the skull and emerged under the jaw; the head
was relatively undamaged. Verkan Vall was glad of that; he wanted that
head for the trophy-room of his home on Nerros. Grunting and straining,
he got the thing into the back of the jeep, and flung his almost
shredded tweed coat over it.

A last look around assured him that he had left nothing unaccountable
or suspicious. The brush was broken where the nighthound had been
tearing at the coat; a bear might have done that. There were splashes
of the viscid stuff the thing had used for blood, but they wouldn't be
there long. Terrestrial rodents liked nighthound blood, and the woods
were full of mice. He climbed in under the wheel, backed, turned, and
drove away.

* * * * *

Inside the paratime-transposition dome, Verkan Vall turned from the body
of the nighthound, which he had just dragged in, and considered the
inert form of another animal--a stump-tailed, tuft-eared, tawny Canada
lynx. That particular animal had already made two paratime
transpositions; captured in the vast wilderness of Fifth-Level North
America, it had been taken to the First Level and placed in the
Dhergabar Zoological Gardens, and then, requisitioned on the authority
of Tortha Karf, it had been brought to the Fourth Level by Verkan Vall.
It was almost at the end of all its travels.

Verkan Vall prodded the supine animal with the toe of his boot; it
twitched slightly. Its feet were cross-bound with straps, but when he
saw that the narcotic was wearing off, Verkan Vall snatched a syringe,
parted the fur at the base of its neck, and gave it an injection. After
a moment, he picked it up in his arms and carried it out to the jeep.

"All right, pussy cat," he said, placing it under the rear seat, "this
is the one-way ride. The way you're doped up, it won't hurt a bit."

He went back and rummaged in the debris of the long-deserted barn. He
picked up a hoe, and discarded it as too light. An old plowshare was
too unhandy. He considered a grate-bar from a heating furnace, and then
he found the poleax, lying among a pile of wormeaten boards. Its handle
had been shortened, at some time, to about twelve inches, converting it
into a heavy hatchet. He weighed it, and tried it on a block of wood,
and then, making sure that the secret door was closed, he went out
again and drove off.

An hour later, he returned. Opening the secret door, he carried the
ruined shoulder holster, and the