That makes five, Brannon thought. Five corpses.
Four more and it would all be over.
Trickles of alien blood stained the forest sand now. The four dead Nurillins lay with limbs grotesquely tangled, and the four successful huntsmen were beaming with pride.
And more Nurillins were coming. Many of them. Brannon shuddered.
“Here comes a batch of them,” Murdoch shouted. “Be ready to move fast.”
“They won’t hurt you,” said Brannon. “They don’t understand violence. That’s why they ran away.”
They came, though, to see what the disturbance was. Brannon turned and saw Llewellyn levelling for a distance shot, his mild face bright with killing fever, his eyes fixed. He fired, and brought down Darhuing the musician. The Nurillin toppled out of the front row of the advancing aliens.
“I’d like another one,” Napoli said. “Let me get another one.”
“No!” Brannon said.
“He’s right,” said Murdoch. “Just one each. Just one.”
Marshall’s wife picked off her trophy before the aliens reached the glade. The second to die was a stranger to Brannon. The others scattered, ducking into the underbrush on both sides of the road—but not before Leopold Damon had fired. His shot caught a Nurillin slightly above the heart and sent the alien spinning backward ten feet.
Eight were dead, now. And only one Nurillin had not sought hiding.
Lethii.
She came forward slowly, staring without comprehension at the little knot of gunbearing Earthmen.
“Brannon,” she said. “Brannon. What are you doing?” The liquid syllables of the alien tongue seemed harsh and accusing.
“I—I—”
She stood slim and unafraid near two fallen Nurillins and stared bitterly at Brannon. “You have come back…but your friends kill!”
“I had to do it,” Brannon said. “It was for your sake. For your tribe’s sake. For my sake.”
“How can that be? You brought these people here to kill us—and you say it’s good?”
She doesn’t understand, Brannon thought drearily. “I can’t explain,” he said.
“Listen! He’s speaking her language!” Mrs. Damon exclaimed.
“Watch out, Brannon,” said Marya Llewellyn suddenly. She laughed in derision.
“No,” Brannon said. But for once his foresight failed him. Before he could turn, before he could deflect Marya’s aim, she had fired, still laughing.
Lethii stared at him gravely, reproachfully, for a fragment of a second. Then she put her hand to her chest and fell, headlong into the dust.
The journey back to the settlement seemed to take forever. Brannon led the way, eyes fixed ahead of him, never looking back, never speaking. Behind came the nine, each with a trophy, each with the deep satisfaction of knowing he had murdered an intelligent being and would go scot-free.
Brannon was remembering. Remembering the look on nine Nurillin faces as they fell to the ground, remembering especially that of the ninth victim. Lethii. It had had to be her, of course. Her, out of the three thousand. That was necessarily part of the betrayal.
It took a day and a half to reach the main settlement again; Brannon did not sleep in the tent with the others, but remained outside, sitting near the fire with his hands locked across his knees, thinking. Just thinking.
It was late in the afternoon when the group stumbled out of the edge of the jungle and found themselves back in civilization. They stood together in a nervous little group.
Murdoch said, “I want to thank you, Brannon. You got us there, and you got us back, and that’s more than I sometimes thought you were going to do.”
“Don’t thank me, Murdoch. Just get going. Get off Cutwold as fast as you can, and take your nine killers with you.”
Murdoch flinched. “They weren’t people, those aliens. You still can’t understand that. The Treaty doesn’t say anything about them, and so they’re just animals.”
“Go on,” Brannon said hoarsely. “Go. Fast.”
He looked at them—puffed up with pride they were, at having gone into the jungle and come out alive. It would have been so easy to kill them in the jungle, Brannon thought wearily. Marya Llewellyn was looking blackly at him, her body held high, inviting him. She had known about Lethii. That was why she had waited, and fired last, killing her.
“We want to say goodbye, Mr. Brannon,” gushed Mrs. Damon. “You were just wonderful.”
“Don’t bother,” Brannon said. He spat at their feet. Then he turned and slowly ambled away, not looking back.
He came into Vuornik’s Bar. They were all there, Vuornik, and Barney Karris, and the eight or nine other regular barflies. They were all staring at him. They knew, all of them. They knew.
“Hello, Judas,” Karris said acidly. A knife glinted in his belt. He was ready to defend himself.
But Brannon didn’t feel like fighting. He slouched down next to the bar and said, “Give me the usual, Vuornik. Double khalla, straight.”
“I don’t know as I want to serve you in my place, Brannon. I don’t know.”
Brannon took one of Murdoch’s bills from his back pocket and dropped it on the bar. “There’s my money. My money’s good. Give me that drink, Vuornik!”
His tone left little doubts. Vuornik said nervously, “Okay, Brannon. Don’t fly up in an uproar.” He poured the drink.
Brannon sipped it numbly, hoping it would wipe away the pain and the guilt. It didn’t. Judas, he thought. Judas.
He wasn’t any Judas. He had done what was right.
If he hadn’t led Murdoch to the Nurillins, Murdoch would have gone himself. Sooner or later he would have found them. He would have destroyed them all…not just these nine.
But now there had been a hunt. Nine trophies had been brought back. Murdoch’s nine hunters would boast, and the Nurillins would no longer be a secret. Soon, someone high in government circles would learn that there was a species in the galaxy still unprotected from hunters. Survey ships would come, and the Nurillins would be declared untouchable.
It had had to happen. But there would be no more hunting parties to the interior of Cutwold, now that the galaxy knew the Nurillins existed. They would be safe from now on, Brannon hoped. Safe at the cost of nine lives…and one man’s soul.
No one would ever forgive him on Cutwold. He would never forgive himself. But he had done the right thing. He hadn’t had any choice.
He finished his drink and scooped up his change and walked slowly across the barroom, out into the open. The sun was setting. It was a lovely sight—but Brannon couldn’t appreciate it now.
“So long, Judas,” came Karris’ voice drifting after him out of the bar. “So long, Judas.”