ater into the pit rapidly once he knocked away the last barrier against
the waves. And, splashing out into the green water, he did just that.

His calculations proved correct. Waves lapped, then flowed in a rapidly
thickening stream, puddling out about the shell as the wolverines drew
back, snarling. Shann lashed his knife fast to a stout length of
sapling, so equipping himself with a spear. He stood with it ready in
his hand, not knowing just what to expect. And when the answer to his
water attack came, the move was so sudden that in spite of his
preparation he was caught gaping.

For the shell fairly erupted out of the mess of sand and water. A
complete fringe of jointed, clawed brown limbs churned in a
forward-and-upward dash. But the water worked to frustrate that charge.
For one of the pit walls crumbled, over-balancing the creature so that
the fore end of the shell lifted from the ground, the legs clawing
wildly at the air.

Shann thrust with the spear, feeling the knife point go home so deeply
that he could not pull his improvised weapon free. A limb snapped claws
only inches away from his leg as he pushed down on the haft with all his
strength. That attack along with the initial upset of balance did the
job. The shell flopped over, its rounded hump now embedded in the watery
sand of the pit while the frantic struggles of the creature to right
itself only buried it the deeper.

The Terran stared down upon a segmented under belly where legs were
paired in riblike formation. Shann could locate no head, no good target.
But he drew his stunner and beamed at either end of the oval, and then,
for good measure, in the middle, hoping in one of those three general
blasts to contact the thing's central nervous system. He was not to know
which of those shots did the trick, but the frantic wiggling of the legs
slowed and finally ended, as a clockwork toy might run down for want of
winding--and at last projected, at crooked angles, completely still. The
shell creature might not be dead, but it was tamed for now.

Taggi had only been waiting for a good chance to do battle. He grabbed
one of those legs, worried it, and then leaped to tear at the under
body. Unlike the outer shell, this portion of the creature had no proper
armor and the wolverine plunged joyfully into the business of the kill,
his mate following suit.

The process of butchery was a bloody, even beastly job, and Shann was
shaken before it was complete. But