The Space Guardian by Max Daniels Page A

to have lost a sense of danger or self-preservation. What she said, however, was, “Are you sure the droms didn’t help? The dragon avoided them.”
    Stoat holstered his laser, his eyes following the retreating form of the saurian. “I don’t know. The droms accompany everyone and plenty of hunters don’t come back. I was told the droms were no help. You want to try trusting them?”
    Lahks laughed. “I’d love to, but a failure of the theory would be so very final.”
    “Yet to that finality the fortunate all come in the end.”
    A little surprised at the strange wording and the fatalistic calm of Stoat’s tone, Lahks turned from watching the glitter of the moon on the dragon’s scales to peer at his shadowed face. “True, but I intend to let the end be as far from the beginning as possible.”
    “I, too.” There was laughter in Stoat’s voice again. “And a steady courage, such as yours, Trader’s daughter can do much to prolong the middle.”
    Although she knew he could not see, Lahks’ brows shot up. “We are well matched, then, all three. But we had better move on. Even if the beast takes the bait, who knows what may come of it? If it is only wounded, it may run mad.”
    They were about to stand up and Suit action to the words when a dull “whump” from the direction in which they had come froze them. Stoat shook his head in negation of the question Lahks had not asked. He had not triggered the grenade, nor had its time-delay run out so that it triggered itself. Perhaps the impact of the dragon’s teeth had set it off. But there had been no squall of pain. Lahks felt a flicker of relief. She killed, when necessary, swiftly and without a second thought, but she did not like to inflict pain particularly on a dumb beast, if its head had been blown off . . . Lahks thought doubtfully of the size of that head and the power of the bomb and realized as she thought that, if they had heard the explosion, they must have heard a body of that size fall.
    If the beast were frightened by the explosion, would it become immobile or run? Frankly, Lahks could not imagine the dragon being frightened by anything, except another of its own kind, It was too big and also too stupid. One needed brains to be afraid. Still, she had opened her mouth to ask Stoat which unlikelihood was more likely when she saw his laser come up and then heard the beast herself.
    Had she been alone, Lahks knew she would have been in no danger. To drop her temperature to where she was uninviting, to remain so completely immobile that the dragon’s low intelligence would take her for a rock or stump, would have been possible. Now it was entirely likely she would be snapped up unnoticed with two other tasty tidbits.

Chapter 7
    Fortunately for all three tasty tidbits, the dragon was no longer hunting. Where heat sensors had flared wide, flaps had dropped so that the great head presented a uniform silvery appearance. What was more, it presented a totally satisfied expression. Lahks could feel her eyes widening with disbelief. Of course, she had never seen the expression of a completely satisfied Allosaurus before, but if this was not it, what could it be?
    The dragon’s eyes were half-closed; the mouth, tight with tension when it had been hunting, sagged slightly open to display the point of a tongue from which a thick saliva drooled; the gait, previously lithe and purposeful, seemed somewhat uncertain. In fact, it looked. . . Before the thought could be finished, all three were crouching as flat against their boulder as possible. A drunken, staggering dragon might not mean them any harm, but to be trod upon would be as final as being eaten.
    It could not be what she imagined. Lahks turned toward Stoat, leaning close so that she could keep her voice low. At that distance she could see in the dim light reflected from the rocks that Stoat’s face mirrored the expression she had felt on her own.
    “Is it wounded and dying?” she