g up, Dane stared wide-eyed into the dark. A handful of glowing
coals, guarded by rocks, was the center of their camp. He hunched up to
that hardly knowing why he moved. His hands were shaking, his skin damp
with sweat no heat produced. Yet, now that he was conscious of the
night, the Terran could not remember the nightmare from which he had
just awakened, though he was left with a growing apprehension which he
could not define. What prowled out there in that dark? Walked the
mountain side? Listened, spied and waited?

Dane half started to his feet as a form did move into the dim light of
the fire. Tau stood there, regarding him with sober intensity.

"Bad dream?"

The younger man admitted to that with a nod, partly against his will.

"Well, you aren't the only one. Remember any of it?"

With an effort, Dane looked away from the encircling dark. It was as if
the fear which had shaken him awake, now embodied, lurked right there.

"No." He rubbed sleep-smarting eyes.

"Neither did I," Tau remarked. "But both of 'em must have been
jet-powered."

"I suppose one could expect to have nightmares after yesterday." Dane
advanced the logical explanation, yet at the same time something deep
inside him denied every word of it. He had known nightmares before; none
of them had left this aftertaste. And he wanted no return of sleep
tonight. Reaching to the pile of wood he fed the fire as Tau settled
down beside him.

"There is something else...." the medic began, and then fell silent.
Dane did not press him. The younger man was too busy fighting a growing
desire to whirl and aim the fire ray into that darkness, to catch in its
withering blast that lurking thing he could _feel_ padded there, biding
its time.

Despite his efforts Dane did drowse again before morning, waking
unrefreshed, and, to his secret dismay, with no lessening of his odd
dislike for the country about them.

Asaki did not suggest that they trail the poachers into the morass of
Mygra. Instead the Chief Ranger was eager to press on in the opposite
direction, find a way over the range to the preserve where he could
assemble a punitive force to deal with the outlaws. So they began an
upward climb which took them away from the dank heat of the lowlands,
into the parched blaze of the sunbaked ledges above.

The sun was bright, far too bright, and there were few shadows left. Yet
Dane, stopping to drink sparingly from his canteen, could not lose that
sense of