapped closed the load
+chamber. "I can clear you all the way. You're the victim, remember."
+
+"I wasn't thinking about that."
+
+"Boy." Hume tossed the tube up in the air, caught it in his
+plasta-hand. "I went into this deal with my eyes wide open--why
+doesn't matter very much now. In fact," he stared beyond Vye out into
+the empty, lighted camp, "I've begun to wonder about a lot of
+things--maybe too late. No--we'll call the Patrol and we'll do it not
+because it is Wass and his men out there, but because we're human and
+they're human, and there's a nasty set-up here which has already
+sucked in other humans for its own purposes."
+
+The skeleton in the valley! And how very close they had been
+themselves to joining that unknown in his permanent residence.
+
+"So now we make time--back to the safari camp. Get our message off to
+the Patrol and then we'll try to trace Wass and see what we can do.
+Jumala is off a regular route. The Patrol won't be here tomorrow at
+sunrise, no matter how much we wish a scouter would planet then."
+
+Vye was quiet as he stowed in the flitter again. As Hume had said,
+events moved fast. A little while ago he had wanted to settle with
+this Out-Hunter, wring out of him not only an explanation for his
+being here, but claim satisfaction for the humiliation of being moved
+about to suit some others' purposes. Now he was willing to defeat
+Wass, bring in the Patrol, go up against whatever hid in that lake up
+there, providing Hume was not the loser. He tried to think why that
+was so and could not, he only knew it was the truth.
+
+They were both silent as they took off from Wass' deserted camp, sped
+away over the black blot of the woodland towards the safari
+headquarters on the plains. There were stars above again but no
+globes. Just as they had won their freedom from the valley, so they
+moved without escort on the plains.
+
+But the lights were there--not impinging on the flitter, or patrolling
+along its line of flight. No, they hung in a glowing cluster ahead
+when in the dawn the flitter shot away from the woods, headed for the
+landmark of the safari camp. A crown of lights circled over the camp
+site, as if those below were in a state of siege.
+
+Hume aimed straight for them and this time the bobbing circle split
+wide open, broke to left and right. Vye looked below. Though the
+grayness of the morning was still hardly more than dusk he could not
+miss those humps spaced at intervals on the land, just beyond the
+unseen line of the force barrier. The lights above, the beasts below,
+the safari camp was under guard.
+
+
+
+
+12
+
+
+"There is only one way they could be moving--toward the mountains."
+Hume stood in the open space among the bubble tents, facing him the
+four men of the camp, the three civs and Rovald. "You say it's been
+seven days, planet time, since I left here. They may have been five
+days on that trail. If possible we have to stop them before they reach
+that valley."
+
+"A fantastic story." Chambriss wore the affronted expression of a man
+who expected no interference with his own concerns. Then catching
+Hume's eye he added, "Not that we doubt you, Hunter. We have the
+evidence in those dumb brutes waiting out there. However, by your own
+story, this Wass is an outside-the-law Veep, on this planet secretly
+for criminal purposes. Surely there is no reason for us to risk our
+safety in his behalf. Are you certain he is in any danger at all? You
+and this young man here have, by your testimony, been into the
+enemies' territory and have been able to get out again."
+
+"Through a series of fortunate chances which might never occur again."
+Hume was patient, too patient, Rovald seemed to think. His hand moved,
+he was holding a ray tube so that a simple movement of the wrist could
+send a crisping blast across all the rest of the party.
+
+"I say, stop this yapping and get out there and pick up the Veep!"
+
+"I intend to--after I call the Patrol."
+
+Rovald's tube was now aimed directly at Hume. "No Patrol!" he
+ordered.
+
+"This wrangling has gone far enough." It was Yactisi who spoke with an
+authority which startled them all. And as their attention swung to
+him, he was already in action.
+
+Rovald cried out, the weapon spun from his fingers, fingers which were
+slowly reddening. Yactisi nodded with satisfaction and he held his
+electo pole ready for a second attack. Vye scooped up the tube which
+had whirled across the ground to strike against his borrowed boot.
+
+"I'll set the call for the Patrol, then I'll try to locate Wass," Hume
+stated.
+
+"Sensible procedure," Yactisi approved in his dry voice. "You believe
+that you are now immune to whatever force this alien installation
+controls?"
+
+"It would seem so."
+
+"Then, of course, you must go."
+
+"Why?" Chambriss countered for the second time. "Suppose he isn't so
+immune after all? Suppose he gets out there and is captured again?
+He's our pilot--do you want to be planet bound _here_?
+
+"This man is also a pilot." Starns indicated Rovald, who was nursing
+his numb hand.
+
+"Since he, too, is one of these criminals, he's not to be trusted!"
+Chambriss shot back. "Hunter, I demand that you take us off planet at
+once! And it is only fair to inform you that I also intend to prefer
+charges against you and against the Guild. Empty world! Just how empty
+have we found this world?"
+
+"But, Gentlehomo," Starns showed no signs of any emotion but eager
+curiosity, "to be here at this time is a privilege we could not hope
+to equal except by good fortune! The T-Casts will be avid for our
+stories."
+
+What had that to do with the matter, puzzled Vye. But he saw Starns'
+reminder produce a quick change in Chambriss.
+
+"The T-Casts," he repeated, his expression of anger smoothing away.
+"Yes, of course, this is, in a manner of speaking, a truly historic
+occasion. We are in a unique position!"
+
+Had Yactisi smiled? That change of lip line had been so slight Vye
+could not call it a smile. But Starns appeared to have found the right
+way to handle Chambriss. And it was the same little man who offered
+his services in another way when he said, diffidently to Hume:
+
+"I have some experience with coms, Hunter. Do you wish me to send your
+message and take over the unit until you return? I gather," he added
+with a certain delicacy, "that it will not be expedient for your
+gearman to engage in that duty now."
+
+So it was that Starns was installed in the com cabin of the spacer,
+sending out the request for Patrol aid, while Rovald was locked in the
+storage compartment of the same ship, pending arrival of those same
+authorities. As Hume sorted out supplies and Vye loaded them into the
+waiting flitter, Yactisi approached the Hunter.
+
+"You have a definite plan of search?"
+
+"Just to cast north from their camp. If they've been gone long enough
+to hit the foothills we may be able to sight them climbing. Otherwise,
+we'll go all the way up to the valley, wait for them there."
+
+"You don't believe that they will be released after they have
+been--processed?"
+
+Hume shook his head. "I don't think we would have been free,
+Gentlehomo, if it hadn't been for a series of fortunate accidents."
+
+"Yes, though you didn't give us many details about that, Hunter."
+
+Hume put down the needler he had been charging. He studied Yactisi
+across that weapon.
+
+"Who are you?" His voice was soft but carried a snap.
+
+For the first time Vye saw the tall, lean civ really smile.
+
+"A man of many interests, Hunter--shall we let it go at that for the
+present? Though I assure you that Wass is not one of them in the way
+you might believe."
+
+Gray eyes met brown, held so straightly. Then Hume spoke. "I believe
+you. But I have told you the truth."
+
+"I have never doubted that--only the amount of it. There must be more
+talking later on--you understand that?"
+
+"I never thought otherwise." Hume set the needler inside the flitter.
+The civ smiled again, this time including Vye in that evidence of good
+will before he walked away.
+
+Hume made no comment. "That does it," he told his companion. "Still
+want to go?"
+
+"If you do--and you can't do it alone." No man could take on the
+valley and Wass and his men.
+
+Hume made no comment. They had rested briefly after their return to
+the safari camp, and Vye had been supplied with clothing from Hume's
+bags, so that now he wore the uniform of the Guild. He went armed,
+too, with the equipment belt taken from Rovald and that other's
+weapons, needler and tube. At least they started on their dubious
+rescue mission with every aid the safari camp could muster.
+
+It was mid-afternoon when the flitter took to the air once again,
+scattering the hovering globes. There was no alteration in the ranks
+of the blue watchers waiting--for the barrier to go down, or someone
+in the camp to step beyond that protection?
+
+"They're stupid," Vye said.
+
+"Not stupid, just geared to one set of actions," Hume returned.
+
+"Which could mean that what sends them here can't change its orders."
+
+"Good guess. I'd say that they were governed by something akin to our
+tapes. No provision made for any innovations."
+
+"So the guiding intelligence could be long gone."
+
+"I think it has been." Hume then changed the subject sharply.
+
+"How did you get into service at the Starfall?"
+
+It was hard now to think back to Nahuatl--as if the Vye Lansor who had
+been swamper in that den of the port town was a different person
+altogether. In that patch of memories into which Rynch Brodie still
+intruded he hunted for the proper answer.
+
+"I couldn't hold the state jobs. And once you get the habit of eating,
+you don't starve willingly."
+
+"Why not the state jobs?"
+
+"Without premium they're all low-rung tenders' places. I tried hard
+enough. But to sit pressing buttons when a light flashed, hour after
+hour--" Vye shook his head. "They said I was too erratic and gave me
+the shove. One more move on and it would have been compulsive
+conditioning. I turned port-drift instead."
+
+"Ever thought of trying for a loan premium?"
+
+Vye laughed shortly. "Loan premium? That's a true fantasy if you've
+been job hopping. None of the companies will take a chance on a man
+with an in and out record. Oh, I tried...." That memory arose to the
+surface, clear and very chilling. Yes, he had tried to break out of
+the net the law and custom had put around him from the day he had
+been made a state child. "No--it was conditioning, or port-drift."
+
+"And you chose port-drift?"
+
+"I was still me--as long as I stayed away from conditioning."
+
+"Then you became Rynch Brodie in spite of your flight."
+
+"No--well, maybe, for a while. But I'm still Vye Lansor here."
+
+"Yes, here. And I don't think you'll have to worry about raising a
+premium to get a new start. You can claim victim compensation, you
+know."
+
+Vye was silent, but Hume did not let him remain so.
+
+"When the Patrol arrives, you put in your claim. I'll back you."
+
+"You can't."
+
+"That's where you're mistaken," Hume told him crisply. "I've already
+taped a full story back at the spacer--it's on record now."
+
+Vye frowned. The Hunter seemed determined to ask for the worst the
+Patrol--or the planet police back on Nahuatl--could deal out. A case
+of illegal conditioning was about as serious as you could get.
+
+They shot along the diagonal of the triangle made by three points, the
+mountain valley, Wass' camp, and the safari headquarters, heading to
+the slopes up which the men must be herded if the beasts were
+shepherding them to the mountain valley. Vye, surveying the forest
+thick below, began to doubt they would ever be able to pick them up
+before they reached the valley gate.
+
+Hume took a weaving course, zigzagging back and forth, while they both
+watched intently for a glint from one of the globes, any movement
+which would betray that trail. And it was on one of the upper slopes
+that the flitter passed over two of the blue beasts lumbering along.
+Neither of the creatures paid any attention to the flyer, they moved
+with purpose on some mission of their own.
+
+"Maybe the tail end of the hunting pack," Hume commented.
+
+He sent the flyer hovering over a stunted line of trees and brush.
+Beyond that was bare rock. But though they hung for moments, nothing
+moved into that open.
+
+"Wrong scent somehow." Hume brought the flitter around. He had it on
+manual control now, keeping it answering to the quick changes of his
+will.
+
+A longer sweep supplied the answer--a vegetation roofed slit running
+back into the uplands, in a way resembling the crevice through which
+they had originally found their way into this country. Hume brought
+the flyer along that. But if the men they sought were pushing their
+way through below they could not be sighted from the air. At last,
+with evening drawing in, Hume was forced to admit failure.
+
+"Wait by the gap?" Vye asked.
+
+"Have to now." Hume glanced about. "I'd say maybe
+tomorrow--mid-morning before they make it that far--_if_ they are
+here. We'll have plenty of time."
+
+Time for what? To make ready for a pitched battle with Wass--or with
+the beasts herding him? To try in the space of hours to solve the
+mystery of the lake?
+
+"Do you think we could blast that thing in the lake?" Vye asked.
+
+"We might be able to, just might. But that must be the last resort. We
+want that in working order for the X-Tee men to study. No, we'd better
+plan to hold Wass at the gate, wait for the Patrol to come in."
+
+Less than an hour later after a soaring approach, Hume brought the
+flitter down with neat skill on the top of one of the cliffs which
+helped to form the portal of the gap. There was no difference in the
+scene below, save that where the two bodies of the blue beasts had
+lain there were now only clean and shining bones.
+
+Darkness spread out from the lake woods like a growing stain of evil
+promise as the sun fell behind the peaks. Night came earlier here than
+in the plains.
+
+"Watch!" Vye had been gazing down the gap; he was the first to note
+that movement in the cloaking bush.
+
+Out of the cover trotted a four-footed, antlered animal he had not
+seen before.
+
+"Syken deer," Hume identified. "But why in the mountains? It's a long
+way from its home range."
+
+The deer did not pause, but headed directly for the gap and, as it
+neared, Vye saw that its brown coat was roughed with patches of white
+froth, while more dripped from the pale pink tongue protruding from
+its open jaws, and its shrunken sides heaved.
+
+"Driven!" Hume picked up a stone, hurled it to strike the ground ahead
+of the deer.
+
+The creature did not start, nor show any sign of seeing the rock fall.
+It trotted on at the same wearied pace, passed the portal rocks into
+the valley. Then it stood still, wedge-shaped head up, black horns
+displayed, while the nose flaps expanded, testing the air, until it
+bounded toward the lake, disappearing in the woods.
+
+Though they shared watches during the night there were no other signs
+of life, nor did the deer reappear from the woods. With the
+mid-morning there was a sudden sound to warn them--a wild cry which
+must have come from a human throat. Hume tossed one of the needlers to
+Vye, took the other, and they scrambled down to the floor of the gap
+passage.
+
+Wass did not lead his men, he came behind the reeling trio as if he
+had joined the blasts as driver. And while his men wavered, staggered,
+gave the appearance of nearly complete exhaustion, he still walked
+with a steady tread, in command of his wits, his fears, and the
+company.
+
+As the first of the men blundered on, a fresh trickle of red running
+down his bruised face, Hume called:
+
+"Wass!"
+
+The Veep stopped short. He made no move to unsling the needler he
+carried, its barrel pointing skyward over his shoulder, but his round
+head with its upstanding comb of hair swung slightly from side to
+side.
+
+"Stop--Wass--this is a trap!"
+
+His three men kept on. Vye moved, for Peake leading that wavering
+group, stumbled, would have fallen had not the younger man advanced
+from the shadows to steady him.
+
+"Vye!" Hume made his name a warning.
+
+He had only time to glance around. Wass, his broad face impassive
+except for the eyes--those burning madman's eyes--was aiming a ray
+tube.
+
+Broken free of his hold, Peake fell to the right, came up against
+Hume. As Vye went down he saw Wass dart forward at a speed he wouldn't
+have believed a driven man could summon. The Veep lunged, escaping the
+shot the Hunter had no time to aim, rolled, and came up with the
+needler Vye had dropped.
+
+Then Hume, hampered by Peake's feeble clawing, met head on the
+swinging barrel of that weapon. He gave a startled grunt and smashed
+back against the cliff, a wave of scarlet blood streaming down the
+side of his head.
+
+The momentum of Wass' charge carried him on. He collided with his men,
+and the last thing Vye saw, was the huddle of all four of them,
+flailing arms and legs, spinning on through the gate into the valley
+with Wass' hoarse, wordless shouting, bringing echoes from the cliffs.
+
+
+
+
+13
+
+
+He lay against a rock, and it was quiet again, except for a small
+whimpering sound which hurt, joined with the eating pain in his side.
+Vye turned his head, smelled burned cloth and flesh. Cautiously he
+tried to move, bring his hand across his body to the belt at his
+waist. One small part of his mind was very clear--if he could get his
+fingers to the packet there, and the contents of that packet to his
+mouth, the pain would go away, and maybe he could slip back into the
+darkness again.
+
+Somehow he did it, pulled the packet out of its container pouch,
+worked the fingers of his one usable hand until he shredded open the
+end of the covering. The tablets inside, spilled out. But he had three
+or four of them in his grasp. Laboriously he brought his hand up,
+mouthed them all together, chewing their bitterness, swallowing them
+as best he could without water.
+
+Water--the lake! For a moment he was back in time, feeling for the
+water bulbs he should be carrying. Then the incautious movement of his
+questing fingers brought a sudden stab of raw, red agony and he
+moaned.
+
+The tablets worked. But he did not slide back into unconsciousness
+again as the throbbing torture became something remote and
+untroubling. With his good arm he braced himself against the cliff,
+managed to sit up.
+
+Sun flashed on the metal barrel of a needler which lay in the trampled
+dust between him and another figure, still very still, with a pool of
+blood about the head. Vye waited for a steadying breath or two, then
+started the infinitely long journey of several feet which separated
+him from Hume.
+
+He was panting heavily when he crawled close enough to touch the
+Hunter. Hume's face, cheek down in the now sodden dust, was dabbled
+with congealing blood. As Vye turned the hunter's head, it rolled
+limply. The other side was a mass of blood and dust, too thick to
+afford Vye any idea of how serious a hurt Hume had taken. But he was
+still alive.
+
+With his good hand Vye thrust his numb and useless left one into the
+front of his belt. Then, awkwardly he tried to tend Hume. After a
+close inspection he thought that the mass of blood had come from a
+ragged tear in the scalp above the temple and the bone beneath had
+escaped damage. From Hume's own first-aid pack he crushed tablets into
+the other's slack mouth, hoping they would dissolve if the Hunter
+could not swallow. Then he relaxed against the cliff to wait--for what
+he could not have said.
+
+Wass' party had gone on into the valley. When Vye turned his head to
+look down the slope he could see nothing of them. They must have tried
+to push on to the lake. The flitter was at the top of the cliff, as
+far out of his reach now as if it were in planetary orbit. There was
+only the hope that a rescue party from the safari camp might come.
+Hume had set the directional beam on the flyer, when he had brought
+her down, to serve as a beacon for the Patrol, if and when Starns was
+lucky enough to contact a cruiser.
+
+"Hmmm...." Hume's mouth moved, cracked the drying bloody mask on his
+lips and chin. His eyes blinked open and he lay staring up at the sky.
+
+"Hume--" Vye was startled at the sound of his own voice, so thready
+and weak, and by the fact that he found it difficult to speak at all.
+
+The other's head turned; now the eyes were on him and there was a
+spark of awareness in them.
+
+"Wass?" The whisper was as strained as his own had been.
+
+"In there." Vye's hand lifted from Hume's chest indicating the
+valley.
+
+"Not good." Hume blinked again. "How bad?" His attention was not for
+his own hurt; his eyes searched Vye. And the latter glanced down at
+his side.
+
+By some chance, perhaps because of his struggle with Peake, Wass' beam
+had not struck true, the main core of the bolt passing between his arm
+and his side, burning both. How deeply he could not tell, in fact he
+did not want to find out. It was enough that the tablets had banished
+the pain now.
+
+"Seared a little," he said. "You've a bad cut on your head."
+
+Hume frowned. "Can we make the flitter?"
+
+Vye moved, then relaxed quickly into his former position. "Not now,"
+he evaded, knowing that neither of them would be able to take that
+climb.
+
+"Beam on?" Hume repeated Vye's thoughts of moments before. "Patrol
+coming?"
+
+Yes, eventually the Patrol would come--but when? Hours--days? Time was
+their enemy now. He did not have to say any of that, they both knew.
+
+"Needler--" Hume's head had turned in the other direction; now his
+hand pointed waveringly to the weapon in the dust.
+
+"They won't be back," Vye stated the obvious. Those others had been
+caught in the trap, the odds on their return without aid were very
+high.
+
+"Needler!" Hume repeated more firmly, and tried to sit up, falling
+back with a sharp intake of breath.
+
+Vye edged around, stretched out his leg and scraped the toe of his
+boot into the loop of the carrying sling, drawing the weapon up to
+where he could get his hand on it. As he steadied it across his knee
+Hume spoke again:
+
+"Watch for trouble!"
+
+"They all went in," Vye protested.
+
+But Hume's eyes had closed again. "Trouble--maybe...." His voice
+trailed off. Vye rested his hand on the stock of the needler.
+
+"Hoooooo!"
+
+That beast wail--as they had heard it in the valley! Somewhere from
+the wood. Vye brought the needler around, so that the sights pointed
+in that direction. There death might be hunting, but there was nothing
+he could do.
+
+A scream, filled with all the agony of a man in torment, caught up on
+the echoes of that other cry. Vye sighted a wild waving of bushes. A
+figure, very small and far away, crawled into the open on hands and
+knees and then crumpled into only a shadowy blot on the moss. Again
+the beast's cry, and a shouting!
+
+Vye watched a second man back out of the trees, still facing whatever
+pursued him. He caught the glint of sun on what must be a ray tube.
+Leaves crisped into a black hole, curls of smoke arose along the path
+of that blast.
+
+The man kept on backing, passed the inert body of his companion,
+glancing now and then over his shoulder at the slope up which he was
+making a slow but steady way. He no longer rayed the bush, but there
+was the crackle of a small fire outlining the ragged hole his beam had
+cut.
+
+Back two strides, three. Then he turned, made a quick dash, again
+facing around after he had gained some yards in the open. Vye saw now
+it was Wass.
+
+Another dash and an about face. But this time to confront the enemy.
+There were three of them, as monstrous as those Vye and Hume had
+fought in the same place. And one of them was wounded, swinging a
+charred forepaw before it, and giving voice to a wild frenzy of roars.
+
+Wass leveled the ray tube, centered sights on the beast nearest to
+him. The man hammered at the firing button with the flat of his other
+hand, and almost paid for that second of distraction with his life,
+for the creature made one of those lightning swift dashes Vye had so
+luckily escaped. The clawed forepaw tore a strip from the shoulder of
+Wass' tunic, left sprouting red furrows behind. But the man had thrown
+the useless tube into its face, was now running for the gap.
+
+Vye held the needler braced against his knee to fire. He saw the dart
+quiver in the upper arm of the beast, and it halted to pull out that
+sliver of dangerously poisoned metal, crumpled it into a tight twist.
+Vye continued to fire, never sure of his aim, but seeing those slivers
+go home in thick legs, in outstretched forelimbs, in wide, pendulous
+bellies. Then there were three blue shapes lying on the slope behind
+the man running straight for the gap.
+
+Wass hit the invisible barrier full force, was hurled back, to lie
+gasping on the turf, but already raising himself to crawl again to the
+gateway he saw and could not believe was barred. Vye closed his eyes.
+He was very tired now--tired and sleepy--maybe the pain pills were
+bringing the secondary form of relief. But he could hear, just beyond,
+the man who beat at that unseen curtain, first in anger and fear, and
+then just in fear, until the fear was a lonesome crying that went on
+and on until even that last feeble assault on the barrier failed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"We have here the tape report of Ras Hume, Out-Hunter of the Guild."
+
+Vye watched the officer in the black and silver of the Patrol, a black
+and silver modified with the small, green, eye badge of X-Tee, with
+level and hostile gaze.
+
+"Then you know the story." He was going to make no additions nor
+explanations. Maybe Hume had cleared him. All right, that was all he
+would ask, to be free to go his way and forget about Jumala--and Ras
+Hume.
+
+He had not seen the Hunter since they had both been loaded into the
+Patrol flitter in the gap. Wass had come out of the valley a witless,
+dazed creature, still under the mental influence of whoever, or
+whatever, had set that trap. As far as Vye knew the Veep had not yet
+recovered his full senses, he might never do so. And if Hume had not
+dictated that confession to damn himself before the Patrol, he might
+have escaped. They could suspect--but they would have had no proof.
+
+"You continue to refuse to tape?" The officer favored him with one of
+the closed-jaw looks Vye had often seen on the face of authority.
+
+"I have my rights."
+
+"You have the right to claim victim compensation--a good compensation,
+Lansor."
+
+Vye shrugged and then winced at a warning from the tender skin over
+ribs.
+
+"I make no claim, and no tape," he repeated. And he intended to go on
+saying that as long as they asked him. This was the second visit in
+two days and he was getting a little tired of it all. Perhaps he
+should do as prudence dictated and demand to be returned to Nahuatl.
+Only his odd, unexplainable desire to at least see Hume kept him from
+making the request they would have to honor.
+
+"You had better reconsider." Authority resumed.
+
+"Rights of person--" Vye almost grinned as he recited that. For the
+first time in his pushed-around life he could use that particular
+phrase and make it stick. He thought there was a sour twist to the
+officer's mouth, but the other still retained his impersonal tone as
+he spoke into the intership com:
+
+"He refused to make a tape."
+
+Vye waited for the other's next move. This should mark the end of
+their interview. But instead the officer appeared to relax the
+restraint of his official manner. He brought a viv-root case from an
+inner pocket, offered a choice of contents to Vye, who gave an instant
+and suspicious refusal by shake of head. The officer selected one of
+the small tubes, snapped off the protecto-nib, and set it between his
+lips for a satisfying and lengthy pull. Then the panel of the cabin
+door pushed open, and Vye sat up with a jerk as Ras Hume, his head
+banded with a skin-core covering, entered.
+
+The officer waved his hand at Vye with the air of one turning over a
+problem. "You were entirely right. And he's all yours, Hume."
+
+Vye looked from one to the other. With Hume's tape in official hands
+why wasn't the Hunter under restraint? Unless, because they were
+aboard the Patrol cruiser, the officers didn't think a closer
+confinement was necessary. Yet the Hunter wasn't acting the role of
+prisoner very well. In fact he perched on a wall-flip seat with the
+ease of one completely at home, accepted the viv-root Vye had refused.
+
+"So you won't make a tape," he asked cheerfully.
+
+"You act as if you want me to!" Vye was so completely baffled by this
+odd turn of action that his voice came out almost plaintively.
+
+"Seeing as how a great deal of time and effort went into placing you
+in the position where you _could_ give us that tape, I must admit some
+disappointment."
+
+"Give _us_?" Vye echoed.
+
+The officer removed the viv-root from between his lips. "Tell him the
+whole sad story, Hume."
+
+But Vye began to guess. Life in the Starfall, or as port-drift, either
+sharpened the wits or deadened them. Vye's had suffered the burnishing
+process. "A set-up?"
+
+"A set-up," Hume agreed. Then he glanced at the Patrol officer a
+little defensively. "I might as well tell the whole truth--this
+didn't quite begin on the right side of the law. I had my reasons for
+wanting to make trouble for the Kogan estate, only not because of the
+credits involved." He moved his plasta-flesh hand. "When I found that
+L-B from the Largo Drift and saw the possibilities, did a little day
+dreaming--I worked out this scheme. But I'm a Guild man and as it
+happens, I want to stay one. So I reported to one of the Masters and
+told him the whole story--why I hadn't taped on the records my
+discovery on Jumala.
+
+"When he passed along the news of the L-B to the Patrol, he also
+suggested that there might be room for fraud along the way I had
+thought it out. That started a chain reaction. It happened that the
+Patrol wanted Wass. But he was too big and slick to be caught in a
+case which couldn't be broken in court. They thought that here was
+just the bait he might snap at, and I was the one to offer it to him.
+He could check on me, learn that I had excellent reason to do what I
+said I was doing. So I went to him with my story and he liked it. We
+made the plan work just as I had outlined it. And he planted Rovald on
+me as a check. But I didn't know Yactisi was a plant, also."
+
+The Patrol officer smiled. "Insurance," he waved the viv-root, "just
+insurance."
+
+"What we didn't foresee was this complicating alien trouble. You were
+to be collected as the castaway, brought back to the Center and then,
+once Wass was firmly enmeshed, the Patrol would blow the thing wide
+open. Now we do have Wass, with your tape we'll have him for good,
+subject to complete reconditioning. But we also have an X-Tee puzzle
+which will keep the services busy for some time. And we would like
+your tape."
+
+Vye watched Hume narrowly. "Then you're an agent?"
+
+Hume shook his head. "No, just what I said I am, an Out-Hunter who
+happened to come into some knowledge that will assist in straightening
+out a few crooked quirks in several systems. I have no love for the
+Kogan clan, but to help bring down a Veep of Wass' measure does aid in
+reinstating one's self-esteem."
+
+"This victim compensation--I _could_ claim it, even though the deal
+was a set-up?"
+
+"You'll have first call on Wass' assets. He has plenty invested in
+legitimate enterprises, though we'll probably never locate all his
+hidden funds. But everything we can get open title to will be
+impounded. Have something to do with your share?" inquired the
+officer.
+
+"Yes."
+
+Hume was smiling subtly. He was a different man from the one Vye had
+known on Jumala. "Premium for the Guild is one thousand credits down,
+two thousand for training and say another for about the best field
+outfit you can buy. That'll give you maybe another two or three
+thousand to save for your honorable retirement."
+
+"How did you know?" Vye began and then had to laugh in spite of
+himself as Hume replied:
+
+"I didn't. Good guess, eh? Well, zoom out your recorder, Commander. I
+think you are going to have some very free speech now." He got to his
+feet. "You know, the Guild has a stake in this alien discovery. We may
+just find that we haven't seen the last of that valley after all,
+recruit."
+
+He was gone and Vye, eager to have the past done with, and the future
+beginning, reached for the dictation mike.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+TWO COMPLETE SPACE ADVENTURE NOVELS
+
+PLANET OF ALIEN MONSTERS....
+
+    Somewheres on the jungle world of Jumala, there was a man in
+    hiding--a man whose mind had been reconditioned with
+    another's brain pattern and for whom there was a fabulous
+    reward. STAR HUNTER is a thrill-packed account of that
+    other-worldly game of hide-and-seek between a man who did not
+    know all his own powers and an interstellar safari that
+    sought something no man had a right to find....
+
+PLANET OF MIND MAGICIANS....
+
+    Dane Thorson of the space-trader Solar Queen found himself
+    embroiled in a desperate battle of minds between the rational
+    science of the spaceways and the hypnotic witchcraft of the
+    mental wizard that ruled the VOODOO PLANET.
+
+_Here is a double prize-package of Andre Norton space treasures!_
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Andre Norton novels available from Ace Books include:
+
+
+THE LAST PLANET (M-151)
+SEA SIEGE (F-147)
+CATSEYE (G-654)
+THE DEFIANT AGENTS (M-150)
+STAR BORN (M-148)
+THE STARS ARE OURS! (M-147)
+WITCH WORLD (G-655)
+HUON OF THE HORN (F-226)
+STAR GATE (M-157)
+THE TIME TRADERS (F-386)
+LORD OF THUNDER (F-243)
+WEB OF THE WITCH WORLD (F-263)
+SHADOW HAWK (G-538)
+SARGASSO OF SPACE (F-279)
+JUDGMENT ON JANUS (F-308)
+PLAGUE SHIP (F-291)
+KEY OUT OF TIME (F-287)
+ORDEAL IN OTHERWHERE (F-325)
+NIGHT OF MASKS (F-365)
+QUEST CROSSTIME (G-595)
+STAR GUARD (G-599)
+YEAR OF THE UNICORN (F-357)
+THREE AGAINST THE WITCH WORLD (F-332)
+THE SIOUX SPACEMAN (F-408)
+WARLOCK OF THE WITCH WORLD (G-630)
+MOON OF THREE RINGS (H-33)
+DAYBREAK--2250 A.D. (G-717)
+THE X FACTOR (G-646)
+VICTORY ON JANUS (G-703)
+
+F-books are 40c
+G-books are 50c
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+       *       *       *       *       *
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+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Star Hunter, by Andre Alice Norton
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