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."