clearing or something?'
'Tomorrow, yes.'
'Why not now?'
'We're trapped,' said Bochner. 'If we move away from the fire, they'll have us. If we try to take it with us, they'll follow. All we can do is to keep it alight and watch. If we're lucky, they won't attack in force.'
'And if not?'
'We'll be dead.' The hunter smiled. 'We'll die fighting, but we'll be dead just the same. A brave finish, you agree? To stand with companions battling hopeless odds. Sagas have been written about less. But have hope, friend. Always have hope.'
Dumarest said, 'They won't attack in force. If that was their habit, we'd have been overrun long ago. I think it's a matter of territory-game belongs to the spiders under whose trees it strays. At the moment, we're at a junction, as it were, and so present a problem. When the vacancy we made by killing those things is filled, then the newcomers may attack.'
Dilys said, 'And if they do?'
'We fight back. We win.'
'And leave?'
'Yes,' said Dumarest. 'After we have found Threnond.'
Bochner stirred, not asleep yet not wholly awake, his mind drifting in a vague region composed of memory and fantasy, constructing regions of what-might-have-been together with those of what-could-be. Dumarest was far more complex than he had at first appeared. There were levels within the man which he was only now beginning to fully appreciate. A sense of function, of fitness, of instinctive reaction which added new dimensions to apparent simplicity. Nothing he did could be simple, always there had to be a complex motivation directed not even on a conscious level but operating on the subconscious need to ensure survival. And yet, there were elements which negated that facile theory. A man driven by the need simply to exist was predictable and so made poor sport. Threaten, and he would respond in one of certain ways; he would beg, run, bribe, plead, bargain, even kill. Dumarest would do all these, if necessary, and yet that was not all. There had to be more. If not, how had he managed to elude the Cyclan for so long?
And what made them so desperate to find and hold him?
Always it came back to that-the tantalizing promise of fantastic reward. Not just for the sake of material gain but for the other, far more intense pleasure of personal achievement. Of running down the most wily and the most dangerous quarry he had ever known to the final, bitter end. Not just to make a kill-any fool could destroy-but to win on all levels so that when the hunt was ended, the stalk consummated, and he was closing in for the termination, the usual orgasmic pleasure would be multiplied a hundredfold.
To win.
To pit mind against mind, body against body, skill and cunning and intelligence against equal attributes and to win. To be proven the best. To gain in stature by the other's defeat.
To live!
A noise, and he was fully awake, one hand reaching for his knife, the other for his spear. Against the glow of the fire, the bulk of the woman showed monstrous; female flesh rendered even more shapeless by the clothing and padding she wore. For a moment he compared her with Gale Andrei and her slim boyishness, then dismissed them both. Women, never important, were now an unwanted complication.
Dumarest stood beyond her, head tilted, eyes searching the heights. Egulus, lying supine, stirred and coughed-the noise he had heard-and Bochner lifted himself from the loam to rise and flex his muscles. A creature of the wild preparing himself for action.
They had, he thought, been lucky. It was close to dawn and the night had passed without incident. Lying, resting his bones if nothing else, he had waited on the edge of instant alertness, ready for any attack, eyes acting as watchful guardians as, apparently, he dreamed. Now, with the new day, they could move back down the slope, skirt the area, press on up the hill to the peak.
If the area could be skirted.
If there was no attack.
Standing, he felt his mind flash to an alternate possibility. He and Dumarest, wandering this world, two hunters living on the land, knowing and relishing the taste and feel of a primitive existence, sharing and finding joy in their own, personal world.
A moment, then it was gone and only a semiregretful glow remained. The main hunt still remained. The stalk, the challenge, the need to act, to delude, to beat intelligence and caution with the same of his own.
He said, 'Earl? Are we ready to move out?'
'Not yet.' Dumarest, Bochner noticed, had removed all the padding he'd worn. 'Strip. I want everything but your own clothing. You too, Dilys. And you, captain.'
'Why?'
'For smoke. Most of the padding is plastic and it'll produce a thick, black cloud when burned.'
'Smoke?' Egulus frowned, then thought he had the answer. 'To get rid of the spiders? Will it work?'
'It might. At least, it will stop them seeing me.'
'Seeing you?' Dilys remembered what he had said. 'Earl, you're not going after Threnond!'
'Someone has to.'
'But why? He's dead. You said so yourself.'
'No, others said that. I'm afraid he could still be alive.' Dumarest stooped and lifted burning sticks from the fire, 'If he is, then he's in the worst land of hell. We can't leave him in it.'
He carried the mass of burning wood to the place where the belt had fallen and she followed him, searching for words, for a reason why he shouldn't do what he obviously intended to do. Only a madman would want to climb the tree to face what could lurk above. Threnond was dead-he had to be dead. How could he possibly be alive?
Bochner knew. He said urgently, 'Earl, the risk is too great. Even if they did sting and poison him, there's nothing you can do. We have no cure. You'd be throwing your life away for nothing.'
Dumarest said, 'If you want to help, stand guard while Dilys feeds the fire. If not, get the hell away from here. Captain?'
'I'm with you, Earl.' Egulus came forward, his arms filled with discarded padding, eyes anxious as he stared into the dying night. 'I don't understand this, but in space we help each other. Threnond wasn't a spacer, but he'd bought passage and I guess I'm responsible for him, in a way.' He added with simple dignity, 'Just tell me what you want me to do.'
'Stand guard, keep watch, take care of anything which might attack.' Dumarest glanced at the bole of the tree, his eyes following it to the summit. 'It's light up there. Dilys, start making smoke.'
It billowed from the embers as she fed plastic to the embers, thick, black, acrid. Rising in a pillar about the bole of the tree, drawn upwards by the dawn wind blowing over the forest, spreading in odd vagaries of shape, coils hanging as if solid, to writhe, to drift like reluctant phantoms, to stain the greenery with fingers of pollution.
In the midst of it, Dumarest climbed upwards like a mechanical doll. A rope circled the tree, the loop enclosing his body and forming a rest against which he could strain while his boots found holds on the trunk. Hands flapping the rope upwards, body moving in synchronization with feet and support, he was gone before they knew it, a dim shape which vanished into darkness.
'They'll get him,' said Egulus. 'He won't be able to see them and they'll get him before he knows it.'
'No.' Bochner released his breath in a long sigh. 'He knows what he's doing. The smoke will clear the area.'
Of spiders and oxygen, both given time. And the released poisons could be as fatal to man as arachnids. Why was he risking his life? Why?
High above, Dumarest paused, blinking, conscious of the pain in his lungs, the constriction. The cloth he had wrapped around his mouth did little to filter the smoke from the air and it was time to lose even that protection. A quick move and it was around his throat, the blade of his knife clamped in his mouth, and again he was climbing up to where the leaves made an umbrella to trap the smoke as it hid the sky.
