Star Hunter

ire across his emaciated body. His swollen tongue moved a pebble back and forth in his dry mouth. He stared

o him now. They must have moved on, though he could remember nothing, save Hume's odd behavior-dull-eyed silence while stumbling on as a bra

uggles to awaken him. How long they had been there Vye could not tell now. He had the fear of being left

t its compelling enticement. Just in case Hume might awake to a state o

ed from that clouding of mind which still gripped the Hunter, he had done what he could to prepare for anothe

front of his blanket tunic, pressing against his ribs. It was now-or die, because soon he

of the wood unhindered, intent on his mission with a concentration wh

action he had been able to think out. That beast Hume had killed had been too heavy

fense against a possible ambush. A wild outward swing brought him, heart-thudding, to the next set of limbs. T

hen he came to a gap. With hands laced into tendrils, Vye hunched to look down on a

o other way. Vye checked the lashings of his weapons again before leaping. Almost in the same instant his sandals

ing well out. He dropped from one to

of trees. To get to the water he must descend again. A dead trunk extended o

of any water creature on the unruffled surface of the lake. Yet the sensation of lif

er the water, moving slowly as the trunk settled a little under his weight.

But here the liquid was not so cloudy. He cou

methin

s to follow through the murk the farther extent of those two ridges. Looked along both pointed protuberances aimed at the surfaces of the lake, like fangs in an open jaw. Down there was something-something artificial

nder the lake. He thought it was curiously free of silt, and its color, as far as he could distinguish

alls, there was movement, a slow rolling of a shadow so hidden by a stirring of bo

e might have the luck to make this journey unmol

ored head arose on a whiplash of coiled, scaled neck, and a blunt nose thudded against the tree trunk with a hollow boom. Vye clung to his perch a

ground itself, or so it seemed to Vye's startled terror, reared one of the tusked beasts. To reach his tree and its du

rd him a fighting chance if he could send the point home in som

telltale tightening of shoulder muscles. It was going t

lake and wood. He sprang, aiming the spear point at the beast's protuberant belly, and

the creature pulled it free, snapped the haft in two. Vye fired a short blast from

s a second or two. He jumped and his fingers caught on the low hanging branch, then he made a superhuman ef

ve to lift the body from the ground, Vye worked his way out on another branch. In the end it was the shaking of that limb under him whi

would long ago have killed any creature he knew. Whether it could trace his flight aloft, or whether its h

possibility of greater speed. Vye slipped from the bough, hit the ground, and ran. His ragged lungsful of air

p of the beast's blundering pursuit behind him. But its bulk and hurts sl

shadow of the wood as might a dart expelled from a needler. Before him, up slope, was t

shown earlier. Vye dodged right, headed for the rocks by the gap. As he pulled himself into that temporary fortifica

. Less than two yards away now was the deceptively open mouth of the gap. If he threw himself

fellow. With a cry, that one flung itself at its companion in the hunt, and they tangled in a body-to-body battle terrible in its utter fe

g viciously the victor made sure of its kill, then its seared head came up, swung abo

ression of brute strength rather than agility. And he had been almost fatally deceived. He jumped backwa

hrough unstable space in which there had never been and never would be fir

the blue beast came to a halt. Whimpering it turned, but before it reached the level of the woods, it

ment all that mattered was his freedom. Then he looked apprehensively behind him along the road to the open, more than half ex

ee to go! He slipped Hume's ray tube back i

back there, without a weapon, defenseless against any questing beast able to nose him ou

o the valley, forcing himself to that by his will alone and screaming inside against such suicidal folly. He put out his hand tentatively w

wind moved through trees or bushes. Placing one foot carefully before the other he went on towards Hume's cave. The haze which had clouded his thinking processes

d put on his legs, but his hands were still tied. His face, grimy, sweat-cover

em. He was fumbling with those ties about Hume's wrists as

ing it to Hume's eager mouth, squeezing a portion of i

ttered forward with a cry not far removed from a sob. He rebounded to slip full length to the ground and lie

me words over and over, his gaze blank, unfo

hat happen

t the rock wall. His plasta-hand was out-flung, slipping up and down what seemed empty

ull account of his visit to the lake, his retreat bef

ou cam

going to try to explai

away once, i

e fastened upon the end of that action with the wounde

u fell you were not thinking of the barrier at all-and your wit

trying to elude the charge of the beast, only, fear and that desperate

ck and forth on nothingness. But he almost fell on his face, forward into the gap. Where he had been expecting the resistance of the u