 CHAPTER I The Earth's Large 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. Ross 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, was the serpent. A night wind was rising, stirring the exotic half-dozen other world's 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 counter-stroke of indifference in what he had always known would be a test of wits. Was was a veep of a shadowy empire, but that was a part from the world in which Ross 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 lily-bed. The intricate carving of a devilish, non-human 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 sieve, 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 Taren Hume thought. Old, very old. Perhaps rumour was right. Milfort's Wass might be truly native Taren 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 disc of cloudy golden shimmer behind the chair at the long table of solid ruby rock from Nahuatl's poisonous sister-planet of the Scype. 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 calm 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. When 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 cellar's space-boots and it was the cellar's market. Ross 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 regal rover from the launch pad on Sargon 2. He had suspected it might be a tricky voyage with young Tours Wazalitz, who was a third owner of the Kogan-Boars-Wazalitz line, and a grats-chewer, but one did not argue with the owners except when the safety of the ship was concerned. The regal rover had made a crash landing at Alex Butt, and a badly injured pilot had brought her in by will, hope, and a faith he speedily lost. He received a plaster hand, the best the medical centre 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 Tours 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 a few qualified pilots of his seniority who possessed such a wide and varied knowledge of the galactic frontiers. So when he learned that the ship's 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 sieve 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's service, he would never have made that find on Jumala. That lucky and lucky find. Hume's plaster-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 breath 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 Wasse's stage settings. I have an idea, he corrected. There are many ideas. Wasse 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. Wasse was the right man, perhaps the only partner he could find. But Wasse must not know that. Anjumala, Wasse 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 veeps part. 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 Wasse had his own code. The VPET established his tight control of his lawless organization by set rules. And one of them was, don't be greedy. Wasse 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 Wasse 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? Wasse showed no surprise. And how would such a claimant be profitable to us? Kogan 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 cruciate dream. The investigation for any such claim now would be made by a verity lab, and no imposter 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 LB 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 plaster flesh fingers flexed slightly. It has been six planet years. There is a forest where the LB rests. No, no evidence at present. The Largo Drift, Wasse repeated slowly, carrying, among others, Gentle Femme, Thorly, Cogan, Brody. And her son, Rinch Brody, who was at the time of the Largo Drift's disappearance a boy of fourteen. You have indeed made a find. Wasse 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? Wasse attacked the problem straight on. No evidence even of there being any passengers when the LB planted. 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 LB could well be innocently discovered by a client. Everyone knows the story with the case dragging through the ten sector Terran courts now. Gentle Femme Brody and her son might not have been used ten years ago. Now with a third of the Kogan, Bors, Wasilis control going to them, any find linked with the Largo Drift would gain full galactic coverage. You have a choice of survivor, the Gentle Femme? Hume shook his head. The boy. He was bright, according to the story since, and he would have the survival manual from a 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 Was. We only need a youth of a proper general physical description and the use of a conditioner. Was's 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. Was 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, Wasilis combined 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. Was 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. The expert psychotechs, Was had them. Men who had slipped over the border of the law had entered Was's 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. Was 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. Was's 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 Rinch Brody when the time came. I can deliver the boy to-night, or early to-morrow 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. Was 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, Was 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 Was's 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. End of chapter 1. Chapter 2 of Star Hunter. This is a LibriVox recording. The LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Leonie Rose. Star Hunter by Andre Norton. Chapter 2. The Starfall was a long way downscale from the pleasure houses of the upper town. Here strange vices were also merchandise. But not such exotics as Was provided. This was strictly for crewmen of the star freighters who could be speedily and expertly separated from a voyager's pay in an evening. The tantalizing scents of Was's terraces were reduced here to simply smells, the majority of which were not fragrant. There had already been two fatal duels that evening. A tube man from a rimship had challenged a space miner to settle a difference with those vicious whips made from the tail casings of flangoyed 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 in crusted wall, raising his face to the light, his hair had the glint of bright chestnut, a gold which was also red, and for his swampers labour he was almost fastidiously clean. You, Lansar! 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 he was buying on your own! The Salarchian 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 tallened thumb jerked the direction in which to use that evil-smelling object. Vy Lansar levered himself up the wall, took the mop, setting his teeth grimly. Someone had spilled a mug of Cardo, 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 Cardo, uniting with a 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 mops battered 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. Once 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 captain 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. Although 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. He scaled, six-fingered, claw-hand reached out for Lansor, and the boy cringed. No trouble. There was a click of authority in the voice of the man in the booth. His face, moments earlier taught 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.' The grip which had pulled Vi 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.' Vi 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. He, instead of bringing nausea with it, the stuff settled his stomach, cleared his head, with an afterglow 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 a man. Now he watched the milling crowd with a kind of detachment, though Vi was sure he was aware of every move he himself made. Vi 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. Vi 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 Vi's guide halted, though he did not release his prisoner. Forty names of dugore 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 Vi 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. Vi 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 Vi'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 gait at a small tri-dee on the wall facing him, a miniature scene of life on some of the 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-read 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 strangers abroad's 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. Vi, violancer, then he added his other identification. SCC 425-061. 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 Vi. Parents, Lancer 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 levely over the rim of that cup. There was something cold in that study, something which curbed Vi's pleasant feeling of only moments earlier. Now the other set down his drink, crossed the room, cupping his hand under Lancer'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 a second generation. He was talking to himself more than to Vi. He loosed his hold on the boy's chin. But he still stood there, surveying him from head to foot. Lancer 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 Vi again as if the younger man did have a brain, emotions, some call on his interest as a personality. Want a job? Lancer 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 strange appeared to think that amusing. Vi reddened, but he was also more than a little surprised that the man in the worn, spaced uniform had red 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. Lancer 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, Vi found his voice. I happened to need a gearman, but this wasn't happening. Of course it couldn't happen to him, Vi Lancer, 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 a kind of dream a man didn't want to wake from, not if he was port-drift. Would you be willing to sign on? Vi 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 gild 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. Vi's fading hope brightened. Then the out-hunter was a follower of the fata, right? 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? Vi nodded eagerly. Yes, out-hunter. He still could not believe that this was happening. He other pressed the refresher button. And this time he handed Lancer the brimming cup. Drink on the bargain. His words had the ring of command. Lancer drank, gulping down the contents of the cup, and suddenly was aware of being tired. He leaned back against the wall, his eyes closed. Ross, 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 Vi Lancer 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 Ross Tex worked on him, he would be rinch brody, heir to one-third of Kogan Boar's waslets. Come, he touched Vi 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 Lancer 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 Ross had given him. Not much later he walked Vi into a small lobby with a discreet list of names posted in its rack. No occupations attached to those colored streamers, Hume noted. That meant either that their owners represented luxury trades where a name signified their profession or service, or that they were covers, perhaps both. Wasworld 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 Wasconference table would have already been relayed as his signal of admission here. A flicker of light winked below the name. The wall to the right shimmered and produced a doorway. Steering Vi to it, Hume nodded to the man waiting there. He was a flat-faced Eucorian of the servant-cast, and now he reached out to draw Lancer over the threshold. I have him, gentle Homo. 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 true uniform. He left the lobby frowning at his own thoughts. Stupid! A swamper from one of the worst rat-holes in the port! Like his 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 Vi Lancer 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 Vi to face. Those days he would have to spend alone on Jumala, between the time WASC organization would plant him there, in the coming of Hume's party to DISCOVER HUME. Hume himself would tape every possible aid to cover that period. All the knowledge of a gilded out-hunter, added to the information gathered by the survey, would be used to provide Wrench Brody 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. End of CHAPTER II CHAPTER III OF STAR HUNTER This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Leonie Rose. STAR HUNTER by Andre Norton, CHAPTER III 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 trap-hole with hooked bait, then his foot had slipped. Wrench Brody 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. Wrench 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 LB 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 and his other. A bush stirred ahead against the pull of the light breeze. Wrench froze, then the half of his spear slid into a new hand-a-grip. The coils of his net spun out. A snarl cut over the purve of water. The scarlet blot which sprang for his throat was met with the flail of the net. Wrench stabbed twice at the creature he had so swept off balance. A water-cat, this year's cub, dying its claws overlong in proportion to its paws, drew inch-deep furrows in the earth and gravel. Its eyes, almost the same shade as its long, burren-tangled body-fur, glared up at him in deathly enmity. As Wrench 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, Wrench once more turned to the stream-water. This time, after splashing it onto his face, he drank from his cupped hands. Wrench 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. 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. Wrench slapped out vigorously, stumbled into the water, loosening the hold of two vicious scavengers on the torn skin of his ankle when he waited 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, Wrench 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-half. 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 Wrench Brody, 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 Tate. An officer badly hurt. He had died when the L.B. landed here. Wrench had a clear memory of himself piling rocks over Tate'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 Wrench Brody. He looked greased from his fingers. The ache in his head made him drowsy. He curled up on a patch of sun-warm 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. Wrench sat up, his heart pounding as if he had been racing to out-distance 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 Wrench Brody. He had come here on an LB 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 strongjaw, tempting it out of its hiding by a hook and line and a bait of fresh-killed skipper. Wrench's hands went to his face. He crouched forward on his knees. That was all true. He would prove it. There was a strong-jaw's den back there, somewhere on the rise where he had left the snapped half 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 Wrench Brody'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 plotted 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 a flock-call of a leather-winged feathered tree-dweller, and that a coughing grunt from downstream was just a noise? Wrench Brody. Largo Drift. Tate. 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 Venturot 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 invaders strove to find some pattern or meaning, withdrew, baffled, but its invasion, as ghostly as that had been, loosened a knot here, clear to passage there. Wrench awoke at dawn, slowly, dayzedly, sorting out sounds, smells, thoughts. There was a room, a man, trouble and fear. Then there was he, Wrench Brody, 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 LB, retrace the trail of yesterday, retrace 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 draw lurked. But when he reached the crown of the bluff, nowhere did he sight the mounted 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 LB? 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 a finger the wilted leaves. Something had come in this direction. He would backtrack. Rinch 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 LB, 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. On the edge of any conscious sense there was a nooster. He was contacted again, tested. A forest called delicately in its alien way. Rinch 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 Rinch 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 coordinates 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 cabinet 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. Was 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 Was's own insurance against any wrong move on Hume's part, and the outhunter respected him as being mad 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 the 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 subconscious 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 Siv 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, gentle homo? He reported to the small man who stood gazing about him with 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. End of Chapter 3. Chapter 4 of Star Hunter. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Leonie Rose. Star Hunter by Andre Norton. Chapter 4. Hume glanced up alertly. There was a bare chance that Brody 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 LB. 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, gentle homo-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 LB. He had believed that small spacer so covered with fines 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, starne's interest must be fed. He would make an ideal discoverer. Odd, Hume produced his distance glasses. Just wear, gentle homo. There, starne's blightingly 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 LB must ever come to these sieves. When they would find the Largo Drift's lifeboat and locate Brody, 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 sieves must be the impartial witnesses. No, I hardly believe in a mirror in an uninhabited forest, gentle Hume. 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? Chambers, the most demanding of a sieve party, showed up to join them. Hume shook his head. No native intelligence on a hunting world, gentle Homo. 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, Starnes said doubtfully. We might look over there later. Nonsense! Chambers spoke briskly as one used 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, gentle Homo. And you, gentle Homo, Starnes, want to make tri-dees of the pit-dragons. While gentle Homo Yaktisi wishes to try electro-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, Starnes 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. When 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, Wasman glanced at the woods and then back to Starnes. And being acutely aware of all undercurrents here, Hume wondered what the small sieve 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 supply. All three of the clients pitched in to help, and Wasman 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 Starnes 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 cross-legged, his plaster 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. This means mental activity of some sort. Any of which would be recorded on the verifier. Amazing! Starnes extended his plump hands to the flames, an 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. Dectisie 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. Non-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? Starnes continued to question. Hume laughed. Not to be found on Jamala 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, yet T.C. replied. The hour grows late. I wish you rewarding dreams. He arose to go to his own bubble tent. Yes, indeed. Starnes blinked at the fire and then scrambled up in turn. We hunt along the river then, to-morrow? For water-cat, Hume agreed. Of the three he believed Chambres 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 was man, lingered by the fire until the three sieves were safe in their bubbles. River ranged to-morrow? He asked. Yes, we can't rush the deal. Agreed. Rovald spoke with a curtness he did not use when the sieves were present. Only don't delay too long. Remember our boys roaming around out there. He might just be picked off by something before these stumble-footed sieves catch up with him. That's the chance we knew he'd have to take. We don't dare raise any suspicion. That T.C. for one is no fool, neither is Starnes. Chambres 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. Woss 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 Woss, 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 spaceship 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 scutting clouds to hide the stars, which met rain probably before morning. This was no time to be plagued by uncertain weather. Somewhere out there Brody was holed up. He hoped the boy had long ago reached the camp so carefully erected and left for his occupancy. The LB, 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 gill training and the ability of wasse renegade techs should bring them through that test. What had stars seen? The glint of sun on the tail of the LB, 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 Was 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 a sleeping pad. Tomorrow they must find Chambers a water-cat. Hume shoved Brody 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 and 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 budding 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 watch-dog 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 LB landed. Again fortune favoured Hume. With the dawn the rain was over. There was a cloudy sky overhead, but he believed the day would clear. The royly rushing water of the river would age Amber's quest. Water cats hold 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 Chambers treading briskly behind him, Roval bringing up the rear in the approved trail technique. Chambers carried a needler. Starnes was unarmed except for a small protection stunner. His tridy box slung on his chest by well-worn carrying straps. Yaktisi 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! Chambers 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 had 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. Starnes and Yatisi dropped back, though Starnes was fussing with his Tridee. Rovald caught up. He had drawn his ray-tube and answered to Hume's hand-wave. Any action far into 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 at Chambers. The sieve was strained 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 LB. 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 Chambers 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? Chambers 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. End of Chapter 4. Chapter 5 of Star Hunter. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Leone Rose. Star Hunter by Andre Norton. Chapter 5. Moisture from the night's rain hung on the tree-leaves, clung in globules to Rinch'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 LB. 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 here to fore empty of his species. But that tall man, the one who had led the party into the irregular clearing about the lifeboat, Rinch 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 then. Then the marks on the ground at the point from which he had fallen and the LB 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, Rinch 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. Rinch 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 tree-top dwellers. He was also to discover that close to the side of the LB crash, others waited. He huddled against the ball 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, Rinch 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 bowl 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. More 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 a 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. 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, Rinch 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 LB. 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. Rinch went flat on the stream-bank, made a worm's progress up the slope to crouch behind a bush, and surveyed the land immediately ahead. There stood an off-world spacer, fins down, no 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, Rinch 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. Rinch 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. 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. Rinch'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 Rinch 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? Rinch 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. Rinch 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 magnet. He continued to keep them whirling by means of waving hand and arm, but there was enough light to show Rinch the fingers of his other hand, busy on the front panel of the box he wore. That fingering stopped. Then Rinch'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? Rinch watched him check the webbing, count the equipment at his belt, settled a needler in the crook of his arm. Then the stranger left the stream, headed towards the woods. Rinch jumped to his feet, a cry of warning shaping, but not to be uttered. He patted 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 Rinch 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 Rinch found his own lurking place from which he could keep the other inside. The light points gathered, hung in a small luminous cloud over the rocks, but Rinch 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 a full day, a fog of bewilderment and disorientation. To open his eyes to this blue-green pocket instead of the 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 Rinch 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 Rinch 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. Rinch 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. Rinch ran a zigzag course from one clump of bush to the next. That sound of snarling, spitting hate ended in mid-cry as Rinch 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 Rinch sighted him, he stooped to recover the needleer 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 needleer 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. Rinch got to his feet, walked with slow deliberation down to the river's brink. The trapped prisoner had shied half way 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 Rinch, 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. Rinch watched dispassionately, before he caught a needleer, jerking it away from the prisoner. The man eyed him steadily, and his expression did not alter, even when Rinch swung the off-world weapon to center its sights on the late owner. Suppose, Rinch's voice was rusty-sounding in his own ears, we talk now. The man nodded. As you wish, Brody. End of Chapter 5. Chapter 6 of Star Hunter. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Leonie Rose. Star Hunter by Andre Norton. Chapter 6. Brody. Rinch squatted on his heels. Those gray eyes, so light in the other's deeply tanned face, narrowed the smallest fraction. Rinch noted with an inner surge of triumph. Were you looking for me, he added? Yes. Why? We found an LB. We wondered if there were survivors. Slowly, Rinch 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, Rinch 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, Brody? Enough to know that I am not Brody, that I did not get here on the LB, 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 like the Starfall, his voice was icy with contempt. To play our roles will be for your advantage, too. He paused, his gaze centering on Rinch with the intensity of one willing the desired answer out of his inferior. Nahuatl. Rinch 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 Rinch Brody 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. Rinch laughed. You'll have to think of a better one than that, flyboy. The stakes would have to be high, wouldn't they, for us to go to all this staging. You've been conditioned, Brody, illegally brain-channeled. To Rinch, 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 Brody past, but he would not give the other the advantage of knowing his uncertainty. You need Brody for a billion credits, but you don't have a Brody now. To his surprise, the prisoner in the earth-trap laughed. I'll have a Brody 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 Brody's edited recalls, but his own. Rinch stood up, started for the rise of the slope, but before he topped that he glanced back. The damaged comb 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 Rinch could discover 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 Rinch Brody whose presence on this world meant a billion credits for someone. He could not believe that this was a 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. Rinch 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. Rinch'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 smoldering 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. Rinch dashed on, caught at that loop of webbing, and dug his heels into the loose gravel as he began a steady pull. With his A the other crawled out, lay panting. Rinch grabbed the man's shoulder, jerked him away from the body of a female water cat. He was sure he had seen a telltale scurrying around the smaller of the dead cubs. The man straightened, glanced toward Rinch who was backing off, the needler up and ready between them. My turn to ask why. Then his gaze followed Rinch'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 Rass 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 Brody. Hume shrugged. You think about it, Brody. Think about it with care. Come back to camp with me, and? No, Rinch 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 Rinch'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 knotted 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. Rinch 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, Rinch 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 LB 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, Brody, so I'm willing to call a truce. The guild believed Jamala and Open Planet on 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 sieves back there in the safari camp. Hume made sense, much as Rinch 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. Rinch whirled, needler cock. 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 flashed 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 semi-circle about the two men. Rinch 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 Rinch forward through the yet unclosed arc of the globe-circle. Hume detoured around the feasting scavengers and brought Rinch with him at a trot. They could hear behind them the plop and tinkle of more globes, glancing back. Rinch 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 purposely 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 Rinch'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? Rinch 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. Rinch saw that glittering swoop through the air, mark 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? A head there where that logs 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. Rinch ran, still holding the needler. He bounced along the drift log Hume had pointed out, and a jump sent him floundering in the brown stream thy deep. Hume joined him, his face grim. Downstream! Rinch 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 decorsely pacing animals. We can pick them off with a 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 XT creatures and peoples was a part of guild training. In spite of his devious game here on Jumala, Hume was guild educated, and Wrench 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 Wrench'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 XT clicks. Friend, this was all Wrench could make out of that sing-song of syllables Wrench knew to be a contact pattern. The dark eyepits 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 open to emit any answering sound. Hume halted. The silence was threatening, a pretending 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. Wrench 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, Wrench protested. No, move on. End of chapter six. Chapter seven of Star Hunter. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Leone Rose. Star Hunter by Andre Norton. Chapter seven. 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 Wrench 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 table land. Hume unhooked his distance lenses, but it was toward the rises of the mountains that he aimed them, not along the back trail. Wrench wriggled about, study 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, Wrench 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, Wrench 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, Wrench 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 Wrench, mouthing the others. Vita blocks, good for 24 hours sustenance. The iron rations depended upon by all exploring services did not have the satisfying taste of real food. However, Wrench 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 Wrench nodded, Hume edged back into a crevice as a shelled creature with drawing to natural protection, going to sleep as easily as if he could control that state by will. Wrench, 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 centuries back in the forest. There was no movement, no sound. They were simply there, on guard. And Wrench 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 Wrench Brody. The reward for him was to be a billion credits. Too much staff work had gone into his conditioning for just a small steak. So Wrench Brody 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. Wrench Brody 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 Wrench Brody. 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 outhunter had expected a castaway who would be just what he ordered. Then this affair of the watchers, creatures the Guildman had not found here a few months ago. Wrench 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. Wrench edged forward, watching the mist on the water, and his brains driving 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 cited 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. Rinch 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, Rinch 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 waterwashed 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. Rinch 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 Rinch and the lights which were now only faint glowing patches. He swung down from his perch. Shook, humor, wake. The outhunter made that instant return to full consciousness which was another defense for the men who live long on the rim of wild worlds. What? Rinch 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. Rinch 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-chew 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. Rinch 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 smashed the lights, Hume ordered. Rinch 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. Rinch tore a gapping hole 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. Ah! 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, tallened 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. Rinch caught up two hands full 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 onto 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, Rinch 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 LB back there, it made a good landing, and there are supplies missing from its lockers. Which you removed, Rinch 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 gildmen were here, and you didn't run into this. I know, Hume sounded baffled, not a sign then. Rinch, through the last of his stones, heard it clink harmlessly against a rock. Hume bounced an object on the palm of his hand. Last flare. What's that over there? Rinch had sighted the flashing out of the dark from the riverbank, 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 flattened down, we're blasting. They flattened, lay almost in each other's arms, curled on that narrow space. Even through his closed eyelids, Rinch 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 Rinch 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 lifeline, 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. Holloway Hume called. The lines tightened, their bodies swung up clear of the blasted river island as their unseen transport headed for the eastern shore. End of chapter seven.