He left a fire outside the tent hatch that would last all night. Then he crawled inside. The others were already within their sleeping packs, though none were asleep. Brannon ventured a private guess that few of them would sleep soundly this night. The jungle was noisy—noisier, perhaps, for those with this sort of hunt in mind.
The Rhawns were talking in low whispers. Brannon caught Mrs. Rhawn saying, “…I don’t think I trust that guide too much. He looks so strange, and tense.”
Her husband glanced at Brannon, who was staring at the ground. “Hush! I think he can hear us.”
Smiling, Brannon looked away. The others were gathering in for the night, trying to sleep. Brannon stepped outside, peered at the now almost entirely dark sky. The two moons hung overhead like two lanterns, casting shadows through the trees.
An animal was prowling outside the singed circle, sniffing the ground, staring strangely at the intruders who had broken the jungle peace.
He turned away and returned to the tent, found an unoccupied corner, and slouched to the ground. He was thinking.
Thinking of a stubblefaced man in a bar who had cried Judas at him, and of ten thousand Galactic Currency Units that was his fee for this trip, and of a time three years before when he had gone off into the jungle on a solitary quest, and found—
The Nurillins.
It had been a warm day in the twelfth month of Brannon’s eighth year on Cutwold. He had been without work for three weeks, without money for two, and had gone on a foraging mission into the jungle.
At least foraging had been the ostensible reason. Actually he was searching—searching for something deeper than he could understand, out there. He needed to get away from the men of the settlement; that much he knew. So he struck out on his own, deep into the jungle.
The first day had been routine. He covered his usual quota of hiking miles, shot three small succulent birds and roasted them for his meal, dined on the sweet stems of kyril-shoots and the slightly bitter wine of the domran plant. At nightfall he camped and slept, and when the keening shriek of the dawnbirds woke him he rose and continued on, traveling unknowingly and uncaringly the same route that three years later he would cover with a party of wealthy killers.
Then he had no idea where he was going. He put one foot before the other and forged on, pausing now and then to stare at some strange plant or to avoid some deadly little reptile or insect.
Somewhere on that second day, he ran into trouble.
It began with the thrum-thrum of a giant toad in a thicket of blueleaved shrubs. Brannon turned, reaching for his gun—and as he turned, a sudden thrumming came from the other side of the path, as well. He whirled—and found he was caught between two of the great squat amphibians!
He took two half-running steps before a sticky tongue lashed out and caught him round the middle. The thicket parted, and he saw his captor, vast mouth yawning, bulging yellow eyes alight with anticipation. Brannon clawed desperately at the gummy pink ribbon that held him fast, but there was no escaping it. He dug his feet deep in the rich soil, braced himself—
The other toad appeared. And snared him as well.
He stood immobile, tugged in two directions at once, with two gaping toad-mouths waiting to receive him the moment the other yielded. The pressure round his middle was unbearable; he started to wish that one or the other would release him, so death would come.
But before death would be devouring. The victorious toad would digest him alive.
Then suddenly he heard a bright chirping sound, unlike any animal call he had ever known. There was a whistling in the underbrush and then a lithe golden form was at his side. Brannon’s dark eyes were choked with tears of pain; he could barely see.
But the strange figure smiled at him and tapped each of the straining toads gently between the protruding eyes, and spoke three liquid alien words. And one toad, then the other, released him.
The tongues ripped away, taking with them clothing, skin, flesh. Brannon stood tottering for a moment, looking down at the red rawness of his waist, sucking in air to fill the lungs from which all air had been squeezed by the constricting tongues.
The alien girl—Brannon saw her as that now—gave one further command. The toads uttered thrums of disgust, turned, flopped heavily away into the darkness of the deeper jungle.
Brannon looked at the alien. “Thanks,” he said. “Whoever—whatever you are.”
And plunged forward, dropping heavily on his face in the warm jungle soil.
He woke, later. When he could speak the language, he learned that it was four days later.
He was in a hut, somewhere. Golden alien figures moved about him. They were slim, humanoid in appearance, but hairless. Their skulls were bald shining domes of yellow; their eyes, dark green, were somehow sad.
Brannon looked down at himself. He was swathed in bandages where the tongues of the giant toads had ripped away the flesh. Someone bent above him, holding a cup to his lips.
He drank. It was broth, warm, nourishing. The girl who held it was the one who had rescued him in the forest. She smiled at him.
“Lethii,” she said, pointing to herself.
Uncertainly Brannon touched his chest. “Brannon.”
She repeated it. “Brannon.” She grinned at him.
He grinned back.
That was the beginning.
He stayed there three weeks, among the Nurillins. He discovered that there were perhaps three thousand of them, no more; once, they had had great cities throughout Cutwold, but that had been many thousands of years before, and the jungle had long since reclaimed them.
The girl named Lethii was his guide. She nursed him to health, kept constant company with him when he was well enough to walk, taught him the language. It was a smooth and flowing language, not difficult to learn.
“The toads are our steeds,” she told him one day. “My people trained them long ago to respond to our commands. When I heard you screaming for help I was bewildered, for I knew the toads never attacked any of us.”
“I didn’t know I was screaming,” Brannon said.
“You were. The touch of a toad’s tongue is agony. I heard your voice and saw you, and knew that the toads had attacked you because you were—not of us.”
Brannon nodded, “And I never will be.”
But at times during the weeks that passed he thought he had become one of them. He learned the Nurillin history—how they had been great once, and now were dying away, and how when the Terran scout ships had come the Nurillins had realized the planet was no longer theirs, and had moved off into the jungle to hide and wait for the end.
He felt himself growing a strange sort of love for the girl Lethii—not a sexual sort of love, for that was impossible and even inconceivable between their species and his, but something else just as real. Brannon had never felt that sort of emotion again.
He met others, and came to know them—Darhuing, master of the curious Nurillin musical instruments; Vroyain, whose subtle and complex poetry bewildered and troubled Brannon. Mirchod, the hunter, who showed Brannon many ways of the jungle he had not known before.
But Brannon sensed strain in the village, finally, when he knew the people well enough to understand them. And so when six weeks had passed he said to Lethii, “I’m well now. I’ll have to rejoin my people.”
“Will you come back?”
“Yes,” he said. “I’ll come back.”
He came back twice more—once half a year later, once a year after that. They had welcomed him gladly, had grieved at his leave-taking.
Now a year and a half had slipped by since the last visit, and Brannon was returning once again. But this time he was bringing death.
Above the tent a bird shrieked, the long low wail of a dawnbird, and Brannon realized night had gone. He had dreamed of the Nurillins. He had remembered the three visits past, the visits now to be blotted out by bloodshed.
He got to his feet and stood looking down at the ten sleepers.
It was possible to kill them all, one by one, as they slept. No one would find them. Brannon would return alone, and no one would question him. The Nurillins would remain untroubled where they dwelt.
He shook his head.
His decision had been made; he would abide by it. He nudged Murdoch. The dark-faced man blinked and was awake in an instant, staring up at Brannon.
“Time to get up,” Brannon said. “It’s dawn. You can’t sleep all day.”
Murdoch got to his feet, nodding. “Time to get up,” he repeated loudly. “Everybody up!”
The hunters awoke, grumbling and complaining.
“Will we reach the Nurillins today, Mr. Brannon?” asked Saul Marshall’s wife. “I’m stiff all over from sleeping on the ground.”
“Did you sleep?” said Mrs. Damon. “I couldn’t. I was up every moment of the night. Those birds, and the animals I kept hearing—!”
“Yes,” said Rhawn’s wife. “I hope we’ll get there today. Another night sleeping out would really be too much.”
Brannon very carefully erased the scowl of contempt before it had fully formed on his face. He said, “There’s a very good chance we may get there before nightfall tonight. If all of you hurry up, that is. We’re not getting any closer while we sit around in camp.”
It was a telling point. Breakfast was perfunctory, just a handful of food-tabs and a once-over with a molecular rinse. Within an hour, the camp had been broken up, the plastic tent dissolved, the equipment repacked and reshouldered.
While Brannon waited for the Damons and the Rhawns to ready themselves for the day’s march, he walked over to Murdoch, who was talking with Marya Llewellyn.
She looked incredibly fresh and lovely, as if she had slept in a germicidal incubator all night rather than in a jungle tent. Her skimpy clothes were barely creased.
“Well?” Brannon asked. “Am I taking you the right way?”
Murdoch glared at him. “We trust you, Brannon. You don’t have to act this way about it.”
“You trust me? You didn’t yesterday.”
“Marya says you’re leading us toward the Nurillins. Well, you ought to be. We’re paying you enough.”
Brannon glanced at Marya Llewellyn. “Are you from Earth, Mrs. Llewellyn?”
“Originally. I live on Vega VII now.”
That explained the deep tan, the air of health. “Have you done much hunting before?” Brannon asked.
“Mrs. Llewellyn has been on four hunting tours of mine,” Murdoch said. “In fact, she met her husband on a tour. We were hunting in the Djibnar system then.” He grinned at her, and she returned the grin. Brannon wondered whether any sort of relationship existed between these two besides that of hunter and hunt director. Probably, he thought. Not that it mattered any to him.
“We’re ready,” Mrs. Damon called cheerily.
Brannon turned. She was plump, good-natured looking. A grandmotherly type. Out here, hunting intelligent beings? He shrugged. Strange kill-lusts lay beneath placid exteriors; he had found that out long before. He wondered how much these people were paying Murdoch for the privilege of committing legal murder. Thousands, probably.
Brannon surveyed the group of them. Only big Napoli was a familiar type: he was a legitimate sportsman, as could be seen by the way he handled his gear and himself in the jungle. As for the rest of them, these hunters, they were a cross-section—but they all shared one characteristic. All had a curious intent glint in their eyes. The glint of killers. The glint of people who had come halfway across the galaxy to cleanse their minds and souls by emptying the chambers of their guns into the innocent golden bodies of the Nurillins.
He moistened his lips. “Let’s go,” he said crisply. “There’s a lot of hiking yet ahead.”
There wasn’t much doubt in Brannon’s mind that he would reach the Nurillins’ village safely with his ten charges. The half-comprehended sense that had been with him so long guided him through the thick jungle.
Sometimes stray thoughts popped into his mind: a man named Murdoch will come to you this morning and offer you a job.
Other times, it would be more subtle: a shadowy wordless feeling that to take a given path would be unwise, that danger lurked somewhere.
Still other times he felt nothing at all. Fortunately this happened infrequently.
Brannon knew without knowing that the party would reach the Nurillin village on time. It was only a matter of picking one foot up and slogging it back down a yard further ahead, of mechanically marching on and on and on through the endless jungle that made up so much of the planet Cutwold.
Overhead Caveer climbed toward noon height, sending down cascades of golden-green radiance. Rhawn’s wife asked once, “How soon will we be out of this dreadful jungle?”
Rhawn said, “Darling, be patient. This is one of the last places in the universe where we can do something like this. What an experience it’ll be to tell about! When we’re vacationing again next season, won’t we be envied so!”
“I suppose you’re right, dear.”
Brannon’s lips firmed grimly. I suppose you’re right, dear.
He could picture them gossiping now—of the time they came across the secret village of aliens on Cutwold, and killed them for trophies because the Galactic Government had not said it was illegal. As these rich socialites roved from pleasure-spot to pleasure-spot, they would repeat the story, boasting of the time they had killed on Cutwold.
“You look angry,” a soft voice said. “I wish I knew why you always look so angry.”
Brannon had known a moment in advance: Marya Llewellyn had left her place in line and had come to his side. He glanced down at her. “Angry? Me?”
“Don’t try to hide it, Brannon. Your face is dark and bitter. You’re strange, Brannon.”
He shrugged. “It comes from long years in the outworld, Mrs. Llewellyn. Men get strange out here.”
“Call me Marya, won’t you?” Her voice was low. “Do you think we’ll reach the Nurillins’ village today?”
“Hard to tell. We’re making a good pace, but if Mrs. Damon gets tired and has to rest, or if a herd of thunderbeasts decides to cut across our path, there’ll be delays. We may have to camp out again tonight. I can’t help it if we do.”
Her warm body brushed against his. “I won’t mind. If we do camp out—tonight, when everyone’s asleep—let’s stay awake, Brannon. Just the two of us.”
For a moment he failed to see what she meant. Then he did, and he scowled and quickened his pace. One betrayal was bad enough…but not two. He thought of golden Lethii, and the harsh angles of his face deepened.
He looked back. Llewellyn was marching on, not knowing or not caring about his wife’s behavior. The others showed some sign of strain, all but stony-faced Murdoch bringing up the rear and the tireless Napoli.
“I’m exhausted,” Mrs. Damon said. “Can we rest a while, Mr. Brannon?”
“No,” he said, surprising her. “This is dangerous country we’re passing through. These shining-leaved bushes here—they’re nesting places for the giant scorpions. We have to keep moving. I want to reach the village before nightfall if possible.”
At his side Marya Llewellyn emitted a little gasp. “You said that deliberately!”
“Maybe. Maybe I’m turning you down because I’m afraid of getting mixed up in a quarrel.”
“My husband’s a silly fool. He won’t cause us any trouble.”
“I wasn’t talking about your husband. I was talking about Murdoch.”
For a second he thought she would spring at him and rake his eyes with her enameled fingernails. But color returned to her suddenly pale face after a moment. She glared at him in open hatred and dropped back into formation, leaving him alone at the head of the line.
Brannon shook his head. He felt sudden fatigue, but forced himself to accelerate the pace.
Noon passed. A flock of scaly air-lizards passed by and showered them with nauseous droppings at twelve-thirty; Brannon brought on
e down with a quick shot of his handgun and showed the grisly beast to the group. Marshall photographed it. He had been taking photographs steadily.
After a brief rest at one, they moved on. Brannon set a sturdy pace, determined not to spend another night in the jungle before reaching the village. At two, they paused by a waterhole to splash cooling water on their parched faces.
“How about a swim?” Marya asked. She began to strip.
“I wouldn’t advise it,” said Brannon. “These waterholes are populated. Tadpoles the size of your thumb that’ll eat your toes off while you swim and work their way up your body in two minutes.”
“Oh,” she said faintly. There was no swimming.
They moved on. And at three-thirty Brannon paused, signaling for quiet, and listened to the jungle noises.
To the steady thrum…thrum…thrum of the giant toads. To the sound that meant they had reached the Nurillins’ village.
Brannon narrowed his eyes. He turned to Murdoch and said, “All right, we’re here. The Nurillins live just up ahead. From now on it’s your show, Murdoch.”
The hunt leader nodded. “Right. Listen to me, all of you. You’re to fire one shot at a time, at only one of the beasts.”
The beasts, Brannon thought broodingly, thinking of Vroyain the poet. The beasts.
“When you’ve brought down your mark,” Murdoch went on, “get to one side and wait. As soon as each of you has dropped one, we’re finished. We’ll collect the trophies and return to the settlement. Aim for the heart, or else you may spoil the head and ruin the trophy. Brannon, are these creatures dangerous in anyway?”
“No,” Brannon said quietly. Thrum…thrum… “They’re not dangerous. But keep an eye out for the giant toads. They can kill.”
“That’s your job,” Murdoch said. “You and I will cover the group while the kill is going on.” He looked around. “Is everything understood? Good. Let’s go.”