ath
struck in midsection of that barrel body. The thing howled, threw
itself in a mad forward rush at their bush. Hume snapped a second
blast at the head, and the fuzz covering it blackened.

Missing them by a precious foot, the creature crashed straight on
through the thicket, coming to its knees, writhing in a rising chorus
of howls. The men broke out of cover, raced into the open where they
took refuge behind a chimney of rock half detached from the parent
cliff. Down the slope the bushes were still wildly agitated.

"What was that?" Vye got out between sobbing breaths.

"Maybe a guardian, or a patrol stationed to dispose of any catch.
Probably not alone, either." Hume fingered his ray tube. "And I am
down to one full charge--just one."

Vye turned the knife he held around in his fingers, tried to imagine
how one could face up to one of those tusked monsters with only this
for a weapon. But if that thing had companions, none were coming in
answer to its dying wails. And after it had been quiet for a while
Hume motioned them out of hiding.

"From now on we'll keep to the open, better see trouble like that
before it arrives. And I want to find a place to hole up for the
night."

They trailed along the steep upper slope and in time found a place
where a now dried stream had once formed a falls. The empty
watercourse provided an overhang, not quite a cave, but shelter.
Gathering brush and stones, they made a barricade and settled behind
it to eat sparingly of their rations.

"Water--a whole lake of it down there. The worst of it is that a water
supply in a dry country is just where hunters congregate. That lake's
entirely walled in by woodland and provides cover for a thousand
ambushes."

"We might find a way out before our water bulbs fail," Vye offered.

Hume did not answer directly. "A man can live for quite a while on
very thin rations, and we have tablets from the flitter emergency
supplies. But he can't live long without water. We have two bulbs.
With stretching that is enough for two days--maybe three."

"We ought to get completely around the cliffs in another day."

"And if we do find a way out, which I doubt, we're still going to need
water for the trek out. It's right down there waiting until our need
is greater than either our fear or our cunning."

Vye moved impatiently, his blanket-clad shoulders scraping the rock at
their backs. "You don't think we have a chance!"

"We aren't dead. And as l