ong as a man is breathing, and on his feet,
with all his wits in his skull, he always has a chance. I've blasted
off-world with odds stacked high on the other side of the board." He
flexed that plasta-flesh hand which was so nearly human and yet not by
the fraction which had changed the course of his life. "I've lived on
the edge of the big blackout for a long time now--after a while you
can get used to anything."

"One thing I would like--to get at the one who set this trap,"
commented Vye.

Hume laughed with dry humor. "After me, boy, after me. But I think we
might have to wait a long time for that meeting."

10

Vye crawled weakly from the area of a rock outcrop. The sun, reflected
from the cliff side, was a lash of fire across his emaciated body. His
swollen tongue moved a pebble back and forth in his dry mouth. He
stared dimly down the slope to that beckoning platter of water open
under the sun, rimmed with the deadly woodland.

What had happened? They had gone to sleep that first night under the
ledge of the dried waterfall. And all of the next day was only a haze
to him now. They must have moved on, though he could remember nothing,
save Hume's odd behavior--dull-eyed silence while stumbling on as a
brainless servio-robot, incoherent speech wherein all the words came
fast, running together unintelligibly. And for himself--patches of
blackout.

At some time they had come to the cave and Hume had collapsed, not
rousing in answer to any of Vye's struggles to awaken him. How long
they had been there Vye could not tell now. He had the fear of being
left alone in this place. With water perhaps Hume could be returned to
consciousness, but that was all gone.

Vye believed he could scent the lake, that every breeze up slope
brought its compelling enticement. Just in case Hume might awake to a
state of semi-consciousness and wander off, Vye tethered him with
blanket bonds.

Vye fingered Hume's knife, which had been painstakingly lashed to a
trimmed shaft of wood. Since he had emerged from that clouding of mind
which still gripped the Hunter, he had done what he could to prepare
for another attack from any roving beast. And he also had Hume's ray
tube--its single charge to be used only in dire need.

Water! His cracked lips moved, ejected the pebble. Their four empty
water bulbs were in the front of his blanket tunic, pressing against
his ribs. It was now--or die, because soon he would be too weak to
ma