ons had yielded to the
newer, lighter, and infinitely more powerful ray weapons. The gun
would impede their progress. It would be of very little use against
the giant Carnivora of Inra. Yet something--perhaps a sentimental
attachment, perhaps what his ancestors would have called a
"hunch"--compelled him to strap it around his waist. He carefully
packed a few essentials in his knapsack, together with one chronometer
and a tiny gyroscopic compass. So equipped, they could travel with a
fair degree of precision toward the mountains some hundred miles on
the other side of a steaming forest, a-crawl with feral life, and hot
with blood-lust.

* * * * *

Man and master descended into the warm waters and, without a backward
glance, left the trading post to its fate. There was not even any use
in leaving a note. Their relief ship, soon due, would never find the
station without radio direction.

The current was strong, but the water gradually became shallower as
they ascended the sloping rock. After half an hour they saw ahead of
them the loom of the forest, and with some trepidation they entered
the gloom cast by the towering, fernlike trees, whose tops disappeared
in murky fog. Tangled vines impeded their progress. Quagmires lay in
wait for them, and tough weeds tripped them, sometimes throwing one or
another into the mud among squirming small reptiles that lashed at
them with spiked, poisonous feet and then fell to pieces, each piece
to lie in the bubbling ooze until it grew again into a whole animal.

Several times they almost walked under the bodies of great,
spheroidal creatures with massive short legs, whose tremendously long,
sinuous necks disappeared in the leafy murk above, swaying gently like
long-stalked lilies in a terrestial pond. These were azornacks,
mild-tempered vegetarians whose only defense lay in their thick,
blubbery hides. Filled with parasites, stinking and rancid, their
decaying covering of fat effectively concealed the tender flesh
underneath, protecting them from fangs and rending claws.

Deeper in the forest the battering of the rain was mitigated. Giant
neo-palm leaves formed a roof that shut out not only most of the weak
daylight, but also the fury of the downpour. The water collected in
cataracts, ran down the boles of the trees, and roared through the
semi-circular canals of the snake trees, so named by early explorers
for their waving, rubbery tentacles, multipl