Reese returned to the colony expecting
a pleasant reunion; instead he found friends
ready to hunt him down like an alien beast....
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
October 1957
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Colony Eight on the _Damballa_ was a huddle of low plastic domes set
in a clearing of the jungle. It was also the most welcome sight Jim
Reese had seen in a month--the month since he'd quarreled with Lois and
struck out into the jungle alone.
He had covered close to a thousand miles--all the way to Colony Seven,
the nearest of the 10 colonies Earth had planted on the jungle world.
Now he was returning, hoping his month's absence had healed the wounds
he and Lois had caused each other. She had had time to think things
over. So had he--and he still loved her.
He saw one of the natives straggling through the jungle toward him and
grinned. It was drunken old Kuhli, a native who had been accidentally
made a drug addict by a well-meaning Terran doctor. Kuhli lived in a
murky fog and hung around Colony Eight because he had no place else to
go.
Reese was happy to see a familiar face, even Kuhli's. He hailed the
alien.
"Kuhli! Kuhli, you old devil! Where are you going?" He knew the native
rarely ventured into the jungle any more; his delicate sense of
direction had long since been blunted by drugs.
The alien whirled uncertainly and fixed his bleary green eyes on Reese.
"Trouble, Earthman," he wheezed. "Go away. Away. Big trouble."