slumped
to the ground; but he was dragged with that dead weight until he sat
with the medic's head on his shoulder, the other's body resting heavily
against him. For one horror-filled moment Dane feared that he did indeed
hold a dead man, that one of the outlaw Hunters must have struck a last
blow for his discredited leader. Then Tau sighed and began to breathe
deeply. Dane glanced up, amazed, at the captain.

"He's asleep!"

Jellico knelt and his hand went to test heart beat, then to touch the
medic's worn and dirty face. "Best thing for him," he said briskly.
"He's had it."

It took some time to get the facts of their triumph sorted out. Two of
the off-worlder poachers were dead. The other and the spaceman were
prisoners, while Nymani rounded up in addition the man Dane had burned
to save Tau. When the younger spaceman returned from making the medic
comfortable in the shelter, he found Asaki and Jellico holding an
impromptu court of inquiry.

The dazed native Hunters had been expertly looped together by Nymani
and, a little apart from them, the off-worlders were under examination.

"An I-C man, eh?" Jellico, smoothing a mud-spattered chin with a grimed
hand, regarded the latest arrival measuringly. "Trying to run in and
break a Combine charter, were you? You'd better spill the facts; your
own head office will disown you, you ought to know that. They never back
any failures in these undercover deals."

"I want medical attention," snapped the other, cradling his seared hand
to his chest. "Or do you plan to turn me over to these savages?"

"Seeing as how you tried to blast our medic," replied the captain with a
grin which was close to shark-like, "he may not feel much like patching
up those fingers of yours. Stick 'em in where they have no business, and
they're apt to get burned. At any rate he's not going to look at 'em
until he's had a chance to rest. I'll give you first aid. And while I'm
working we'll talk. I-C going into the poaching trade now? That news is
going to please Combine; they have no use for you boys anyway."

His answer was lurid and uninformative. But the uniform tunic the other
wore could not be so easily explained away. Dane, worn out, stretched
his aching length on a pile of mats and lost all interest in the
argument.

* * * * *

Two days later they stood once more on the same terrace where Lumbrilo
had wrought his magic and met his first defeat. This time