"Loan premium? That's a true fantasy if you've
been job hopping. None of the companies will take a chance on a man
with an in and out record. Oh, I tried...." That memory arose to the
surface, clear and very chilling. Yes, he had tried to break out of
the net the law and custom had put around him from the day he had
been made a state child. "No--it was conditioning, or port-drift."

"And you chose port-drift?"

"I was still me--as long as I stayed away from conditioning."

"Then you became Rynch Brodie in spite of your flight."

"No--well, maybe, for a while. But I'm still Vye Lansor here."

"Yes, here. And I don't think you'll have to worry about raising a
premium to get a new start. You can claim victim compensation, you
know."

Vye was silent, but Hume did not let him remain so.

"When the Patrol arrives, you put in your claim. I'll back you."

"You can't."

"That's where you're mistaken," Hume told him crisply. "I've already
taped a full story back at the spacer--it's on record now."

Vye frowned. The Hunter seemed determined to ask for the worst the
Patrol--or the planet police back on Nahuatl--could deal out. A case
of illegal conditioning was about as serious as you could get.

They shot along the diagonal of the triangle made by three points, the
mountain valley, Wass' camp, and the safari headquarters, heading to
the slopes up which the men must be herded if the beasts were
shepherding them to the mountain valley. Vye, surveying the forest
thick below, began to doubt they would ever be able to pick them up
before they reached the valley gate.

Hume took a weaving course, zigzagging back and forth, while they both
watched intently for a glint from one of the globes, any movement
which would betray that trail. And it was on one of the upper slopes
that the flitter passed over two of the blue beasts lumbering along.
Neither of the creatures paid any attention to the flyer, they moved
with purpose on some mission of their own.

"Maybe the tail end of the hunting pack," Hume commented.

He sent the flyer hovering over a stunted line of trees and brush.
Beyond that was bare rock. But though they hung for moments, nothing
moved into that open.

"Wrong scent somehow." Hume brought the flitter around. He had it on
manual control now, keeping it answering to the quick changes of his
will.

A longer sweep supplied the answer--a vegetation roofed slit running
back into the uplands, in a way resembling t