Next to them sat the Saul Marshalls. Marshall was a thin dried-out man with glittering eyes and a hooked ascetic nose. His wife was warmer-looking, a smiling brunette of thirty or so.
At their right was Clyde Llewellyn and his wife. Llewellyn was mild, diffident-looking, a slim redhaired man who seemed about as fierce as a bank clerk. His wife—Brannon blinked—his wife was a long, luxurious, cat-like creature with wide bare shoulders, long black hair, and magnificent breasts concealed only by sprayon patches the size of a one-unit coin.
The fourth couple consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Fredrik Rhawn, two sleek socialites, flawless of face and form, who seemed to have been turned out on a machine lathe. Next to them sat the loner, Rod Napoli, a burly, immensely broad man with thick features and gigantic hands.
“Mr. Napoli lost his wife on our previous tour,” Murdoch said discreetly. “It—ah—explains the uneven number we have.”
“I see,” Brannon said. Napoli didn’t look particularly bereaved. He sat inhaling huge gulps of air at each breath, looking like a highly efficient killing machine and nothing else.
“Well, now you’ve met everyone,” said Murdoch. “I want you to know that this group is experienced in the ways of hunting, and that you’re not just guiding a group of silly amateurs.” His eyes narrowed. “Our goal, as you know, is the Nurillin.”
“I know,” Brannon returned acidly. “That’s already been made clear.”
“When would you like to start?” Murdoch asked.
“Now,” said Brannon.
“Now?”
“Now?” said Fredrik Rhawn, half-rising. “So soon? But we just had lunch. I mean, couldn’t we hold this thing over till tomorrow?”
“I’d like to get started,” Brannon said stubbornly. He added silently, the quicker the better. I want to get this thing over with.
Rhawn’s wife murmured something to him, and he said, “All right. It’s foolish of me to hold everyone back, isn’t it? We’re ready to go any time.”
“Good,” Murdoch said. He glanced at Brannon. “Our equipment is packed and ready. We’re at your disposal.”
“Let’s go, then,” Brannon said.
Brannon estimated privately that the trip would take two days of solid march. He had found the Nurillins after only little more than a day’s journey out of the settlement, but that was when he was alone and moving at a good pace.
They left the settlement single file at three-thirty that afternoon, Brannon in the lead, followed by Napoli, who lugged along the handtruck carrying their supplies and provisions, and then, in order, the Rhawns, the Damons, the Marshalls, and the Llewellyns, with Murdoch last of all, just back of radiant Marya Llewellyn.
Two days. As Brannon pushed on slowly through the thick forest, slashing down the clinging vines as he went, the thought of spending two days with these people was intolerable, the thought of the quest they were on impossible to carry in his mind. When he thought of the soft-voiced Nurrillins and the few happy days he had spent with them, and now realized that he was bringing nine trophy-happy tourists through the woods to their secret hiding place—
He shook his head. Behind him, Napoli said, “Something wrong?”
“Damned fly buzzing in my ears. They’ll eat you alive if you let them.”
Napoli chuckled. They moved on.
Brannon was sure the tourists knew what the Nurillins were. That just added an extra twist to it. Murder was punishable by life imprisonment, which in these days of hundred-fifty-year lifespans was ten times as dreadful as capital punishment. Since detection was almost unavoidable, people rarely murdered.
But legal murder—ah, that was another thing. All the thrill of destroying a thinking, breathing, intelligent creature, with none of the drawbacks. In the early days of stellar expansion, the natives of a thousand worlds had been hewn down mercilessly by wealthy Terrans who regarded the strange life forms as “just animals.”
To stop that, the Extraterrestrial Life Treaty of 2977 had been promulgated, and its supplement. From then on, none of the creatures listed could be shot for game. But there still were other worlds, newer worlds, worlds which had been missed in the survey. And races such as the Nurillins, with but a handful of members. The Nurillins had retreated when the Terrans came, and so they had been missed by the Treaty-makers.
And so they were still free game for the guns of Rod Napoli and Leopold Damon and anyone else willing to pay for their pleasure. Brannon scowled.
A vine tumbled down out of nowhere and splashed itself stickily across his face. He slashed it out of the way with his machete and pushed on.
He knew the forest well. His plan was to take the most circuitous route possible, in hopes that Murdoch would never be able to find his way to the Nurillins again. Accordingly he struck out between two vast cholla-trees, signalling for the others to follow him.
Suddenly Murdoch called out, “Hold it up there, Brannon! Mrs. Damon wants to rest.”
“But—”
“Hold it,” Murdoch snapped. There was urgency in the hunt director’s voice. Brannon stopped.
He turned and saw Mrs. Damon sitting on a coarse-grained gray rock at the side of the footpath, massaging her feet. Brannon smiled and revised his estimate upward. It was going to take three days to get there, if this kept on happening with any regularity.
Murdoch said, “Brannon, could I see you for a minute as long as we’ve stopped?”
“Sure,” Brannon said. “What is it?”
Murdoch had drawn away from the others somewhat and stood at a distance, with Marya Llewellyn. Her husband was paying no attention; he had joined the group that stood around Mrs. Damon. Brannon sauntered over Murdoch.
“Are you taking us in the right direction?” Murdoch asked abruptly.
Surprised—for his foresight did not work all the time—Brannon glanced at Marya Llewellyn. The girl was staring at him out of dark pools of eyes, darker even than her jet hair. She wore only shorts and the sprayon patches over her breasts; she looked at him accusingly and said, “I don’t think we’re heading the right way.”
“How would you know?” Brannon snapped.
Murdoch smiled coldly. “You’re not the only one with heightened sensory powers, Brannon. Mrs. Llewellyn has a peculiar and very useful gift of knowing when she’s going toward a goal and when she isn’t. She says the route you just took doesn’t feel right. She says it doesn’t lead straight to the Nurillins.”
“She’s right,” Brannon admitted. “What of it? I promised I’d get you there, and I will. Does it make any difference if I take a slightly roundabout route? I’m the guide, don’t forget.”
“I haven’t forgotten it. And I’ll let you continue on this path another hour or so, provided we don’t get any further off the course. But I thought I’d warn you that Marya here will be able to detect it any time you try to fool us. Any time you deliberately try to get us lost, she’ll tell me about it.”
Brannon looked stonily at her. He said nothing.
“Losing your charges in the jungle is attempted murder,” Murdoch went on. “I’d feel entirely justified in shooting you down if necessary.”
Brannon’s jaws tightened. “For the benefit of you and your little bloodhound here, I’m doing my best. I’ll get you to the Nurillins. And if it’s okay with Mrs. Damon, I’d like to get moving again right now.”
An hour later, they were still moving. Dark shadows were scudding across the sky now, and the forest was thickening into jungle—jungle where death might wait behind any tree or under any pebble. But still Brannon kept moving.