oke. Johnny Simms was shooting zestfully at the unidentified
animal. He was using that tracer ammunition which poor shots and worse
sportsmen adopt to make up for bad marksmanship.

The threads of smoke seemed to form a net about the running things. They
dodged and zig-zagged frantically. Both of them reached safety.

A third tried it. And now Johnny Simms turned on automatic fire. Bullets
spurted from his weapon, trailing threads of smoke so that the trails
looked like a stream from a hose. The stream swept through the space
occupied by the fugitive. It leaped convulsively and crashed to earth.
It kicked blindly.

Cochrane swore. Between the instant of the beginning of the creature's
flight and this instant, less than two seconds had passed.

The threads which were smoke-trails drifted away. Then a new thread
streaked out. Johnny Simms fired once more at his still-writhing victim.
It kicked violently and was still.

Holden turned angrily. There seemed to be shoutings between him and
Johnny Simms. Then Holden trudged around the reed-patch. There was no
longer any sign of life in the still shape on the ground. But it was
normal precaution not to walk into a jungle-like thicket in which
unknown, large living things had recently been sighted. Johnny Simms
fired again and again from his post in the airlock. The smoke which
traced his bullets ranged to the woodland. He shot at imagined targets
there. He fired at his previous victim simply because it was something
to shoot at. He shot recklessly, foolishly.

Alicia, his wife, touched Jamison on the arm and spoke to him urgently.
Jamison followed her reluctantly down the stairs. She would be going to
the airlock. Johnny Simms, shooting at the landscape, might shoot
Holden. A thread of bullet-smoke passed within feet of Holden's body. He
turned and shouted back at the ship.

The inner airlock door clanked open. There was the sound of a shot, and
the dead thing was hit again. The bullet had been fired dangerously
close to Holden. There were voices below. Johnny Simms bellowed
enragedly.

Alicia cried out.

There was silence below, but Cochrane was already plunging toward the
stairs. Babs followed closely.

When they rushed down onto the dining-room deck they found Alicia
deathly white, but with a flaming red mark on her cheek. They found
Johnny Simms roaring with rage, waving the weapon he'd been shooting.
Jamison was uneasily in the act of trying to placate him.