“Lions, graz, rock apes,” Asaki fastened the mouth of his trail bag. “All are hunters or killers. The graz send out scouts, and they are big and formidable enough to have no enemies. Lions hunt with intelligence and skill. Rock apes are dangerous, but luckily they cannot keep silent when they scent their prey and so give one warning.”
As they climbed up-slope from the flitter, Dane, looking back, saw that perhaps Asaki was right in his belief that they had better try to help themselves rather than wait for rescue. Putting aside the excuse of fearing another crack-up, the wrecked flitter made no outstanding mark on the ground. The higher they climbed, the less it could be distinguished from the tumble of rocks about it.
He had lagged a little behind and, when he hurried to catch up, found Jellico standing with his distance vision lenses to his eyes, directing them toward that shadow marking the swamp. As the younger spaceman reached him, the captain lowered the glasses and spoke:
“Take your knife, Thorson, and hold it close to that rock—over there.” He pointed to a rounded black knob protruding from the soil a little off their path.
Dane obeyed, only to have the blade jerk in his hand. And when he loosened his hold in amazement, the steel slapped tight against the stone.
“Magnetic!”
“Yes. Which might explain our crash. Also this.” Jellico held out a field compass to demonstrate that its needle had gone completely mad.
“We can use the mountain range itself for a guide,” Dane said with more confidence than he felt.
“True enough. But we may have trouble when we head west again.” Jellico let the lenses swing free on their cord about his neck. “If we were wrecked on purpose”—his mouth tightened and the old blaster burn on his cheek stretched as did his jaw set—“then someone is going to answer a lot of questions—and fast!”
“The Chief Ranger, sir?”
“I don’t know. I just don’t know!” The captain grunted as he adjusted his pack and started on.
If fortune had failed them earlier, she smiled on them now. Asaki discovered a cave before sundown, located not too far from a mountain stream. The Ranger sniffed the air before that dark opening as the Hunter pilot shed his equipment and crept forward on his hands and knees, his head up and his nostrils expanding as he, too, tested the scent from the cave mouth.
Scent? It was closer to a stench, and one ripe enough to turn the stomach of an off-worlder. But the Hunter glanced back over his shoulder and nodded reassuringly.
“Lion. But old. Not here within five days at least.”
“Well enough. And even old lion scent will keep away rock apes. We’ll clean some and then we can rest undisturbed,” was his superior’s comment.
The cleaning was easy for the brittle bedding of dried bracken and grass the beast had left burned quickly, cleansing with both fire and smoke. When they raked the ashes out with branches, Asaki and Nymani brought in handfuls of leaves which they crumpled and threw on the floor, spreading an aromatic odor which banished most of the foulness.
Dane, at the stream with the canteens to fill, chanced upon a small pool where there was a spread of smooth yellow sand. Knowing well the many weird booby traps one might stumble into on a strange world, the Terran prospected carefully, stirring up the stand with a stick. Sighting not so much as a water insect or a curious fish, he pulled off his boots, rolled up his breeches and waded in. The water was cool and refreshing, though he dared not drink it until the purifier was added. Then, with the filled canteens knotted together by their straps, he put on his boots and climbed to the cave where Tau waited with water tablets.
Half an hour later Dane sat cross-legged by the fire, turning a spit strung with three small birds Asaki had brought in. One foot closer to the heat began to tingle and he eased off his boot; his cramped toes suddenly seeming to have doubled in size. He was staring wide-eyed at these same toes, puffed, red, and increasingly painful to the touch, when Nymani squatted beside him, inspected his foot closely, and ordered him to take off his other boot.
“What is it?” Dane found that shedding the other boot was a minor torture in itself.
Nymani was cutting tiny splinters, hardly thicker than a needle, from a stick.
“Sand worm—lays eggs in flesh. We burn them out or you have bad foot.”
“Burn them out!” Dane echoed, and then swallowed as he watched Nymani advance a splinter to the fire.
“Burn them,” the Khatkan repeated firmly. “Burn tonight, hurt some tomorrow; all well soon. No burn—very bad.”
Dane ruefully prepared to pay the consequences of his first brush with the unpleasant surprises Khatka had to offer.
IV
Dane regarded his throbbing feet morosely. Nymani’s operations with burning splinters had been hard to take, but he had endured them without disgracing himself before the Khatkans, who appeared to regard such a mishap as just another travel incident. Now, with Tau’s salve soothing the worst of the after affects, the Terran was given time to reflect upon his own stupidity and the fact that he might now prove a drag on the whole party the next morning.
“That’s queer. …”
Dane was startled out of the contemplation of his misery to see the medic on his knees before their row of canteens, the vial of water purifier held to the firelight for a closer inspection.
“What’s the matter?”
“We must have hit with a pretty hard thump back there. Some of these pills are powder! Have to guess about the portion to add.” With the tip of his knife blade Tau scraped a
