He came down the lonely road into the Terran settlement alone, and blankfaced men turned to look at him and looked away again, knowing he carried a hundred hundred-unit bills tucked carelessly in his hip pocket, and hating him for it. The road at noon was sunbaked and hot: squat diamond-backed reptiles with swollen heads hopped across the path, inches from Brannon’s feet.
There were perhaps fifty thousand Terrans on Cutwold, located in six settlements scattered over the face of the planet. It was a warm and fertile planet, good mostly for farming and hunting, weak on minerals. Once there had been a few thousand Nurillins living where the Terrans now lived; remnants of a dying race, they had fled silently into the darkly warm depths of the forest when the first brawling Earthman arrived.
Kly Brannon had discovered the Nurillins. Everyone knew that. Whether it had been through some trick of his extra sense or by sheer blind luck, no one knew. But now everyone also knew that Brannon had sold the Nurillins out to a hard-faced man named Murdoch for a roll of bills. They could see it in Brannon’s eyes, as he came down out of the lonely glade where he had built his shack.
He was supposed to meet Murdoch and his nine nimrods at two-thirty. That left Brannon a couple of hours and a half yet to soak the bitterness out of himself. He stopped in at a shingled hut labelled VUORNIK’S BAR.
Vuornik himself was tending bar, a sour-faced Terran with the pasty puffy flesh of a man who spent his time indoors. Seven or eight settlers were in the bar. They turned as Brannon kicked open the door, and swivelled their heads away again as they saw who it was.
“Morning, Vuornik. Long time no see.”
The barkeep swabbed a clean place at the bar for Brannon and rumbled, “Nothing on the cuff today, Brannon. You know the rules here. I can’t stretch your credit any.”
“I didn’t say a word about credit. Here, Vuornik. Suppose you give me a double khalla, straight, and honest change for this bill.”
With elegant precision Brannon peeled a hundred off the roll Murdoch had given him, and laid it in the outstretched, grasping, fleshy palm of the barkeep. Vuornik stared at the bill strangely, rubbing it between the folds of flesh at the base of his thumb. After a moment he poured Brannon a drink. Then he went to the till, drew forth a fifty, two twenties, a five, and four singles, shuffled them into a neat stack, and handed them to Brannon.
“You ain’t got anything smaller than hundreds?” Vuornik asked.
“All I have is hundreds,” said Brannon. “Ninety-nine of them plus change.”
“So you took the job, then,” Vuornik said.
Brannon shrugged. “You told me no more drinks on the cuff. A man gets thirsty without money, Vuornik.”
He raised the mug and sipped some of the thin greenish liquor. It had a hard cutting edge to it that stung his throat and slammed into his stomach solidly. He winced, then drank again. The raw drink eased some of the other pain—the pain of betrayal.
He thought of the gentle golden-skinned people of the forest, and wondered which nine of them would die beneath the blazing fury of hunters guns.
A hand touched his shoulder. Brannon had anticipated it, but he hadn’t moved. He turned, quite calmly, not at all surprised to find a knife six inches from his throat.
Barney Karris stood there, eyes bleared, face covered by two days’ stubble. He looked wobbly, all of him but the hand that held the knife. That was straight, without a tremor.
“Hello, Barney,” Brannon said evenly, staring at the knife. “How’s the hunting been doing?”
“It’s been doing lousy, and you know it. I know where you got all that cash from.”
From behind the bar, Vuornik said, “Put that sticker away, Barney.”
Karris ignored that. He said, “You sold out the Nurillins, didn’t you? Murdoch was around; he talked to me. He got your address from me. But I didn’t think you’d—”
Vuornik said, “Barney, I don’t want any trouble in my bar. You want to fight with Brannon, you get the hell outside to do it. Put that knife out of sight or so help me I’ll blast you down where you stand.”
“Take it easy,” Brannon murmured quietly. “There won’t be any trouble.” To Karris he said, “You want my money, Barney? That why you pulled the knife?”
“I wouldn’t touch that filthy money! Judas! Judas!” Karris’ redrimmed eyes glared wildly. “You’d sell us all out! Aren’t you human, Brannon?”
“Yes,” Brannon said. “I am. That’s why I took the money. If you were in my place you’d have taken it, too, Barney.”
Karris scowled and feinted with the knife, but Brannon’s extra sense gave him ample warning. He ducked beneath the feint, pinwheeled, and shot his right arm up, nailing Karris in the armpit just where the fleshy part of the arm joined the body. Knuckles smashed into nerves; a current of numbness coursed down Karris’ arm and the knife dropped clatteringly to the floor.
Karris brought his left arm around in a wild desperate swipe. Brannon met the attack, edged off to the side, caught the arm, twisted it. Karris screamed. Brannon let go of him, spun him around, hit him along the cheekbone with the side of his hand. Karris started to sag. Brannon cracked another edgewise blow into the side of Karris’ throat and he toppled. He landed heavily, like a vegetable sack.
Stooping, Brannon picked up the knife and jammed it three inches into the wood of the bar. He finished his drink in two big searing gulps.
The bar was very quiet. Vuornik was staring at him in terror, his pasty face dead white. The other eight men sat frozen where they were. Karris lay on the floor, not getting up, breathing harshly, stertorously, half-sobbing.
“Get this and get it straight,” Brannon said, breaking the frigid silence. “I took Murdoch’s job because I had to. You don’t have to love me for it. But just keep your mouths shut when I’m around.”
No one spoke. Brannon set his mug down with exaggerated care on the bar, stepped over the prostrate Karris, and headed for the door. As he started to push it open, Karris half-rose.
“You bastard,” he said bitterly. “You Judas.”
Brannon shrugged. “You heard what I said, Barney. Keep your mouth shut, and keep out of my way.”
He shoved the door open and stepped outside. It was only twelve-thirty. He had two hours to kill yet before his appointment with Murdoch.
He spent two hours sitting on a windswept rock overlooking the wild valley of the Chalba River, letting the east wind rip warmly over his face, blowing with it the fertile smell of rotting vegetation and dead reptiles lying belly-upmost in tidal pools of the distant sea.
Finally he rose and made his way back toward civilization, back toward the built-up end of the settlement near the spaceport, where Murdoch was waiting for him.
When Brannon entered the hotel room, it was Murdoch’s face he saw first. Then he saw the other nine. They were grouped in a loose semicircle staring toward the door, staring at Brannon as if he were some sort of wild alien form of life that had just burst into the room.
Murdoch said, “I want you all to meet Kly Brannon. He’s going to be our guide. He’s spent eleven years hunting on Cutwold—really knows the place. Brannon, let me introduce you to the clients.”
Brannon was introduced. He eyed each of them in turn.
There were four couples, one single man. All were Terrans. All looked wealthy, all looked bored. Typical tourist-type hunters, Brannon thought in weary contempt.
At the far left was Leopold Damon and his wife. Damon was fat and bald and looked to be on his second or third rejuvenation; his wife was about his age, puffy-eyed, ugly. They were probably tougher than they looked.