Star Hunter by Andre Norton Page B

foreleg, stretched
the body out with a sudden jerk.
    It was a giant of its species, a male, larger than any he had seen.
But a second look showed him those ribs starting through mangy fur in
visible hoops, the skin tight over the skull, far too tight. The
water-cat had been close to death by starvation; its attack on the men
probably had been sparked by sheer desperation. A starving carnivore
in a land lacking the normal sounds of small birds and animal life, in
a valley used as a trap.
    "No way out and no food." Vye fitted one thought to another out loud.
    "Yes. Pin the enemy up, let them finish off one another."
    "But why?" Vye demanded.
    "Least trouble that way."
    "There are plenty of water-cats down on the plains. All of them
couldn't be herded up here to finish each other off; it would take
years—centuries."
    "This one's capture may have been only incidental, or done for the
purpose of keeping some type of machinery in working order," Hume
replied. "I don't believe this was arranged just to dispose of
water-cats."
    "Suppose this was started a long time ago, and those who did it are
gone, so now it goes on working without any real intelligence behind
it. That could be the answer, couldn't it?"
    "Some process triggers into action when a ship sets down on this
portion of Jumala, maybe when one planet's under certain conditions
only? Yes, that makes sense. Only why wasn't the first Patrol explorer
flaming in here caught? And the survey team—we were here for months,
cataloguing, mapping, not a whisper of any such trouble."
    "That dead man—he's been here a long time. And when did the Largo
Drift disappear?"
    "Five—six years ago. But I can't give you any answers. I have none."
*
    It began as a low hum, hardly to be distinguished from the distant
howling of the wind. Then it slid up scale until the thin wail became
an ululating scream torturing the ears, dragging out of hiding those
fears of a man confronting the unknown in the dark.
    Hume tugged at Vye, drew the other by force back into the brush.
Scratched, laced raw by the whip of branches, they stood in a small
hollow with the drift of leaves high about their ankles. And the
Hunter pulled into place the portions of growth they had dislodged in
their passage into the thicket's heart. Through gaps they could see
the opening where lay the body of the water-cat.
    The wail was cut off short, that cessation in itself a warning. Vye's
body, touching earth with knee and hand as he crouched, picked up a
vibration. Whatever came towards them walked heavily.
    Did the smell of death draw it now? Or had it trailed them from the
closed gate? Hume's breath hissed lightly between his teeth. He was
sighting the ray tube through a leaf gap.
    A snuffling, heavier than a man's panting. A vast blot, which was
neither clearly paw nor hand, swept aside leaves and branches on the
other side of the small clearing, tearing them casually from the
shrubs.
    What shuffled into the open might be a cousin of the blue beasts. But
where they had given only an impression of brutal menace, this was
savagery incarnate. Taller than Hume, but hunched forward in its
neckless outline, the thing was a monster. And over the round of the
lower jaw, tusks protruded in ugly promise.
    Being carnivorous and hungry, it scooped up the body of the water-cat
and fed without any prolonged ceremony. Vye, remembering the crushed
spine of the human skeleton, was sickened.
    Done, it reared on hind feet once again, the pear-shaped head swung in
their direction. Vye was half certain he had seen that tube-nose
expand to test the air and scent them.
    Hume pressed the button of the ray tube. That soundless spear of death
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