see more closely what they had brought down. That
smell....

Just as the embroidery on Kaydessa's jacket had awakened memories from
his Terran past, so did this stench remind him of something.
Where--when--had he smelled it before? Travis connected it with dark,
dark and danger. Then he gasped in a half exclamation.

Not on this world, no, but on two others: two worlds of that broken
stellar empire where he had been an involuntary explorer two planet
years ago! The beast things which had lived in the dark of the desert
world the Terrans' wandering galactic derelict had landed upon. Yes, the
beast things whose nature they had never been able to deduce. Were they
the degenerate dregs of a once intelligent species? Or were they
animals, akin to man, but still animals?

The ape-things had controlled the night of the desert world. And they
had been met again--also in the dark--in the ruins of the city which had
been the final goal of the ship's taped voyage. So they were a part of
the vanished civilization. And Travis' own vague surmise concerning
Topaz was proven correct. This had not been an empty world for the
long-gone space people. This planet had a purpose and a use, or else
this beast would not have been here.

"Devil!" Kaydessa made a face of disgust.

"You know it?" Tsoay asked Travis. "What is it?"

"That I do not know, but it is a thing left over from the star people's
time. And I have seen it on two other of their worlds."

"A man?" Tsoay surveyed the body critically. "It wears no clothes, has
no weapons, but it walks erect. It looks like an ape, a very big ape. It
is not a good thing, I think."

"If it runs with a pack--as they do elsewhere--this could be a very bad
thing." Travis, remembering how these creatures had attacked in force on
the other worlds, looked about him apprehensively. Even with the coyotes
on guard, they could not stand up to such a pack closing in through the
dark. They had better hole up in some defendable place and wait out the
rest of the night.

Naginlta brought them to a cliff overhang where they could set their
backs to the hard rock of the mountain, face outward to a space they
could cover with arrow flight if the need arose. And the coyotes, lying
before them with their noses resting on paws, would, Travis knew, alert
them long before the enemy could close in.

They huddled against the rock, Kaydessa between them, alert at first to
every sound of the night, their hearts b