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Updated: May 4, 2025
Taller than Hume, but hunched forward in its neckless outline, the thing was a monster. And over the round of the lower jaw, tusks protruded in ugly promise. Being carnivorous and hungry, it scooped up the body of the water-cat and fed without any prolonged ceremony. Vye, remembering the crushed spine of the human skeleton, was sickened.
With his aid the other crawled out, lay panting. Rynch grabbed the man's shoulder, jerked him away from the body of the female water-cat. He was sure he had seen a telltale scurrying around the smaller of the dead cubs. The man straightened, glanced toward Rynch who was backing off, the needler up and ready between them. "My turn to ask why?" Then his gaze followed Rynch's.
I wish you rewarding dreams." He arose to go to his own bubble tent. "Yes, indeed!" Starns blinked at the fire and then scrambled up in turn. "We hunt along the river, then, tomorrow?" "For water-cat," Hume agreed. Of the three, he believed Chambriss the most impatient. Might as well let him pot his trophy as soon as possible.
"I came here for a water-cat, and a water-cat I'm going to have. You don't find those in wooded areas." "There will be a schedule," Hume announced. "Each of you has signed up, according to contract, for a different trophy. You for a water-cat, Gentlehomo. And you, Gentlehomo Starns, want to make tri-dees of the pit-dragons. While Gentlehomo Yactisi wishes to try electo fishing in the deep holes.
Or were those traces left to guide another party from the camp? To advance openly up the stream bed was to invite discovery. Rynch surveyed the nearer bank. Clumps of small trees and high growing bushes dotted that expanse, an ideal cover. He was hardly out of sight of the bush which had sheltered him when he heard the coughing roar of a water-cat.
Remember, our boy's roaming around out there. He might just be picked off by something before these stumble-footed civs catch up with him." "That's the chance we knew we'd have to take. We don't dare raise any suspicion. Yactisi, for one, is no fool, neither is Starns. Chambriss just wants to get his water-cat, but he could become nasty if anyone tried to steer him."
Only, that formless half seen thing, hardly to be distinguished in color from the vegetation, was no water-cat. There was a thin, ragged cry. Then the creature plunged backward, was gone. "What in the name of nine Gods was that?" Chambriss demanded. "I don't know." Hume went forward, jerked the needler dart from a tree trunk.
Scratched, laced raw by the whip of branches, they stood in a small hollow with the drift of leaves high about their ankles. And the Hunter pulled into place the portions of growth they had dislodged in their passage into the thicket's heart. Through gaps they could see the opening where lay the body of the water-cat. The wail was cut off short, that cessation in itself a warning.
One, armed and clawed as the scavengers, was nearly as large as a water-cat. And a furry, man-legged creature, with a double-jawed head, bore also a ring of phosphorescent eyes set in a complete circle about its skull. They were alien life routed out of the water. "The lights smash the lights!" Hume ordered. Rynch understood. The lights had driven these attackers out of the river.
Hume wondered idly how far and through how many relays that message would pass before it reached its destination. He stretched and yawned, moving to his sleeping pad. Tomorrow they must find Chambriss a water-cat. Hume shoved Brodie into the back of his mind to center his thoughts on the various ways of delivering, to the waiting sportsman, a fair-sized alien feline.
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