The Stones of Nomuru

III – THE HUNT

Epsilon Eridani raised its fiery eye above the tree-tops as the hunting party, five Terrans and ten Kukulcanians, struck camp. Conrad Bergen said:

"Professor, before we go on, I'd like a look at that turf you're digging into. It's only a little out of our way. Maybe you could tell us about your work."

Salazar's vanity tingled. "Okay, if you don't mind backtracking. Follow me."

He led them along the forested trail towards his camp. A half-hour later they emerged on the site, where Salazar's three assistants were busily digging and sieving a test pit.

As his captive audience strolled the area, Salazar launched into the history and archaeology of Nomuru. Although normally laconic, he became animated and even garrulous in speaking of his specialty: "... so the Despotate staggered along for a couple of centuries as a kind of rump empire; then a new wave of invaders from the south overran the area ..."

"Conrad," said Travers, pointing, "look at that little river, the Mozii I think it's called. If there were a dam at the downstream end of the site, we should be standing in a lake two or three meters deep."

Pokrovskii squatted, scooped up a handful of dirt, and fingered it. "Is good alluvial clay. We can ship it to kiln in Henderson, get bricks at reduced price."

Travers pointed an eager finger: "Then your hotel could go over there—"

The import of the words abruptly snatched Salazar away from his account of bygone events. "Hey! Are you the people the High Chief is dickering with, about making this area into a resort?"

Bergen shrugged. "Well, yes and no."

"What kind of answer is that?" rasped the archaeologist.

"I'm not working directly with the natives; a packager in Suvarov is putting the deal together. But everyone's a winner. I'll give my guests bathing and boating facilities and a fine view, while Derek's lake will protect the locals' crops against droughts and provide the power for a mill."

"What happens to my buried city?"

"It gets flooded. But we won't start filling the area for at least a year, which'll give you plenty of time to dig your little holes."

"And one can't stop progress, you know," added Travers. "We owe it to these natives not to leave them stuck in eighteenth-century technology."

"But—" Salazar was about to launch into an impassioned speech on the need to preserve Nomuru as it was for scientific excavation. A year's respite was ridiculous, since the material here would keep archaeologists busy for a Terran century.

But Salazar bit back his words. Bergen was only interested, he felt sure, in piling fortune on fortune;

while Travers was an inveterate do-gooder who insisted on helping the natives whether they wanted help or not. Neither would be swayed in the least by arguments about the importance of archaeology in understanding the past.

Suppressing his dismay and resentment, the archaeologist donned a sickly smile. Better, he thought, to keep his eyes and ears open and his mouth shut while he studied his antagonists and pondered ways to derail their plan.

"Tell me about your projected hotel," he said. "I once stayed at a resort of yours, Conrad; the one at Tenabe."

"Have a good time?" asked Bergen, brightening.

"First-rate." Salazar said nothing about his marital troubles with Diane, which had begun to emerge, like blue-black thunderclouds on the distant horizon, during this wedding trip.

"I can see it all now," said Bergen, gesticulating widely. "The main hotel here; a row of love-nests there. That's what I like, to create something. The money's nice, but I got money. I like to make things move!

"You understand, Professor, we'd let you keep on digging even after our lease becomes effective, until the place is actually flooded. If there's some big golden idol buried here, we could agree to share the proceeds ..."

"This is not a treasure hunt!" snapped Salazar. "We're looking, not for gold or jewels, but for knowledge of the past. Real archaeology has as much resemblance to the digs in stories and on the screen as a real chess game has to the adventures of Alice in Through the Looking Glass."

"Huh? What's that?"

"A fairy tale by a nineteenth-century British writer."

"Never heard of it," said Bergen indifferently.

With a forced grin, Salazar changed the subject. "What happens when some stubborn bastard blocks your plans?"

Bergen slowly closed the fingers of his right hand into a fist. "I take care of him, one way or another."

"Hm. We'd better push on, if we want to get to Kinyobi Valley by the nineteenth," said Salazar dryly. Bergen, he thought, had yet to learn what a stubborn bastard he, Keith Adams Salazar, could be.

"There's your valley," said Salazar, as the group reached the crest of a ridge along the northern side of the Kinyobi area. A wide, green plain, hemmed by hills and low mountains, stretched before them. Down the middle of the plain, reflecting the azure of the sky, crawled the lazy Tsugaa River.

Most of the plain was open parkland, with occasional clumps of trees. Salazar pointed. "See those little black dots beneath the trees? In the heat of the day, the local animals cluster under them for the shade."

Binoculars raised, Bergen scanned the view. Excitedly he exclaimed: "Hey, isn't that a herd of tseturen, under that clump yonder—those plants that look like oversized pineapples?"

Salazar raised his own field glasses. "Yep, three or four."

Bergen continued to sweep the landscape. "There's one of those big two-leggers with a beak, like the porondu you rode."

Salazar looked. "That's a fyunga, an even bigger predator—the largest on this continent. Notice all the other critters are heading away from it except the tseturens, who are standing in a bunch with their horns toward the fyunga."

Bergen said: "Kind of like one of those flesh-eating dinosaurs they had on Terra long ago, isn't it?"

"Kind of, except for the hooked beak and long arms. We'd better hope it's wandered off" by the time we get down to the valley."

"I'm not afraid of it, with this!" Bergen slapped his fourteen-millimeter rifle. "It's only an oversized lizard."

"Maybe so; but I should want a cannon or a ray weapon. You'd be surprised how much damage a fyunga can absorb and still make a snack of you. Actually, it's more of a scavenger and a hijacker of smaller predators' kills. It's too ponderous to catch the little plant eaters. But it'll snap you up quick enough when it can. This fellow seems to be heading away, so let's find a place to camp."

An hour later, under Salazar's supervision, the Kooks were setting up tents beside a small effluent of the Tsugaa. Bergen sat on a camp chair and, speaking to the poignette on his wrist, gave orders to his subordinates in Suvarov. Salazar leaned against a tent pole and held a similar conversation with Galina Bartch at the site.

When Bergen finished, he clicked off and said: "Hey, we've got a couple of hours of daylight yet. Let's go out and pot a tseturen or something!"

"Getting the head of a tseturen back to camp will be an all-day job," said Salazar.

"We could leave the carcass overnight—"

"And come back next day to find it picked clean. A pack of podshos would tear it apart in no time."

"Okay, okay," groaned Bergen. "Any time I want a little fun, you think up some way to nix it. Like that other New Englander, the one who was always burning witches. What was his name? Cotton Wool or something?"

"Cotton Mather. And they didn't burn witches; they hanged them. Conrad, you can do as you damn please. I'm just telling you what'll happen. If you want to shoot a smaller critter for meat, that's reasonable."

"Which is the best eating? The two-legged or the four-legged?"

"Doesn't much matter. A tisai, the quadruped that looks something like a scaly pig, is pretty good."

"You'd better come along and point one out. Coming, boys?"

Footsore, Travers and Pokrovskii begged off. Bergen picked up his heavy rifle, slapped the stock, and said: "This is the medicine for thick-skinned large game: fourteen millimeters and over seven hundred meter-kilos of muzzle energy. It's a real import from Terra, not the junk our local machine shops turn out."

"For the kind of game we're hunting, don't use that cannon; it'd scatter the animal over a hectare." Salazar shrugged. "But bring it along, just in case."

Half an hour later, the archaeologist was pointing out features of the local fauna. "The main distinction among the larger animals is not between mammal and reptile, as on Terra, because there are no mammals. It's between the bipedal and quadrupedal forms, which have evolved separately for millions of years. It's—"

"Save the lecture. Isn't that our dinner?" Bergen pointed.

"Yep." Offended, Salazar clammed up.

Bergen took his light rifle from the Kook who carried his guns, sighted, and fired. As the bullet hurled the tisai over and over, Bergen gave a triumphant whoop. But the tisai regained its feet and started away, hopping on three legs. Bergen fired again and missed; then Salazar fired. This time the animal dropped and lay still.

Bergen grunted. "Where'd you learn to shoot like that?"

"On the police range in Henderson."

They returned to camp with the Kook shouldering the carcass and toting one of Bergen's rifles with his free arm. As the smell of roasting tisai filled the camp, Kara Sheffield took Salazar aside.

"Keith, are you getting along all right with Conrad?"

"No explosions so far, though my geniality's worn so thin you can read a newspaper through it."

"Watch out for that terrible temper of his. Knowing you, I can't believe you approve of his resort plan."

Salazar smiled. "Ask me no questions and I'll utter no prevarications. Have any of our heroic hunters been stalking you?"

"So far, we've all been too tired after a day's hike. But stand by for the next installment."

"I shall, my dear. It's not really my business; but I can't help taking an interest."

Where the ten Kooks squatted in a circle, one of them began to play an instrument, which it blew and strummed at the same time. Although rhythmic, the music resembled no Terran tune. When several other Kooks sang a wailing song to it, Kara commented:

"Isn't that weird? Do you know what it says?"

Salazar replied: "It's a herder of domesticated tisais, calling to another herder: 'Bring your animals over to my side of the mountain to graze; the herbage is thicker here.' "

"Oh. It sounds better when you don't know what the words mean."

"Like most operas," added Salazar.

Next morning, when Bergen finished another long-distance conference with his workers in Suvarov, the hunters, with four of the Kooks as gun bearers, set out for the grove where they had seen the tseturens. They passed a herd of medium-sized quadrupeds, grazing. The animals raised their heads and, as the party approached, bounded away. Salazar said:

"Their flight distance is pretty short, because this area hasn't yet been hunted by Terrans."

"I presumed the natives would have hunted them," said Travers. "They have guns."

"The Shongos are satisfied with their crops and herds and manufactures. They consider hunting one's meat a barbarous practice."

"Don't they take time for sport?"

Salazar shook his head. "Except for some juten racing, the idea of fun and games is foreign to them. When one saw a tennis match in Henderson, he asked: 'Why don't they hire servants to play it for them?' Besides, their social system is so compartmented that nobody does much outside his hereditary occupations."

Another half-hour brought them in sight of the copse. Looking through his field glasses, Salazar reported: "They're still there, Conrad. Four."

"There isn't much cover. What'll they do if we just walk up to them?"

"Probably stare stupidly." Salazar moistened a finger and held it up. "We'd better circle around to the left, to keep downwind of them."

Bergen took from his bearer the fourteen-millimeter rifle. "Okay," he said in an authoritative tone. "Here we go. The rest of you, stay behind me. Don't shoot unless I tell you to."

He tramped off across the plain. His booted feet swished through the green, grassy vegetation and met the ground with solid thumps. Clouds of pseudo-insects rose on iridescent, glassy wings.

Salazar started to caution him: "Watch where you put your feet—" when Bergen leaped aside with a curse as something reared up and struck at him. The archaeologist ran forward in time to see a slender, black-and-white-striped, ribbonlike shape slither away and vanish.

"Did it bite you?" he said. "Where did it hit?"

"Just my boot," said Bergen. "What was it?"

"A boshiya; something like a Terran lizard, except its bite is venomous. A few centimeters higher, we'd have had to amputate and carry you back."

"Good God! Why the hell didn't you warn me?"

"You didn't ask, and you get itchy when I try to tell you about the local biota. Besides, you insisted on going first."

"Okay, okay, Professor. Go ahead and lecture."

"You'd better let me lead," said Salazar, striding out ahead as he launched into one of his regular classroom discourses. "Tens of thousands of years ago, the Kooks were civilized when our slope-headed ancestors were still whacking at one another with clubs. But the Kooks used a trial by ordeal with boshiyas. They tied you to a stake in a pit and dumped the critters in with you. If one bit you and you died, that proved your guilt and saved the expense of the executioner. There's a Terran legend about some hero that happened to; he held some snakes off for a while by playing his harp with his toes. Better detour around that bluish patch. That's filegrass. It'll cut up your boots."

The march continued more slowly, with Salazar in the lead, looking cautiously down and about before each step. As they neared the grove, the bulky forms of the tseturens grew from distant slate-gray blobs to ponderous quadrupeds munching peacefully on the fresh, pale-green leaves of the lush, low herbage.

The tseturens were barrel-bodied, pillar-legged animals with massive hindquarters and short, bowed forelegs. Their gray hides were warty instead of scaly. The huge heads each bore four horns, one pair set side by side on the nose and another, longer pair protruding from above the eyes.

At fifty meters, the massive beasts raised their heads, peering nearsightedly about. Salazar halted, saying: "Better not go closer. Want to shoot, Conrad?"

Bergen clanked the bolt of his heavy rifle, raised it, and pulled the trigger. The gun roared, and its recoil rocked the burly land developer back on his heels.

The largest tseturen toppled over, moving its legs in a feeble, uncoordinated way. Snorting, the other three lined up along the fallen one's back and thrust their horned muzzles between it and the ground. After much heaving and grunting, with the help of its herd mates, the huge beast rolled shakily to its feet. As it started to stagger away, Bergen fired again.

This time the tseturen went down for good, and Bergen gave a yell of triumph before Salazar could restrain him. One of the other tseturens, the second largest, swung its head, sniffing. It located the hunting party and, with a thunderous snort, advanced at an earthshaking trot.

"Aim between its eyes!" barked Salazar.

Bergen fired. Salazar heard the smack of the bullet distinct from the roar of the gun. The tseturen shook its head as if irritated and kept coming.

Bergen fired again, with no more success. Keeping his voice unruffled, Salazar admonished: "You're shooting high. Aim below the eye level."

Salazar heard the crack of one of the lighter rifles in the hands of Travers or Pokrovskii. The tseturen was a mere fifteen yards away and moving fast. Over his shoulder, Salazar, shouted:

"Run, Kara!"

Bergen fired again, completely missing. He worked his bolt and found his magazine empty.

"Run, all of you! Scatter!" shouted Salazar.

Bergen reversed his weapon, holding it by the barrel, preparing to bash the animal with the butt.

"You, too, Conrad!" yelled Salazar. But Bergen continued to stand his ground. In the seconds remaining, Salazar sprang to one side, knelt and sighted on the tseturen's neck. His face was twisted with concentration. His rifle cracked, and the tseturen pitched forward on its belly.

Simultaneously, Salazar felt a sharp blow on the head, and his tropical helmet went flying. He staggered, then spun around to see Pokrovskii lowering his rifle. The tubby Suvarovian dropped his gun into the lime-green grass and rushed forward, crying:

"Keit'! Keit'! You are not dead? I stupid ass! I did not mean to shooted you!"

"Just parted my hair," said Salazar, running a hand across his skull. "One centimeter lower and you'd have needed another guide."

"So glad, so happy you are all right! I am world's biggest fool! I would have killed myself if I had murdered you! I will never make a hunter!"

Pokrovskii, face wet with tears, locked Salazar in a bear hug and kissed his cheeks. Kara and Travers added their more restrained expressions of relief at Salazar's survival.

Salazar ruefully examined the remains of his helmet. The bullet had nearly split it in two. With a sigh, he tossed it away.

"I get you odder hat," said Pokrovskii.

"They don't make these on Kukulcan," said Salazar. "I got it in Bombay, on Terra. It would take decades to get another. But ..." He shrugged.

Bergen asked: "Keith, how come you brought down that animal with one shot from your pea shooter, when I couldn't stop it with three from my cannon?"

"I cut the spinal column. Using your gun as a club would have been as futile as hitting it with a flyswatter."

"For a guy who doesn't like hunting, you're sure a killer," said Bergen with grudging admiration. "Those things move pretty fast, in spite of their build."

"Yep; but they run out of wind pretty quickly. I once got away from one by outrunning it."

"You did? Well, you skinny guys have an advantage there. Now we'll start collecting a head. I'll take the other one; it's bigger. Will you tell the Kooks what to do? We ought to get some of the meat, too."

"We shall have all the steaks we can carry—until they get too high," said Salazar as he motioned to the two natives.

Insects had already begun to buzz around the two carcasses in thickening swarms. The rest of the day, Salazar directed five bloodsmeared Kooks as they hacked, sawed, and chopped their way through the tseturen's thick neck. Meanwhile five other Kooks went back to the ridge, felled several small trees, and built a crude sled.

All around the great carcasses, the planet's arthropodal organisms circled in a glittering, buzzing cloud. Most did not molest the Terrans; but one large black-winged buzzer alighted on Bergen's bull neck. Bergen leaped into the air, slapping. The blow crushed the attacker, but a thread of scarlet blood trickled down Bergen's neck.

"What the hell was that, Keith?" growled Bergen, studying the remains of his assailant.

"Forget the scientific name," said Salazar. "Most of these bugs hunt by smell, and our scent is strange to them. But that kind hunts by heat-seeking."

"Is it liable to give me sleeping sickness, or something?"

Salazar shrugged, "Don't rightly know; but it seems unlikely. Few Kukulcanian microorganisms can live in a Terran body."

Salazar thought that his first reaction to Bergen's offer, to refuse it, had been right. It was not impossible that Pokrovskii had shot at Salazar on Bergen's order, to get him out of the way as a possible rival for Kara. In any case, the archaeologist resolved to cut the hunt as short as he could.

Before the sun settled down on the tops of the distant hills, the tseturen's head had been separated and, along with enough steaks to feed a platoon, hauled back to camp, salted, and put into huge plastic bags. As they sat around the fire in the gloaming, Salazar asked:

"Seeing as how you got what you came for, Conrad, shall we start back tomorrow?"

Bergen took a deep draft, then pursed his lips. At last he said:

"Look, Keith. I didn't expect to get my main trophy the first day in the field. It would be a waste of opportunity not to pot a few more."

"Where would you put them all?" asked Salazar.

"Let me worry about that. Now, I made some mistakes today; but with practice bagging a tseturen should be no harder than shooting fish in a bathtub. So there's really no sport in it.

"I want to kill something that'll give me a run for my money—like that porondu thing we fought at Neruu." He gulped another draft. "Do they have 'em around here?"

"I suppose so," said Salazar, "though I haven't seen one."

Bergen swallowed another gulp. "I like the big flesh eaters. They can kill you just as quick as the plant eaters; and besides, they're smarter."

"They have to be," said the archaeologist. "The food of the plant eaters doesn't hide, run away, or fight back."

"Damn, damn," muttered Bergen, getting to his feet and striding back and forth, his face crimson in the firelight "I want one of those what-you-call-'ems— fyungas."

Travers ventured mildly: "I—I should like to get back to my family ..."

Kara cut in with an urgent whisper: "Keith, watch out! When he's drunk he gets really wild."

Bergen tossed off another glass and scowled down on the seated Salazar. "I'm on pins and needles. Must be that damned bug. Keith, wouldn't the smell of those carcasses attract porondus and other predators?"

"It might"

"Well, look, I want to go back with some fights and see. If there's a porondu or a fyunga there, I'll bag him."

"Not practical; those species are diurnal. Some predators are nocturnal; they spot you in the dark when you can't see them. One of those could pull you down before you could raise your rifle."

"So what? I've got an I. R. viewer."

"Still too risky. I know some—"

"Scared?"

"Just trying to use sense."

"Then come along! I gotta have some real action!"

"No," said Salazar.

"What d'you mean, no? This is my safari; what I say goes."

"You go get yourself killed by a pack of pooshos if you like. I wont."

"Coward! Yellow-belly!" roared Bergen, waving his fists.

Travers and Pokrovskii traded looks of alarm. Kara said sharply: "Conrad! Pull yourself together! You're ill!"

"Hell I am! Never felt better! I could kill that tseturen with my bare hands, if this sniveling wimp—"

Salazar stood up. "You can get yourself another guide, starting tomorrow. I'm not staying to listen to this sort or crap."

"The hell you're not! You agreed to guide me for the whole hunt, or until that guy Ma shows up. You can't quit in the middle."

"And you agreed not to push me around. I was a fool to take this job, and I'm leaving with dawn's first light"

"I'll go with you," said Travers eagerly.

"But you can't leave me out here!" shouted Bergen. "Since I can't talk Kook, I'd be helpless."

"Tough luck," said Salazar. "The rest of you can come with me or stay, whichever you like. Kara, you'd better come with me."

"I think I've got my story," began Kara.

"But I'm giving you an order!" yelled Bergen.

"Shove your order!" said Salazar. "I'm—"

"Think I'll let you ruin my hunt and make off with my dame?" screamed Bergen. "I'll show you, you son of a bitch!" Bergen launched himself at Salazar with fists swinging.

The other three Terrans all spoke at once. Kara cried: "Derek! Oleg! Stop him! He's out of his head!" Travers called: "You're being ridiculous, Conrad!" Pokrovskii said: "Calm down! Calm down!"

Paying no attention, Bergen closed with Salazar, who belatedly rose and got his fists up. He thought he landed one good punch, but Bergen's swing sent him sprawling. Bergen stood over him, bawling:

"Get up, you goddam sissy! Where's your manhood? Too dainty to hunt, eh? Get up and fight, or I'll kick you again!"

Kara screamed: "Conrad, you're the coward, beating up a man half your size!"

Salazar rolled to his feet and made a futile attack on Bergen, who blocked the smaller man's punches and knocked him down again. The difference in size was too great to overcome, even if the archaeologist had been a trained boxer.

Urged on by Kara Sheffield, Travers and Pokrovskii at last seized Bergen's arms and pulled him back, though his struggles made them stagger.

Dizzily, Salazar got to his feet, licking the blood that ran from a cut lip down into his beard. His left eye was nearly closed, and a punch in the chest had winded him.

"We'd better tie him up," gasped Salazar, dabbing at his cut hp. "At least until he quiets down. He might kill one of us."

There was a sudden outburst of Kukulcanian croaks and guttural cries. The ten natives who had accompanied the hunting party sprang to their feet with shrieks of alarm and raced off into the darkness. Almost at once, the firelit circle was filled with a host of other Kukulcanians, armed with muskets, pistols, and sabers. The Terrans had no chance to go for their firearms; before they could do more than cry out, the newcomers had seized them all in scale-mailed talons.

Salazar found himself being carried off in a horizontal position, with four Kooks clutching wrists and ankles. The others received the same treatment, despite Bergen's bellows of protest.

"What is, Keit'?' came the voice of Oleg Pokrovskii in the dark.

"Choshas, if I read their painted symbols right," mumbled Salazar. "De wild tribes?"

"Yep. Til try to find out what's up." He spoke to his captors in Shongo, but they did not reply.

The quintet of Terrans was bundled into a large two-wheeled cart and stood upright. Their wrists were lashed to wooden bars, which rose from all sides of the vehicle and supported the roof. The raucous sounds of Kookish verbiage filled the night air.

"Terrible talkers," murmured Travers. "What'll they do to us?"

"No idea," replied Salazar.

A whip cracked, and the vehicle lurched into motion. Sounds and smells convinced Salazar that the cart was pulled by a pair of kyuumeis, smaller and slenderer relatives of the tseturen, which were domesticated by the Kooks as meat and draft animals and often called "buffalo-lizards" by Terrans.

Salazar checked the time by his poignette; but since his hands were tied to bars a meter apart, he could not reach the little buttons to call his assistants at Nomuru. Through the bars, he tried to track their direction by the stars that diamonded the clear night sky. But fatigue, discouragement, and self-contempt at his inability to vanquish Bergen at fisticuffs made concentration difficult.

In the end, he simply stood with eyes half-shut, clutching the bars against the sway and jolt of the springless wagon. Around the vehicle, dimly-seen Choshas jounced along on their jutens.

Hours later, the cart stopped at a cluster of yurtlike structures, black domes against the starlight. Kooks untied the Terrans and hustled them out of the wagon, two of the creatures gripping the arms of each captive.

"Hey, Keith!" growled Conrad Bergen. "What's this all about?"

Salazar shook his head. "I don't speak Chosha."

"Why not, if you're such an old Kookish hand?"

"Shongo's hard enough, with more complications even than Russian."

"What about noble Russian language?" said Pokrovskii. "Is language for heroes—"

"Oh, shut up, Oleg!" exclaimed Bergen. "Now of all times to argue over languages!"

Before this dispute could be carried further, their captors marched the Terrans into a large central tent, dimly lit by smoking, oil-burning lamps. On a heap of ornate, gold-embroidered cushions lounged a Kook distinguished by a skin completely bare of painted symbols, save for a large red cross on the chest. Salazar knew that, to most Kooks, to appear in public without one's painted symbols was considered indecent or at least uncouth.

Before the chief, on a rug bearing a checkerboard pattern of red, white, and black squares, lay an assortment of weapons: a musket, two pistols, a long curved saber, and a large knife that was almost a half-sword, all agleam in the lamplight. Four Choshas carried in the Terrans' firearms and dumped them unceremoniously before the seated Kook.

The Kook opened its mouth to speak, and Salazar hoped the creature would use a language he could understand. To his surprise, the Kook chose a Kukulcanian attempt at English. The words were at least partly intelligible. Pointing a clawed hand at Salazar, he began:

"Thou ay-yen from outer space with spines on face. Who art thou?"

Puzzled by the archaic English, Salazar replied: "Keith Salazar."

"Who he? I ask, what dost thou?"

"Work at the University."

"Aye, but how? Annoy me not, ay-yen!"

Beside him, Kara whispered: "Don't play the Maine storekeeper, Keith!"

"I am head of the Archaeology Department," said Salazar, "and Curator of the Archaeological Section of the Museum."

"Ah. It was thou who slew one of my tribe, few days ago. Have interesting prans for thee."

"I acted in self-defense," said Salazar.

"That thy story. Next one. Thou must needs be ay-yen femay, because of ugry budges in front. Who thou?"

The interrogation went down the line. When Travers, the last captive, had identified himself, Salazar asked: "Are you Chief Kampai?"

"Not chief. Prophet of true religion. Put you in pen for night. Lord Jesus come to me in dream, tell me what to do with you." He added a sentence in Chosha.

Taking a firmer grip on the Terrans, the Kooks silently marched them out of the Prophet's presence. The party zigzagged among the smaller tents and approached an open enclosure. Holding lanterns high, the Kooks, gripping alien arms to forestall resistance, searched each Terran in turn and confiscated every metallic object. Salazar's and Bergen's poignettes were removed from their wrists. This done, their captors released them and hastened out, bearing the loot and the lanterns. They slammed and secured a gate behind them. By the dim starlight, supplemented by feel, Salazar ascertained that the Terrans were shut up in a wooden cage, about four meters long by three wide.

"Is outrage," muttered Pokrovskii.

"Yep," said Salazar. "Question is, what do we do about it?"

"Is your fault, Conrad," grumbled Pokrovskii, "for starting fight, so we did not hear nomads coming."

"Shut up or I'll fire you!" growled Bergen. "The professor's right. Sorry I went off my rocker, Keith. That bug bite must have given me some sort of fever."

"How are you now?"

"Fit as a double bass."

What a pity, Salazar thought, that Bergen's indisposition had not proved fetal! He suspected that the insectoid bite had nothing to do with Bergen's explosion; that it had been triggered by a combination of liquor, sexual jealousy, and the developer's volcanic temper. But he said only:

"Try to find some clean, dry spots and get some sleep. We shall need all our wits in the morning."