Paul L. Payne

“ All about, in the jungle surrounding the head of the path the scouting party had hacked, the vegetation barely concealed a shoulder-to-shoulder wall of hulking beasts, while smaller animals and what looked like maned gorillas crouched or stood along the bending branches. Tusks protruded from drooling jaws and hundreds of eyes blazed forth steadily.
"No shooting, no shooting!" Pritchard was bellowing. "She has them under control, boys. Hold your fire." Then he took a deep breath and turned toward Cornelia Boyce. ”

“ Like the pointer of a sundial, the jagged spear of mountain lay its deep blue shadow across the curve of battle, as if to mark off the dwindling hours and minutes of life for those who struggled, writhed and lay with glazing eyes in that long ribbony grass, now mashed and matted flat for acres in every direction, its pliant green-brown blades stained and mottled dark. ”

“ God!" came Sturgis's voice shakily at Pritchard's elbow. The Chief Hunter was still too appalled to speak. He stared as the worm's rope-like body came curving down out of the sky, down to the cruisers again. Seeing how that red length alternately thinned to a one-foot thickness and swelled again to three feet and more as it oozed around the cruiser that had remained on the ground, he had a vision of how it had entered the Apollo, shrinking itself to a mere six-inch thread that poured through the intake port, seeping along the duct, swelling, bulging at McManus's air-grill ... ”

“ The stench hovering over this spot was incredible, even to the man who had encountered it before.
He turned to confront Cornelia who had followed him. "I don't know whether I can get it through your thick head or not," she bit out, "you've simply got to get out of here. You can't—"
"Get this through your thick head, Miss Boyce," said Pritchard between clenched teeth. "This thing, whatever it is, has killed two of my men. I'm quite ready to believe it is intelligent, possibly the most intelligent organism on this planet. But it's a killer just the same and we're going to kill it. ”

“ Pritchard blinked.
"People, people, people. There are beings on this world who live and breathe and think just like you. But you seem to think it's all right to come in and kill them. For sport."
Gazing up into those blazing emerald eyes and that delicious figure, Pritchard felt an unaccustomed tingling through his nerves. Any woman, however crippled, deformed or aged, could provoke some excitement after the prison of deep space. But this beauty—
He glanced sideways at McManus who had moved up alongside him. ”

“ The snaggle-toothed horizon of Thisbe II was rising across the dull indigo disk of setting Piramus. Pritchard and Savage sat in their gimbal chairs in the Forward Lounge. The old man's wispy white hairs stirred in the evening breeze sucked in by the blowers.
"And every time I wonder if my hunting days aren't over," sighed Pritchard. Experimentally, he worked on the flexicast on his right arm.
"Huh," grunted the captain. "Not you. One week on Terra and you'll be telling yourself the next time it just can't be as bad. Or that this wasn't as bad as it seemed. Anything, you'll tell yourself. ”

“ She motioned Kemp past her and called down to Pritchard. "This is our only hope. I've never seen The One on any of these mountains. I'm sure It can't climb the smooth sides—"
"And we can hold It back with our flamers. Good girl."
"But hadn't we better get a little higher?" queried Sturgis.
"Higher!" echoed the girl. "We've got to get to the top!"
Frantically, they climbed, taking insane chances, fantastically insecure holds, scrambling, cutting their hands on the raw rock edges, living a nightmare....
At last Kemp and Cornelia, weak with exhaustion, sank against the ridge, gasping and heaving. ”

“ A tiny figure, mounted on a six-legged equine, was riding furiously back and forth. The defense arc was swelling outward, as her "people" rose to the offensive and began charging the demoralized attackers.
Then the two cruisers were racing through their run on the as yet unstrafed portion of the meadow furthest from the mountain. Sturgis's craft bucked as it rode the shock-waves from Greene's rocket blasts. As they shot in a wide curve around the other side of the mountain Pritchard said, "We'd better skip our last pass. Let's just sit down and work in close. I don't want her to get away." ”

“ She would have liked to see the tall hunter once more before she.... His eyes had been so piercing! She had forgotten what a man could be like. If only she had not been so balky yesterday!
But it was not to be. He had come, in one of those two jet cruisers, thundering across the killer-infested meadow, and he had gone. He had seen and not understood. Battles between alien beasts were of no concern to him. He might even return, to make cam-rec footage from aloft of this amazing battle. ”

“ Pritchard cleared his throat. The men behind him were whispering and snickering. "Speaking of leaving," he said, "how about you? If the Survey was wrecked—"
"I'm not interested in leaving," she said curtly. "I've got work to do here."
"What work?"
"I'm working with the people here."
"Oh, there are natives?"
"Certainly. This world is full of people."
He scowled his impatience. "What's their cultural stage?"
She favored him with a one-sided grin. "Some are foraging. A few are gregarious. You met one just now. Fortunately, I got here in time to save her life."
McManus's jaw dropped. ”

“ McManus strode rapidly until he had caught up with the tall hunter. The red-haired boy's idolatry was plain in his wide blue eyes.
"Why the jungle?" he said. "Why are you tackling the jungle, Mr. Pritchard?"
"Just for a sample. Also as a check. The whole planet's like this. Can't land anywhere without being near the jungles that seem to fill up every valley. ”

“ He said to the girl, "We haven't killed anything, certainly not any people." The vision of that carbonized carcass back on the burn flickered across his mind. "What do you think we are, murderers? You're the first person we've seen."
She cut him off with an impatient gesture. "You're a pack of killers, all of you. I wouldn't expect you to understand."
"Hey, Mr. Pritchard," called out Sturgis, "I'll bet she's from that Havilland group. Ask her."
Pritchard cocked his head. "That's right! You are, aren't you? ”

“ I don't remember seeing any of them yesterday—except for that bad dream I tried to shoot away from McManus."
"Anyway, there's sure a mob of them," cut in Sturgis. "The water all around that island is alive with them."
"That kid was right about one thing," said Pritchard. "There's a much higher level of intelligence here than you'd find in Terran animals, for instance. But never mind that now. Listen, boys, this is a planned and directed attack. And we're going to buy ourselves a stack of chips and sit in on the game. ”

“ In and out among all their stiffly planted legs ran the lesser carnivores and the canines, snapping and worrying at the things creeping through the grass. Behind, in the shrinking zone of defense, roved the six-legged bovines and equines, and the leaping ones, and the shaggy-maned gorillas, prancing, goring, trampling, crushing. Overhead circled and hovered a swarm of hawks and condors, plunging and tearing.
Against them came a nightmare horde. Those that could not fly or swim made clumsy rafts from odds and ends of vegetation and branches plundered from the jungle ”

“ The worm was still well below, but coming steadily up. They could see the little scarlet tips now, questing over the jagged edges. Behind was all humping redness.
"We were very foolish—" Pritchard checked himself. "I was very foolish. I permitted us to be outmaneuvered. The one thing that monster doesn't want is for one of us to get back to the cruisers—"
"I've been thinking," Sturgis cut in. "Why don't we empty all our flamer tanks along the ridge here, climb all the way to the top and then, as soon as it's almost there, spark the fuel and give it a good roasting?" ”

“ Kemp and Sturgis could only stare at her. Pritchard couldn't warn her by asking them to take it away from her, and anyway this was no place for a wrestle.
"And why do you think we would want that?" he asked in as pleasant a tone as he could manage.
"So much better than a flamer or jumping," she replied. "Take my advice and—"
"I wish you would pull yourself together," said Pritchard. "You're frightening Kemp up there."
Startled, Kemp stared back down at his chief, and then he closed his mouth in a firm line. Pritchard congratulated himself that the remark was a stone that had slain two birds. ”

“ The special equipment consisted of a squawkie, the portable radio, carried by the phlegmatic Sturgis; the cam-rec, a light camera and tape recorder combined, slung over Kemp's plump shoulders; the flamer, or flame-thrower, its full plastic tank strapped to Majinski's back; the two packets of synthetabs or food concentrates enough for a week for them all should they get lost—hung to the belt of red-headed McManus; and the first-aid kit strapped to Pritchard's own lean shoulders. ”

“ Midway down the curving tail section Tom McManus sulked in his quarters, fingering the bruise on his jaw.
"So we'll pick up in the morning, hey?" mused the captain. His was a squat, ape-like body, surmounted by a long, goat's face and a grizzled skull.
"Yes." Pritchard drained his tall glass. "I'm not going to bother with her. If she can send a whole army of her animals against us it's going to make hunting a little difficult. We could set down on the other side and maybe get in a bit of shooting, but she'd catch up with us. Even if we try hunting from the air with the jet cruisers...." ”

“ From the eminence on which the ship stood they could look in every direction at rolling hills, among which clumps of feathery foliage rose profusely, and occasional startling upthrusts of rock, like clubs brandished from underground, leaning in every possible angle and having frequently such straight planes of cleavage that they almost seemed artificial. ”

“ It had not minded her attempts to win over and tame and domesticate some of the people. After all, she had converted only the weaker and gentler of them with her synthetabs; she had gained control over only a small percentage of the killers, the lesser carnivores. No, she had never really threatened The One's dominance.
Pritchard was right. Now that her carefully woven veil of illusion was torn away, she knew that there were killers. Everywhere. Always had been. Killers, killers, killers.... ”

“ She was wearing cordron slacks and a soft neosilk blouse, that seemed to enjoy clinging to her contours.
"Good evening," croaked Captain Savage. He stood up, and stretched restlessly.
"Oh, don't go," said Cornelia.
"Well, if we're blasting off in the morning, I've got things to do. These days it's the old men who do all the work." He chuckled as he eased past her through the door, and gave her shoulder a little pat. "Good hunting."
The girl watched him go down the passage. "Whatever did he mean by that?" she inquired. "'Good hunting'."
"Oh, it's just an expression," said Pritchard vaguely. ”

“ Greene, following instructions meant for him, too, snapped the jet toggle closed. The high-pitched thunder that had been chasing them across the sky was chopped off into utter silence.
"What you got?" he managed to say and then Pritchard's hip swung against him, neatly bowling him off the seat as the tall hunter thrust his feet toward the rudder bar.
"Stand by to fire," snapped Pritchard over his shoulder. The younger man lurched toward the rocket controls in the nose in front of Pritchard as the jet cruiser heeled silently over into a dive. ”

“ Crawling, creeping things, reptilian and crustacean and multi-legged, undulating and gliding, disappearing into the grass to emerge at the last deadly moment. Scurrying, spiny things were there in force—scuttling over the mashed-flat grass in beady-eyed haste to be in at the kill. ”

“ Why—"
"Now, look," said Pritchard with rising asperity, "we have satisfactory means of determining intelligence. If your 'people' are as you claim they're in no danger. But are you going to claim there are no killers here? They're what we're after, intelligent or not. And there are killers on every world, Miss Boyce."
She shook her head in despair at his stupidity. "There are no killers here, Mr. Pritchard. There are no killers anywhere on any world. ”

“ We'll drop it in the tall grass."
By the time they reached the tall grass beyond the perimeter of the burn, Tom McManus had become attached to the little fur-ball, with its whiskery nose and knob-like feet, and found that it snuggled nicely in his breast pocket. Pritchard smiled indulgently and they all waded into the waist-high grass.
They went slowly, partly out of caution and partly because the long, thick-growing blades clogged and bunched around their legs. Little things went hopping and chittering out of their way, and the sun began to lay its heat on them. ”

“ A person with enough courage and resource to have held her own in this killer-infested Eden.
"I'm taking a powder, as they used to say back on good old Terra. I'm gambling. Gambling that I can get back to the one cruiser that hasn't burnt up all its wiring, and call the ship." He slapped the leg-pocket of his breeches. Kemp nodded. The pocket contained a ready-packed emergency chute.
Cornelia shook her head slowly. "You'll never make it—"
"He might," said Kemp.
"I'll bet I can," said Pritchard. "I've got to."
"The One will get you," she said. "It can get into one of those things easily. ”

“ Men have backed down from women before. It's not considered bad form at all. Now and then they outmaneuver us, and that's all there is to it."
A couple of the others chuckled, but McManus continued his stolid slogging up the hill without a sign. Pritchard shrugged. They all trudged across the burn, and the great grasshopper-leg let down the platform for them.
Waiting for it to settle, Pritchard braced with one hand at the base of a towering fin and began slapping dust from his breeches. He heard Sturgis say, "Hey, watch that!" ”