."

"Nymani!" The Chief Ranger's voice was the crack of a lash. "Will you
forget again that you are a man, and run crying for shelter against a
shaft of light? As this off-world Medic says, Lumbrilo fashions such as
that to drive us into our enemies' hands!"

The shadow thing in the swamp moved, putting its foot forward on surface
which would not bear the weight of a human body, taking a deliberate
step and then another, heading for the concealing brush where the
fugitives lay.

"Can you get rid of it, Tau?" Jellico asked in his usual crisp voice. He
might have been inquiring about some problem aboard the _Queen_.

"I'd rather get at the source." There was a grim note in the Medic's
reply. "And to do that I want to look at their camp."

"Well enough!" Asaki crept back in the brush.

The ghost of that which was not a man had reached the shore of the
island, stood there, its blank head turned toward them. Weird as it was,
now that the first shock of sighting it was over, the spacemen could
accept and dismiss it as they had not been so able to dismiss the
phantom rock ape.

"If that thing was sent to drive us," Dane ventured, "wouldn't we be
playing their game by going inland now?"

The Chief Ranger did not pause in his crawl to the left. "I think not.
They do not expect us to arrive with our wits about us. Panic-stricken
men are easy to pull down. This time Lumbrilo has overreached himself.
Had he not played that game with the rock ape, he might have been able
to stampede us now."

Though the white thing continued to move inland, it did not change
course to fall in behind them on the new route. Whatever it was, it did
not possess a mind.

There was a rustling, faint but distinguishable. Then Dane caught
Nymani's whisper.

"The one left to watch the inland trail does so no longer. We need not
fear an alarm from _him_. Also, here is another blaster for our use."

Away from the open by the swamp, the gloom was deeper. Dane was guided
only by the noises of the less-experienced Jellico and Tau made in their
progress.

They edged down into a small cut, floored with reeds and mud, where some
of the moisture from the soggy land about them gathered into a half
pool. Straight through this swale the Khatkans set course.

The drum beat grew louder. Now there was a glow against the dark--fire
ahead? Dane squirmed forward and at last gained a vantage point from
which to survey the poachers' camp.

There were shelter