Decimated. Jack Dann

a catlike, four-footed creature which to date had eluded all efforts of hunters. That was all he had been told. He had been given a flat fee, operating expenses and a time limit of one earth month. Two weeks had already gone by.

      As he came down the exit ramp, Rysling took a deep breath of the warm, humid air. After two weeks of the clean, sterile ship’s air the natural variety smelled awful. He was almost sickened by the thought of micro-organisms suspended all around him. He came to the end of the ramp and the sand was gritty beneath his heavy boots. It felt good, despite the air. He noticed that he was about four hundred feet from the other ship.

      He walked to the other craft. The yellow sun was warm on his face. The other ship was also an exploratory model, slightly larger than his own. He estimated that it was perhaps two years older. There was a large, slightly scarred H on the hull. It might be one of Henderson’s ships, he thought, but the fading letter was not conclusive proof.

      The ramp was down. Rysling went halfway up the incline.

      “Is anyone home?” His voice echoed in the open airlock. There was no answer. He walked into the airlock and shouted up the central passageway which led up into the control room. “Hello.” Still no answer.

      Rysling climbed the ladder into the control room. He looked around at everything carefully. All seemed to be in order—shut down —except for the radar and sensor instruments. They continued their watch of the surrounding country. For the moment they had nothing to report. The light above the security switches over the star-drive and rockets glowed a bright green. Everything seemed as it should be.

      They’re all probably outside. I’m sure to run into them sooner or later.

      He was almost ready to leave when his curiosity got the better of him. He sat down in the captain’s station and flicked on the log tape. He listened. For a long time there was nothing. At last, very faintly, he heard heavy breathing, then a voice he didn’t recognize.

      “The greycat came into my mind. Suddenly I wasn’t a man any more but a beast. A hallucination? I don’t know—but I’ll be ready for it the next time. Going out now. Time: hell, my watch is broken...”

      The tape ran on for a long time. Nothing more seemed to be on it. Rysling waited a little longer and switched it off. Apparently the skipper of the ship had not yet come back. He sounded like a man of imagination and easily frightened. Rysling shrugged.

      He descended to the airlock, walked down the ramp, wandered to the edge of the plateau. Maybe the ship’s personnel were down in the jungle. He unsnapped his binoculars and began sweeping the jungle. Some impulse made him look straight down to the base of the cliff. He saw a stretch of white sand—and then he saw the bones.

      Two human skeletons lay on the sand, hands pointed to the jungle as if praying. They must have fallen to their deaths somehow.

      Rysling turned up the magnification of his oculars. At once it seemed he was standing directly over the two skeletons. A bug crawled out of one of the skulls and fled across the bright sand into the underbrush. How long did it take for flesh to rot away? Later he would have to go down and try to make identifications, determine what had happened and pack the remains for shipment home.

      But for now he had a job to do, an animal to net. It was the kind of odd job he often took on between his regular ship runs. A man could always do with a little extra capital. Besides, he liked hunting. Trap a greycat, they had told him. Simple enough with the proper gear. But others had failed. Maybe Earth Authority had hired bunglers. Like the previous owners of the two skeletons below?

      Their fate really didn’t concern him. He would not fail.

      * * * *

      The “hound” was really just a cage which could open any one of its six sides, could track its prey visually and through body heat and strike more swiftly than any living thing could move. Carefully Rysling worked the remote controls and guided it out of the cargo hold and gently down to the sand. He had set up the tripod earlier. It held the screen monitor for the hound’s electronic eyes. The remote control panel was just below the screen. In effect he would be the hound, seeing with its eyes and making sure that it did not tangle itself in vegetation—much of the tracking, however, was automatic and in reality he would only be needed during crucial moments, if they arose. Otherwise he could just sit in front of the monitor and live vicariously what the hound was doing. A routine job. He could not see how anyone could have failed to catch the animal. The beast didn’t have a chance. The hound’s eyes and heat-sensing device were tied into the ship’s computers which had been programmed to recognize only this type of living thing.

      Rysling adjusted the controls for automatic search pattern. The pattern was based on what knowledge the computer had of the greycat. The hound lifted itself from the sand and moved slowly to the edge of the plateau. In a moment it dropped out of sight into the jungle. Rysling sat back in his seat in front of the monitor screen and stretched his legs.

      In front of him now he could see wide-stemmed plants as the hound-cage pushed them aside. Some smaller plants bore large unopened buds. The tree trunks were massive, and an unfamiliar moss grew over much of their brown surface. The grass in the forest was a foot high, Rysling estimated. He could see great vines passing through it—lines of communication between the trees. He felt as if he were the hound, a great and powerful beast moving through the jungle aisles. The heat there was oppressive and moisture fell in great drops from huge leaves. He pushed a button and the hound’s eyes looked to the now hidden sky. He could only see the great trunks, standing like titans, guardians of the forest.

      Rysling turned to look at the other ship. Sunlight was bright on the plateau. The yellow star was edging toward its afternoon. The red giant was partly below the horizon. Atmospheric refraction distorted its equatorial region, making the huge star look misshapen and bloated. Rysling no longer believed that anyone would return to the other ship.

      When he turned again to the screen the hound was motionless. Nothing moved on the monitor except for a leaf touched by the wind. Slowly, silently, the greycat walked into view, thin and muscular, body low to the ground—the eyes were yellow ovals and looked directly into the screen. Rysling was fascinated by the eyes, they beckoned him, they drew his gaze into themselves. It seemed almost as if the cat were looking directly at him, as if the green-furred beast knew that something else waited behind the hound’s mechanical eyes. Rysling bit his lip. His hands hovered over the console, ready to take over in case of difficulty.

      The hound moved in slowly at first, automatically—it picked up speed until it was moving about thirty miles an hour. But the greycat was suddenly a blur skimming the grass. The hound followed with deadly accuracy, changing direction with the animal. In a few moments it was directly behind the cat. Both were moving well past fifty miles an hour, Rysling estimated. The front cage door was open. Rysling noticed the red light on the console, informing him of the fact. There was a different colored light for each of the six doors. At any moment now the cat would be scooped up and the door would shut. In front of him Rysling could see the dark streak that ran from the cat’s ears to the long tail.

      The greycat jumped into some brush, turned, and snarled at him. In a moment it would all be over, Rysling thought. Then he could go and take care of the two skeletons at the cliff base, go home to collect the rest of his fee.

      The green vegetation before him was suddenly very vivid. Rysling felt a dizziness. He closed his eyes for a moment. His arms grew heavy and blood pounded in his head. When he opened his eyes the screen was out of focus and the whole world was spinning.

      * * * *

      He felt as if he were falling, but slowly. And the cool green grass of the forest was all around him, caressing him, inviting him to sleep until his strength returned and he could fight the strange, scentless creature that was chasing him. Rysling looked up at the hound through the greycat’s eyes. It was coming toward him. He rose on his hind paws and fell back farther into the thick brush. He tried to swat the cage with his paw. He snarled and fell over backward. He jumped to all fours immediately.

      And ran. His cat’s body ran without him, instinctively, turning, jumping with an exhilarating sureness. He felt the