man.

Dane slid his hand about the bole of the tree and touched Jellico,
watched the captain's gray eyes open with a similar awareness. Asaki
picked up his needler. Weapon in hand, he whirled and fired almost in
one connected movement. It was the fastest shot Dane had ever seen.

The gargoyle head lifted away from the rock, and then turned to one side
as its body, somehow vaguely obscene in its resemblance to the human
form, fell away, to sprawl limply down-slope.

Though the dead rock ape had not had a chance to give tongue, there came
a cry from above, a coughing, deep-throated hawking. Down the steep
incline bumped a round white ball, bouncing past the tumbled carcass of
the ape, sailing up into the air, to strike and burst open a few feet
away.

"Back!" With one arm Asaki sent Jellico, his nearest neighbor, tumbling
back into the jungle. Then the Chief Ranger pumped a stream of needle
rays into the remains of the ball. A shrill, sweet humming arose as red
motes, vivid as molten copper in the sunlight, climbed on wings beating
too fast to be seen.

The debris of the nest smoked into nothing. But no needle ray could hope
to stop all the poisonous army issuing forth from it, fighting mad, to
seek any warm-blooded creature within scenting distance. The men threw
themselves into the brush, rolling in the thick mold of the vegetable
decay on the ground, rubbing its moist plaster over their bodies in
frantic haste.

Red-hot fire, far worse than any of the splinter torment Dane had
undergone the night before, pierced between his shoulders. He rolled on
his back, shoving himself along, both to kill the fire-wasp and coat the
sting with cooling mold. Cries of pain told him that he was not the only
sufferer, as all dug hands into the slimy stuff under them and slapped
it over their faces and heads.

"Apes...." That half shout got through to alert the men on the jungle
floor. True to their nature, the rock apes, now streaming downhill, were
coughing their challenges, advertising their attack. And it was only
that peculiarity of their species which saved their intended victims.

The apes came forward, partially erect, at a shambling run. The first
two, bulls close to six feet, went down under fire from Asaki's needler.
A third somehow escaped, swerving to the left, and came bounding at an
angle toward Dane. The Terran jerked free his force blade as that swine
snout split wide to show greenish tusks and the horrible sten