uman habitations, it would invade some isolated farmhouse,
or, worse, one of the little valley villages. If it were not killed
tonight, the incident he had come to prevent would certainly occur.

Going to the barn, he spread an old horse blanket on the seat of the
jeep, laid his rifle on it, and then backed the jeep outside. Then he
took off his coat, removing his pipe and tobacco from the pockets, and
spread it on the wet grass. He unwrapped a package and took out a small
plastic spray-gun he had brought with him from the First Level, aiming
it at the coat and pressing the trigger until it blew itself empty.
A sickening, rancid fetor tainted the air--the scent of the giant
poison-roach of Venus, the one creature for which the nighthound bore
an inborn, implacable hatred. It was because of this compulsive urge to
attack and kill the deadly poison-roach that the first human settlers
on Venus, long millennia ago, had domesticated the ugly and savage
nighthound. He remembered that the Gavran family derived their title
from their vast Venus hotlands estates; that Gavran Sarn, the man who
had brought this thing to the Fourth Level, had been born on the inner
planet. When Verkan Vall donned that coat, he would become his own
living bait for the murderous fury of the creature he sought. At the
moment, mastering his queasiness and putting on the coat, he objected
less to that danger than to the hideous stench of the scent, to obtain
which a valuable specimen had been sacrificed at the Dhergabar Museum
of Extraterrestrial Zoology, the evening before.

Carrying the wrapper and the spray-gun to an outside fireplace, he
snapped his lighter to them and tossed them in. They were highly
inflammable, blazing up and vanishing in a moment. He tested the
electric headlamp on the front of his cap; checked his rifle; drew
the heavy revolver, an authentic product of his line of operation,
and flipped the cylinder out and in again. Then he got into the jeep
and drove away.

For half an hour, he drove quickly along the valley roads. Now and then,
he passed farmhouses, and dogs, puzzled and angered by the alien scent
his coat bore, barked furiously. At length, he turned into a back road,
and from this to the barely discernible trace of an old log road. The
rain had stopped, and, in order to be ready to fire in any direction at
any time, he had removed the top of the jeep. Now he had to crouch below
the windshield to avoid overhanging branches