traps.

His head was not clear. And his eyes drew together from exhaustion....

* * * * *

Another night and another day, and it was night again.

His traps were set and ready. All through the day he had prowled the
trees, watching for some sign of Neilson. He found he was muttering to
himself, hungry for the sound of spoken words.

It was nervous work. His muscles were jumping in faint spastic
explosions. Neilson could have been lying in ambush in any of a hundred
leafy coverts, resting there and waiting....

He had covered less than two miles of inching, crawling paths, his eyes
ever alert for deadfalls, pits and spear-traps that might flash across
the way to impale him.

And he had caught no sight of Neilson.

Now it was night again. Time to check on his traps. The rabbit traps as
well as the human traps.

He was approaching the net. And the awareness that this furtive game of
hide-and-seek might go on for weeks oppressed him. He might lie here
close by the net for days without sight of Neilson. They were too evenly
matched--and Neilson was younger. It was Neilson's youth against his
experience.

He found the thin rope of knotted nylon and plastic scraps that led to
the four balanced rocks. One stout yank and the net would jerk upward
four feet and tighten around its victim.

But, in the dim starlight from the small globes spotting the Satellite's
ceiling, the path was an indistinct blur. A moving body's exact
position.... And at fifty feet....

He saw Neilson--it could only be Neilson.

Moving on hands and knees, he was keeping low and to the side of the
little-used trail--but within the width of the hand-patched net. And he
moved slowly, probing before him with a stick or his needle-knife; Treb
could not tell which.

Another two feet and he could trip the net. Neilson would be captured,
alive, and the stalemate ended.

Now!

The net flung into the air, snapped tight about Neilson's thrashing
body! He heard the pop of parting strands as Neilson slashed with his
knife. And then he swung the butt of his carbine, twice, against the
trapped man's skull.

Neilson went limp. It was finished. He could take his prisoner to the
lock, summon the UN guards, and go home to the Krekar Hills. And an end
to all blood-letting for him.

He set about binding tight the arms and legs of Neilson, and had barely
completed his task when the prisoner groaned and struggled.

"So this