w insect
sounds--nothing. All inhabitants bigger than a Jumalan fly might have
long ago been routed out of the land.

"To the left." Hume faced about.

There was a heavy thicket there, too stoutly grown for anything to be
within its shadow. Whatever moved must be behind it.

Vye looked about him frantically for anything he could use as a
weapon. Then he grabbed at the long bush knife in Hume's belt sheath.
Eighteen inches of tri-fold steel gleamed wickedly, its hilt fitting
neatly into his fist as he held it point up, ready.

Hume advanced on the bush in small steps, and Vye circled to his left
a few paces behind. The Hunter was an expert with ray tube; that, too,
was part of the necessary skill of a safari leader. But Vye could
offer other help.

He shrugged out of the blanket pack he had been carrying on his back,
tossed that burden ahead.

Out of cover charged a streak of red, to land on the bait. Hume
blasted, was answered by a water-cat's high-pitched scream. The feline
writhed out of its life in a stench of scorched fur and flesh. As Vye
retrieved his clawed pack Hume stood over the dead animal.

"Odd." He reached down to grasp a still twitching foreleg, stretched
the body out with a sudden jerk.

It was a giant of its species, a male, larger than any he had seen.
But a second look showed him those ribs starting through mangy fur in
visible hoops, the skin tight over the skull, far too tight. The
water-cat had been close to death by starvation; its attack on the men
probably had been sparked by sheer desperation. A starving carnivore
in a land lacking the normal sounds of small birds and animal life, in
a valley used as a trap.

"No way out and no food." Vye fitted one thought to another out loud.

"Yes. Pin the enemy up, let them finish off one another."

"But why?" Vye demanded.

"Least trouble that way."

"There are plenty of water-cats down on the plains. All of them
couldn't be herded up here to finish each other off; it would take
years--centuries."

"This one's capture may have been only incidental, or done for the
purpose of keeping some type of machinery in working order," Hume
replied. "I don't believe this was arranged just to dispose of
water-cats."

"Suppose this was started a long time ago, and those who did it are
gone, so now it goes on working without any real intelligence behind
it. That could be the answer, couldn't it?"

"Some process triggers into action when a ship sets