Andre Norton Super Pack. Andre Norton

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СКАЧАТЬ bumped a round white ball, bouncing past the tumbled carcass of the ape, sailing up into the air, to strike and burst open a few feet away.

      “Back!” With one arm Asaki sent Jellico, his nearest neighbor, tumbling back into the jungle. Then the Chief Ranger pumped a stream of needle rays into the remains of the ball. A shrill, sweet humming arose as red motes, vivid as molten copper in the sunlight, climbed on wings beating too fast to be seen.

      The debris of the nest smoked into nothing. But no needle ray could hope to stop all the poisonous army issuing forth from it, fighting mad, to seek any warm-blooded creature within scenting distance. The men threw themselves into the brush, rolling in the thick mold of the vegetable decay on the ground, rubbing its moist plaster over their bodies in frantic haste.

      Red-hot fire, far worse than any of the splinter torment Dane had undergone the night before, pierced between his shoulders. He rolled on his back, shoving himself along, both to kill the fire-wasp and coat the sting with cooling mold. Cries of pain told him that he was not the only sufferer, as all dug hands into the slimy stuff under them and slapped it over their faces and heads.

      “Apes....” That half shout got through to alert the men on the jungle floor. True to their nature, the rock apes, now streaming downhill, were coughing their challenges, advertising their attack. And it was only that peculiarity of their species which saved their intended victims.

      The apes came forward, partially erect, at a shambling run. The first two, bulls close to six feet, went down under fire from Asaki’s needler. A third somehow escaped, swerving to the left, and came bounding at an angle toward Dane. The Terran jerked free his force blade as that swine snout split wide to show greenish tusks and the horrible stench of the creature’s body made him gasp.

      A taloned paw clawed at him eagerly, slipped from his slime-covered body just as he brought the force blade up. Foul breath coughed in his face and he stumbled back as the heavy body of the ape crashed against him, cut in half by the weapon. To Dane’s sickened horror the paws still clawed for him, the fangs still gnashed as he rolled free of the mangled body and somehow got to his feet.

      The roar of a blaster, of two blasters, drowned out the clamor of the apes as Dane drew his fire ray, set his shoulders against a tree bole and prepared to fight it out. He fired, saw a smaller and more nimble enemy go down screeching. Then there were none left on their shaggy feet, though some on the ground dragged themselves forward, still striving to reach the men.

      Dane slapped a fire-wasp from his leg. He was glad of the support of the tree at his back as the smell of the ape’s blood drenching him from chest level down, and the mess on the ground, made his stomach churn.

      When he could control his retching, he straightened. To his relief he saw that all the others were on their feet, apparently unharmed. But Tau, catching sight of the younger spaceman, gasped and started for him.

      “Dane! What did they do?”

      His junior laughed a little hysterically. “Not mine....” He swabbed with a handful of grass at his bloodied breeches and blundered on into the sunlight.

      Nymani found them a foam-flecked stream below a miniature falls where the swift current prevented the lurking of sand worms. They stripped eagerly, cleaning first themselves and then their fouled clothing while Tau tended the wealth of fire-wasp stings. There was little he could do to relieve the swelling and pain, until Asaki produced a reed-like plant which, chopped in sections, yielded a sticky purple liquid that dried on the skin as a tar gum—the native remedy. So, glued and plastered, they climbed away from the water and prepared to spend the night in a hollow between two leaning rocks, certainly not as snug as the cave but a fortress of sorts.

      “And credit-happy space hoppers pay a fortune for an outing like this!” Tau commented bitterly, hunching well forward so that a certain stung portion of his anatomy would not come in contact with the rock beneath him.

      “Hardly for this,” Jellico replied, and Dane saw Nymani grin one-sidedly, his other cheek puffed and painted sticky purple.

      “We do not always encounter apes and fire-wasps in the same day,” supplied the Chief Ranger. “Also, guests at the preserves wear stass belts.”

      Jellico snorted. “I don’t think you’d get any repeats from your clients otherwise! What do we meet tomorrow? A herd of graz on stampede, or something even more subtle and deadly?”

      Nymani got up and walked a little way from their rock shelter. He turned down-slope and Dane saw his nostrils expand as they had when he had investigated the cave.

      “Something is dead,” he said slowly. “A very large something. Or else—”

      Asaki strode down to join his men. He gave a curt nod and Nymani skidded on down the mountain side.

      “What is it?” Jellico asked.

      “It might be many things. There is one I hope it is not,” was the Chief Ranger’s somewhat evasive reply. “I will hunt a labbla—there was fresh spoor at the stream.” He set off along their back trail to return a half hour later, the body of his kill slung across one shoulder. He was skinning it when Nymani trotted back.

      “Well?”

      “Death pit,” supplied the Hunter.

      “Poachers?” Jellico inquired.

      Nymani nodded. Asaki continued his task, but there was a glint in his dark eyes as he butchered with sure and expert strokes. Then he glanced at the shadow extending beyond the rocks.

      “I, too, would see,” he told Nymani.

      Jellico arose, and Dane, interested, followed. Some five minutes later none of them needed the native keenness of smell to detect the presence of some foulness ahead. The odor of corruption was almost tangible in the sultry air. And it grew worse until they stood on the edge of a pit. Dane retreated hurriedly. This was as bad as the battlefield of the rock apes. But the captain and the two Khatkans stood calmly assessing the slaughter left by the hide poachers.

      “Glam, graz, hoodra,” Jellico commented. “Tusks and hides—the full line of trade stuff.”

      Asaki, his expression bleak, stepped back from the pit. “Day old calves, old ones, females—all together. They kill wantonly and leave those they do not choose to pelt.”

      “Trail—” Nymani pointed eastward. “Leads to Mygra swamp.”

      “The swamps!” Asaki was shaken. “They must be mad!”

      “Or know more about this country than your men do,” Jellico corrected.

      “If poachers can enter Mygra, then we can follow!”

      But not now, Dane protested silently. Certainly Asaki did not mean that they were to track outlaws into swamps the Khatkan had already labeled unexplored death traps!

      V

      Sitting up, Dane stared wide-eyed into the dark. A handful of glowing coals, guarded by rocks, was the center of their camp. He hunched up to that hardly knowing why he moved. His hands were shaking, his skin damp with sweat no heat produced. Yet, now that he was conscious of the night, the Terran could not remember the nightmare from which he had just awakened, though he was left with a growing apprehension СКАЧАТЬ