LITMIR.BIZ

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he said.

      “Yes, sir,” Ri said. Suddenly he threw back his head. “Listen!”

      “Eh?” Extrone said.

      “Hear it? That cough? I think that’s one, from over there. Right up ahead of us.”

      Extrone raised his eyebrows.

      This time, the coughing roar was more distant, but distinct.

      “It is!” Ri said. “It’s a farn beast, all right!”

      Extrone smiled, almost pointed teeth showing through the beard. “I’m glad we won’t have to cross the ridge.”

      Ri wiped his forehead on the back of his sleeve. “Yes, sir.”

      “We’ll pitch camp right here, then,” Extrone said. “We’ll go after it tomorrow.” He looked at the sky. “Have the bearers hurry.”

      “Yes, sir.”

      Ri moved away, his pulse gradually slowing. “You, there!” he called. “Pitch camp, here!”

      He crossed to Mia, who, along with him, had been pressed into Extrone’s party as guides. Once more, Ri addressed the bearers, “Be quick, now!” And to Mia, “God almighty, he was getting mad.” He ran a hand under his collar. “It’s a good thing that farn beast sounded off when it did. I’d hate to think of making him climb that ridge.”

      Mia glanced nervously over his shoulder. “It’s that damned pilot’s fault for setting us down on this side. I told him it was the other side. I told him so.”

      Ri shrugged hopelessly.

      Mia said, “I don’t think he even saw a blast area over here. I think he wanted to get us in trouble.”

      “There shouldn’t be one. There shouldn’t be a blast area on this side of the ridge, too.”

      “That’s what I mean. The pilot don’t like businessmen. He had it in for us.”

      Ri cleared his throat nervously. “Maybe you’re right.”

      “It’s the Hunting Club he don’t like.”

      “I wish to God I’d never heard of a farn beast,” Ri said. “At least, then, I wouldn’t be one of his guides. Why didn’t he hire somebody else?”

      Mia looked at his companion. He spat. “What hurts most, he pays us for it. I could buy half this planet, and he makes me his guide—at less than I pay my secretary.”

      “Well, anyway, we won’t have to cross that ridge.”

      “Hey, you!” Extrone called.

      The two of them turned immediately.

      “You two scout ahead,” Extrone said. “See if you can pick up some tracks.”

      “Yes, sir,” Ri said, and instantly the two of them readjusted their shoulder straps and started off.

      Shortly they were inside of the scrub forest, safe from sight. “Let’s wait here,” Mia said.

      “No, we better go on. He may have sent a spy in.”

      They pushed on, being careful to blaze the trees, because they were not professional guides.

      “We don’t want to get too near,” Ri said after toiling through the forest for many minutes. “Without guns, we don’t want to get near enough for the farn beast to charge us.”

      They stopped. The forest was dense, the vines clinging.

      “He’ll want the bearers to hack a path for him,” Mia said. “But we go it alone. Damn him.”

      Ri twisted his mouth into a sour frown. He wiped at his forehead. “Hot. By God, it’s hot. I didn’t think it was this hot, the first time we were here.”

      Mia said, “The first time, we weren’t guides. We didn’t notice it so much then.”

      They fought a few yards more into the forest.

      Then it ended. Or, rather, there was a wide gap. Before them lay a blast area, unmistakable. The grass was beginning to grow again, but the tree stumps were roasted from the rocket breath.

      “This isn’t ours!” Ri said. “This looks like it was made nearly a year ago!”

      Mia’s eyes narrowed. “The military from Xnile?”

      “No,” Ri said. “They don’t have any rockets this small. And I don’t think there’s another cargo rocket on this planet outside of the one we leased from the Club. Except the one he brought.”

      “The ones who discovered the farn beasts in the first place?” Mia asked. “You think it’s their blast?”

      “So?” Ri said. “But who are they?”

      It was Mia’s turn to shrug. “Whoever they were, they couldn’t have been hunters. They’d have kept the secret better.”

      “We didn’t do so damned well.”

      “We didn’t have a chance,” Mia objected. “Everybody and his brother had heard the rumor that farn beasts were somewhere around here. It wasn’t our fault Extrone found out.”

      “I wish we hadn’t shot our guide, then. I wish he was here instead of us.”

      Mia shook perspiration out of his eyes. “We should have shot our pilot, too. That was our mistake. The pilot must have been the one who told Extrone we’d hunted this area.”

      “I didn’t think a Club pilot would do that.”

      “After Extrone said he’d hunt farn beasts, even if it meant going to the alien system? Listen, you don’t know.... Wait a minute.”

      There was perspiration on Ri’s upper lip.

      “I didn’t tell Extrone, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Mia said.

      Ri’s mouth twisted. “I didn’t say you did.”

      “Listen,” Mia said in a hoarse whisper. “I just thought. Listen. To hell with how he found out. Here’s the point. Maybe he’ll shoot us, too, when the hunt’s over.”

      Ri licked his lips. “No. He wouldn’t do that. We’re not—not just anybody. He couldn’t kill us like that. Not even him. And besides, why would he want to do that? It wouldn’t do any good to shoot us. Too many people already know about the farn beasts. You said that yourself.”

      Mia said, “I hope you’re right.” They stood side by side, studying the blast area in silence. Finally, Mia said, “We better be getting back.”

      “What’ll we tell him?”

      “That we saw tracks. What else can we tell him?”

      They turned back along their trail, stumbling over vines.

      “It gets hotter at sunset,” Ri said nervously.

      “The breeze dies down.”

      “It’s screwy. I didn’t think farn beasts had this wide a range. There must be a lot of them, to be on both sides of the ridge like this.”

      “There may be a pass,” Mia said, pushing a vine away.

      Ri wrinkled his brow, panting. “I guess that’s it. If there were a lot of them, we’d have heard something before we did. But even so, it’s damned funny, when you think about it.”

      Mia looked up at the darkening sky. “We better hurry,” he said.

      When it came over the hastily established camp, the rocket was low, obviously looking for a landing site. It was a military craft, from the outpost on the near moon, and forward, near the nose, there was the blazoned emblem of the Ninth Fleet. The rocket roared directly over Extrone’s

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