e leopard?" asked Jellico reflectively. "Another case of using
flame to fight fire? But Lumbrilo wasn't among those present to be
impressed."

Tau rubbed his hand across his forehead. "I don't really know, sir.
Maybe I could have made the ape vanish without a counter projection, but
I don't think so. With these hallucinations it is better to battle one
vision against another for the benefit of those involved. And I can't
even tell you why I selected a leopard--it just flashed into mind as
about the fastest and most deadly animal fighter I could recall at that
moment."

"You'd better work out a good list of such fighters." Jellico's grim
humor showed again. "I can supply a few if you need them. Not that I
don't share your hope we won't see any more trigger rocks. Here comes
Asaki with his wandering boy."

The Chief Ranger was half-leading, half-supporting his hunter, and
Nymani seemed only half-conscious. Tau got to his feet and hurried to
meet them. It would appear that their search for the water tree would be
delayed.

VI

They withdrew to a spot hacked from the edge of the jungle, leaving a
screen of green between them and the traitorous up-slope. But within the
few hours of daylight left them, it was proven that Asaki had been
overly optimistic in his hopes of discovering a water tree. They were
now in a narrow tongue of land between the range and the swamps, and
this territory was limited. Nymani, still shaken, was of little help,
and the spacemen did not dare to strike out into unexplored land alone.

So they mouthed dry concentrates and dared not drink. Dane was tempted
to pour out the liquid in his canteen. Water so close to hand was a
continual torment. And, now that they were away from the heights and the
possibility of more finger-shaped rocks, surely the threat in that
moisture was small in comparison to the needs of his body. Only that
caution which was drilled into every Free Trader supplied a brake to his
thirst.

Jellico drew the back of his hand across cracked lips. "Suppose we
should draw lots--some of us drink, one or two not. Could we manage that
way until we were over the mountains?"

"I wouldn't want to chance it, unless we are left with no other choice.
There is no way of telling how long the drug works. Frankly, right now
I'm not even sure I could detect a hallucination for very long under
these conditions," was Tau's discouraging verdict.

If any of them slept that night, they