y along its spine as it half reared toward
him. Latham fell back against a tree bole and stood motionless,
staring into glittering feral eyes. The beast coughed raucously and
went thrashing back into the welter of jungle and mud.

Latham stepped away. His foot caught in a root and he fell headlong.
Instantly, tiny spheres of diaphanous substance showered about his
head, to burst in a scatter of violet spores. Those that touched his
skin turned instantly blood-red, and seemed to grow, burrowing deep.
Frantically he pulled them from his flesh, leaving raw red sores.

There was no trail to guide him now, but he did not immediately mind
that. He trekked the South Mars Desert and he had weathered the
jungles of Io. Tsith hound or no, he had an unerring instinct for
direction. He was sure the foothills couldn't be far ahead. But he
must have a weapon!

* * * * *

A silent dark shadow floated down. He glimpsed a razor-clawed
reptilian body, ten feet from wing to wing, its serpentine neck
darting wickedly. Latham threw himself aside as the tremendous whirr
of wings beat the air above his head. Close upon it came three others,
and Latham hit the mud. Looking back, he saw that one of the creatures
in its mad rush had hurtled into a giant fern, impaling itself upon a
four-foot thorn where it hung, screaming raucously as its life-fluid
ebbed away.

Latham crawled from the spot. Reaching another fern, he managed to
climb high enough to tear away one of the thorns. It was crude, but it
would serve as a weapon!

He was realizing his error now. He should have gone by the outer
route. He would never reach the gweel village ahead of Kueelo and the
Jovian, if indeed he reached it at all! Danger and death lay
everywhere about him. Time and again those serpentine shapes winged
down, silent and unwarning. He fended them off. Twice he speared them,
saw ocherous blood spill from their shiny integument. Other times he
wasn't so lucky, as sharp claws left a row of furrows in his back. The
miasmic yellow fog bit deep into his wounds.

Hours resolved into a nightmare of mud and heat and battle. Other
creatures crossed his path or curved at him from out of the tangled
fronds. He was becoming awfully weak, but a terrible madness lay
across Latham's mind like a patina, driving him on. Through feverish
turmoil, through waves of heat and pain and nausea that encompassed
the universe, Joel Latham pursued his cours