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far on foot. Clutching the reins, he approached the horse- from the left side-put one foot in the stirrup, and hauled
himself up into the saddle. The weight on its back seemed to steady the animal somewhat, though it sidestepped a bit
and tossed its head, rattling its snaffle bit. Macklin reeled and almost fell, dizzy, but he managed to recover himself. His
face and scalp still felt sticky beneath a searing, hot pain, but he didn't seem to be bleeding badly now. Maybe the
wound was clotting up. With the rifle propped across the saddle in front of him, Macklin tugged on the reins and gave
the horse a nudge with his heels. Obediently, it started walking, still nervous but seeming happier for having a man on
its back. Following the wet spots on the ground, Macklin slowly rode west out of town.
IN THE HILLS OVERLOOKING THE HUMAN NEST, DEATHSTALKER sensed Painspinner's pain as a dull, aching
throb ... sensed, too, the bitterness of its companion's failure. Rising , it walked to the edge of a boulder outcropping,
staring down into the town. There. Deathstalker could just make out the moving blob of heat that marked Painspinner
as it toiled up the eastern face of the ridge. It was moving fast ... but not nearly fast enough. Painspinner must have
been badly injured to have been slowed that much, and several times it stopped, as though trying to recover some of
its fast dwindling strength. Searching back along Painspinner's trail, Deathstalker spotted the heat flare of one of this
world's riding beasts, a human astride its back. It was moving more slowly than Painspinner ... but relentlessly,
unstopping. Excellent... . Deathstalker could sense enough of Painspinner's pain
to know that the other Hunter was dying, but before it bled to death, it would lead the human into Deathstalker's trap.
Deathstalker was reasonably sure that the mounted human was one of the Associative Monitors, was sure, too, that
the other Monitor must be close by. It heard a whimper and felt a shudder of horror and pain. Turning, it looked down
at its captive, the food that called itself Sarah Nevers. It appeared to be regaining consciousness . After forcing it to
climb this hill, Deathstalker had struck the side of its head to incapacitate it, then used strips of fabric ripped from its
artificial body covering to tie its legs and hands; normally, the Hunter would simply have sliced the tendons at the
backs of the creature's legs to keep it from running away, but Deathstalker's own injuries, suffered in the attack on the
house the night before, had made carrying so heavy a bundle difficult. Besides, Deathstalker preferred to keep the
food relatively intact and mobile for the time being; severe damage might reduce its bargaining value if the Monitors
didn't obediently step into the trap. The human's eyes snapped open, saw Deathstalker standing over her, and uttered
a shrill, piercing ululation. Deathstalker pressed the flat of a slasherclaw across the gaping orifice, which seemed to
produce the desired result. "Remain silent, " it said, using Max Carter's voice, speaking English. "I, will provide the
appropriate stimulation when you must scream. Do you understand? " The human jerked its head up and down, a
gesture that Deathstalker assumed meant "yes. " Removing the claw from the food's face, it turned again to study the
panorama below. Painspinner had stopped again, ha fway up the ridge to the primitive human mining complex. It was
much weaker now.
Reaching into its harness, Deathstalker extracted a cold, steel-gray slickness that twisted in its mouth-hand like
something alive, elongating and warming at its touch. It shouldn't be much longer... .
MACKLIN HAD BEEN FOLLOWING THE HUNTER'S TRAIL FOR ALmost an hour now, leaving the town and
winding up the slope of the rocky, barren ridge beyond. To his left, he could hear the sounds of the miners at the W
estside Mine at work, shouts and calls, the creak of the big winch, the rattling clatter of ore carts and the clink and
chunk of tools and rock. Doris was over there somewhere, but he didn't dare leave the fast-vanishing trail to find her.
He had to find the Hunter and get some answers out of it, or else let it lead him to its camp. Was Sarah still alive? He
wanted to believe so. He owed the woman so much and felt responsible for bringing this curse upon her. If he hadn't
shown up on the front porch of her boardinghouse ... He'd done this to her, and he needed to make amends. But it was
more than that. If everything Doris said was true, then this entire civilization, the Earth itself, was in danger. His
conscious memories encompassed such a brief instant of time ... six short days since he'd awakened in the desert to
the sound of hoofbeats and wagon wheels. Throughout that time, he'd been the outsider, the passive observer of
events he neither understood nor could participate in, even as those events were sweeping him along in a tumble of
confusion and frustration. Even so, these were his people, by adoption if not by birth. His ancestors had lived on this
world, before the coming of the Gtai.
He couldn't stand by, an observer only, and see this world devoured by the Kra'agh. There was pathetically little he
could do about it, he knew ... but he also knew that at least one of this world's enemies was badly wounded and
waiting for him somewhere just up ahead. He would meet the responsibilities demanded of him by his adoptive world
one threat at a time. His horse snorted sharply, then shied back, head jerking up as it tried to turn away. Macklin
tugged the reins gently, trying to control the animal. Clearly, it didn't want to proceed any farther. "What's the matter,
boy?" he asked. "Smell something you don't like?" He could smell it, too, the unpleasantly sick-sweet smell of rotting
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