*

Shotwell pulled up his chair. "You didn't answer me. What is a Cytha
like?"

"I wouldn't know," said Duncan.

"Don't know? But you're going after it, looks like, and how can you
hunt it if you don't know--"

"Track it. The thing tied to the other end of the trail is sure to be
the Cytha. Well find out what it's like once we catch up to it."

"We?"

"The natives will send up someone to do the tracking for me. Some of
them are better than a dog."

"Look, Gavin. I've put you to a lot of trouble and you've been decent
with me. If I can be any help, I would like to go."

"Two make better time than three. And we have to catch this Cytha fast
or it might settle down to an endurance contest."

"All right, then. Tell me about the Cytha."

Duncan poured porridge gruel into his bowl, handed the pan to
Shotwell. "It's a sort of special thing. The natives are scared to
death of it. You hear a lot of stories about it. Said to be
unkillable. It's always capitalized, always a proper noun. It has been
reported at different times from widely scattered places."

"No one's ever bagged one?"

"Not that I ever heard of." Duncan patted the rifle. "Let me get a
bead on it."

He started eating, spooning the porridge into his mouth, munching on
the stale corn bread left from the night before. He drank some of the
brackish beverage and shuddered.

"Some day," he said, "I'm going to scrape together enough money to buy
a pound of coffee. You'd think--"

"It's the freight rates," Shotwell said. "I'll send you a pound when I
go back."

"Not at the price they'd charge to ship it out," said Duncan. "I
wouldn't hear of it."

They ate in silence for a time. Finally Shotwell said: "I'm getting
nowhere, Gavin. The natives are willing to talk, but it all adds up to
nothing."

"I tried to tell you that. You could have saved your time."

Shotwell shook his head stubbornly. "There's an answer, a logical
explanation. It's easy enough to say you cannot rule out the sexual
factor, but that's exactly what has happened here on Layard. It's easy
to exclaim that a sexless animal, a sexless race, a sexless planet is
impossible, but that is what we have. Somewhere there is an answer and
I have to find it."

* * * * *

"Now hold up a minute," Duncan protested. "There's no use blowing a
gasket. I haven't got the time this morning to listen to your
lecture."

"But it's not the lack of sex that worries m