"Quick," cried Hans. "Hank-shoot it!" He raised his own blaster.

Hank wiped off a layer of blood and raised his own weapon.

Before either could twitch a trigger, however, something tore through the shrubbery. It was going almost too fast to see, but Brookings, who had excellent eyesight, made out the dim outline of some kind of boomeranglike device.

It whooshed through the air.

It sliced into the thick worm creature, cleanly lopping off its head.

The worm thing writhed in death throes.

The device that had killed it whisked back into the bushes, disappearing from sight.

"What the h.e.l.l-" said Hans.

Brookings crouched, looking around. "It looks as though we're not the onlyones hunting today."

"What do we do?"

"For right now, we just stay put and see what happens."

The others, however, paid no heed to this advice.

Two men broke and ran back in the direction in which they'd come.

"No, you idiots. Wait!" cried Hans. "There could be danger! Stay together!"

Neither listened. They cut through the quickest way back to the savanna, to civilization.

"Let 'em go, man," said Hank. "We've got our own problems."

"What's happening---"

"I dunno. Those weird signals we been getting. The tech boys have been saying that something weird's been going on for a while now, but the head honchos have been just forging on, you know. Turn on the cameras. We better get this down for posterity."

"And posterior holes, from the sounds of it," said Brookings.

"Camera's been on ever since I saw that thing," said Hans, backing away slightly, as though just in case something else was going to blow out of that chest cavity, or even the head maybe. "Bad stuff." His blaster was up, and his eyes were easing back and forth, catching a wide arc of vision. Feet apart, ready. A professional's stance.

"What do we do?" asked Petra.

"I suggest we see how our guinea pigs do in their path, eh?" said Brookings.

"Stalking horses of their own making?"

"Precisely."

The stalking horses were galloping along, indeed, at a rapid clip.

However, they did not make it.

Before they were halfway through the glade, immediately under a large palm like tree, something shuddered in the foliage, and something black, something netlike folded around them from beneath, hoisting them into an elastic gripped ride. They bounced in their tree-prison only once, before other things rippled through the foliage.

Spears.

Simultaneously these javelins transfixed the attempted escapees. One through the head. The other from shoulder through groin.

Both men had just enough time to let off a yelping screech and wiggle a little bit before the streams of blood started streaming out like beet juice through a colander.

"Oh G.o.d, oh G.o.d, oh G.o.d," cried one of the newbies. "s.h.i.+t and d.a.m.nation. That f.u.c.kin' tears it!" said Hank. "This ain't supposed to be happenin'."

"Hank! Stay in formation!"

Ignoring his fellow hunter, the well-muscled man ran forward, spraying a huge plume of energy up into the treetops from where the javelins had emerged.

Defoliation on a ma.s.sive scale. The leaves did not even have time to burst into flame. They were simply blown into carbon along with many of the surrounding trees, leaving only blackened skeletons behind.

Hank turned around, a satisfied smile broadening his lug's mug. "There.

That should hold the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds down awhile, so we can see what the h.e.l.l's going on. Hans, what are you showing on your sensors?"

"Nothing."

"Can't see anything up in the trees, either," added Petra.

"Maybe we got whoever it was," said Hank.

"I thought I saw something hopping from tree to tree up there," said a slender, bespectacled woman, who in Brookings's estimation wasn't quite as geeky as the others.

"What-now?"

"No, before."

Hank shrugged. "I guess we're just going to have to sift through the ashes.

What do you think, Hans? Some kind of a.s.sa.s.sination attempt on one of dese worthies here with us?"

"I don't know. Any of you have reason to think somebody's after you?"

"Maybe they were after Blake and Alvarez," suggested Petra.

"Those guys. Unlikely," added a jowly man named Gustavson, profusely sweating.

"May I, as a lawyer, remind you gentlemen that we are presently all on audio and video, and doubtless this may be used in some sort of hearing," said Brookings.

"You can turn that off, buddy," said Hank. "There's no law out here but The Man's."

Brookings shrugged. "Sorry. Guess I'm just on automatic."

"What are we going to do? Take the bodies back with us?" said Hans.

"I'm afraid that I kind of blew them apart as well." "Pick up the pieces, then."

"May I suggest that we pick up our own pieces and get out while the getting's good?" said Gustavson.

"Ve could send back an armored vehicle to paw through the wreckage," said Hans.

"I think that would be wise." "I just can't figure out what went on there," said Hans.

"I really think we should leave that to the experts," said Hank. "We'll just get the data on this situation now, then get the h.e.l.l out of here."

"Va. I'm working on it, I'm working on it."

"Christ, you rube. You're going to have to get a little closer than that to get anything."

All this time Abner Brookings had been growing increasingly nervous.

Before, the prey had certainly been capable of turning back and biting, but that was all part of the fun. Before, this place had been alien and strange, but that had been the frosting on the cake, fun stuff as well.

Now, though . . .

Now, with an armed and civilized menace mysteriously skulking about among the trees, things were profoundly altered into the truly unknown. Abner Brookings generally faced intelligent opponents in court, and those were not armed. Now he was in quite uncomfortable territory, and the threat to his mortality was not thrilling; it was unsettling on a deeper level than he knew he had.

"Perhaps you should be thinking about a higher calling, gentlemen," said Brookings.

"Yeah?" said Hank absently and brusquely as he made his way closer to the unharmed trees, holding out his sensors to get the best possible reading.

"Like what?"

"I'm talking about your charges. You're responsible for twelve lives here, two of which have been extinguished."

Hank shrugged. "Look, buster-you signed the agreement. Did you read the thing?"

Brookings was a lawyer. Brookings read everything he signed. Only as a consultant of the corporation, he hadn't signed anything-this trip was free for him and was all included under his umbrella agreement with the corporation.

"Well-er . . ."

"What it says, Shylock, is you f.u.c.king pay your money, you f.u.c.king take your chances."

Voices raised among the group. Voices that seemed to be in general disagreement with that sentiment "s.h.i.+t. f.u.c.kin' Sunday hunters."

Hank shook his head sorrowfully and waded out into the unknown. He directed the sensors in a wide arc.

He stopped in his tracks.

"s.h.i.+t, Hans."

"Vat?"

"There ain't just something out there . . . there's several somethings outthere, moving, and I can't see a G.o.dd.a.m.ned one of them."

"Look-over there . . . ," cried one of the Sunday hunters.

Brookings followed the pointed finger.

Yes. There looked like something fuzzy and displaced among the trees.

Leaves shook and a branch visibly bowed.

"Get your a.s.ses down here," shouted Hank. He pointed his blaster up at the trees. "Or I'm going to mow those trees down, just like I did-"

There was only a brief flicker.

A thunk, and a tearing.

A sharp intake of breath The next thing Brookings knew, Hank staggered, equipped with a new appendage.

A javelin just like the one that had killed the others had almost magically appeared, transfixed in his chest, b.l.o.o.d.y barb sticking out of his side.

Hank looked down at the spear.

For a moment he tried to pull it out of his body, and then he keeled over dead.

"d.a.m.n!" Hans said no other words of benediction for poor Hank's departing soul. He just ran forward, screaming, pouring out a blast of energy from his gun.

For his trouble he was rewarded with one of the boomerang devices. It sailed through the air, again seemingly out of nowhere, and cleanly sliced through most of his neck.

The head whipped back on the remaining strands of skin and muscle. A fountain of blood whooshed up into the air. The blaster scorched the earth harmlessly under Hans's clenched fingers. Upside down, horrified and stunned eyes stared at the party for a moment, aware . . .

And then the light died in them.

The body toppled over, still twitching. A gout of fire churned up some more dirt.

And then it was over.

For Hans . . .

A rush of adrenaline and panic suffused every cubic centimeter of Brookings's body. He looked down at his antique, expert rifle-and it seemed as useless as some stick.

The stink of death was in the air, and Abner Brookings had no desire to add his own to the mix.

He reached over with his rifle and tapped Petra on the shoulder.

"I don't like the turn of events. Let's go." "Maybe we should grab the blaster."

"Uh-uh. That's going to invite another attack. Let's see how fast you can run. Follow."

So saying, he turned and started running back the way they'd come.