"Never! Do gekkos hunt smur?"

"In this case we gain the benefit of surprise."

"No doubt of that!" declared Anacho. "But you must proceed without me; I will have none of it."

Traz choked back a guffaw; Anacho swung about. "What amuses you?"

"Your fear."

Anacho leaned back in his seat. "If you knew the Dirdir as I do, you would fear too."

"They are alive. Kill, they die."

"They are hard to kill. When they hunt, they use a separate region of their mind, what they call the 'Old State.' No man can stand against them. Reith's concept verges upon insanity."

"Tomorrow we'll study the hunt board again," said Reith in a soothing voice.

"Something may suggest itself."

CHAPTER SIX

THREE DAYS LATER, an hour before dawn, Reith, Traz and Anacho departed Maust.

Passing through the Portal of Gleams, they set out across the Foreland toward the Hills of Recall, black on the mottled dark brown and violet sky, ten miles to the south. Ahead and behind, a dozen other shapes ran half-crouched through the cool gloom. Some had burdened themselves with equipment: digging implements, graders, weapons, deodorizing ointment, face-stains, camouflage; others had no more than a sack, a knife, a wad of alimentary paste.

Carina 4269 shouldered up through the murk, and some of the takers, crawling into patches of scrub, concealed themselves under camouflage cloth, to await the coming of dusk before proceeding further. Others plunged ahead, anxious to reach the Boulder Patch, accepting the risk of interception. Stimulated by evidence of this riskashes mingled with burned bones and scraps of leather-Reith, Traz and Anacho accelerated their pace. Half-trotting, half-running they gained the haven of the Boulder Path, where Dirdir did not care to hunt, without untoward incident.

They put down their packs and stretched out to rest. Almost at once a pair of hulking figures drew near: men of no race identifiable to Reith, brown of skin with long tangled black hair and curly beards. They wore rags; they stank abominably and inspected the three with truculent assurance. "We are in command of these premises," groaned one in a guttural voice. "Your cost for respite is five sequins each; if you refuse we will thrust you into the open, and notice!

Dirdir stalk the northern ridge."

Anacho instantly leapt to his feet and with his shovel struck the speaker a great blow on the head. The second man swung his cudgel; Anacho cut up with his shovel blade, catching the man a maiming blow under the wrists. The cudgel flew aside; the man tottered back, looking in horror at his hands. They flapped under his wrists like a pair of empty gloves. Anacho said, "Go forth yourself to face the Dirdir." He jumped forward with shovel raised; the two shambled off into the rocks. Anacho watched them go. "We had better move."

The three took their packs and started away; almost as they did so a great chunk of rock flew down to smash into the ground. Traz jumped up on a boulder and fired his catapult, evoking a wail of distress.

The three took themselves a hundred yards south, somewhat up the slope from the Boulder Patch, where they commanded a view across the Forelands and yet could not easily be approached from the rear.

Settling back, Reith brought out his scanscope and studied the landscape. He discerned half a dozen furtive takers, and a band of Dirdir on a promontory to the east. For ten minutes the Dirdir stood immobile, then suddenly disappeared.

A moment later he picked them out again, moving with long lunging strides down the slope and out upon the Forelands.

During the afternoon, with no Dirdir in view, takers began to venture from the Boulder Patch. Reith, Traz and Anacho climbed the slope, making for the ridge as directly as caution permitted. They were alone now. Not a sound could be heard.

What with the need for stealth, progress was slow; sunset found them toiling up a gulch just below the ridge, and they came forth just in time to see the last corroded sliver of Carina 4269 fade from sight. To the south the ground sloped in long rolls and swales down to the Stage: rich ground for sequins, but highly dangerous owing to the proximity of Khusz, about ten miles to the south.

With twilight a curious mood, mixed of melancholy and horror, settled over the Carabas. In all directions, winking fires appeared, each with its macabre implication. Amazing, thought Reith, that men, for any inducement whatever, would enter such a place. No more than a quarter-mile distant a fire sprang into existence, and the three quickly crouched into the shadows. The pale shapes of the Dirdir were clear to the naked eye.

Reith studied them through the scanscope. They stalked back and forth, their effulgences streaming like long phosphorescent antennae, and they seemed to be emitting sounds too soft to be heard.

Anacho whispered, "They use the 'Old State' of their brains; they are truly wild beasts, just as on the Sibol plains a million years ago."

"Why do they walk back and forth?"

"It is their custom; they ready themselves for their feeding frenzy."

Reith scrutinized the ground around the fire. In the shadows lay two heaving shapes. "They're alive!" whispered Reith in dismay.

Anacho grunted. "The Dirdir don't care to carry burdens. The prey must run alongside, hopping and leaping like the Dirdir all day if need be. If the prey flags, they sting him with nerve-fire and he runs with greater agility."

Reith put down the scanscope.

Anacho spoke in a voice carefully toneless: "You see them now in the 'Old State,' as wild beasts, which is their elemental nature. They are magnificent.

In other cases they show magnificence of a different sort. Men cannot judge them, but merely stand back in awe."

"What of the elite Dirdirmen?"

"The Immaculates? What of them?"

"Do they imitate the Dirdir at hunting?"

Anacho looked off over the dark Zone. In the east a pink flush heralded the rising of the moon Az. "The Immaculates hunt. Naturally they cannot match Dirdir fervor and they are not privileged to hunt the Zone." He glanced toward the nearby fire. "In the morning the wind will blow from us to them. Best that we move on through the dark."

Az, low in the sky, cast a pink sheen over the landscape; Reith could think only of watered blood. They moved east and south, picking a painful way across the rocky bones of old Tschai. The Dirdir fire receded and passed from sight behind a bluff. For a period the three descended toward the Stage. They halted to sleep a fitful few hours, then once more continued down through the alls of Recall. Az now hung low in the west, while Braz lifted into the east. The night was clear; every object showed a double pink and blue shadow.

Traz went into the lead, watching, listening, testing each step. Two hours before dawn he stopped short and motioned his comrades to stillness. "Dead smoke," he whispered. "A camp ahead ... something is stirring."

The three listened. The landscape gave back only silence.

Moving with utmost stealth, Traz angled away on a new route, up over a ridge, down through a copse of feather-fronds. Once more halting to listen, Traz suddenly gestured the other two back into deep shade. From concealment they saw on the brow of the hill a pair of pale shapes, which stood silent and alert for ten minutes, then abruptly vanished.

Reith whispered, "Did they know we were near?"

"I don't think so," Traz muttered. "Still, they might have picked up our scent."

Half an hour later they went cautiously forward, keeping to the shadows. Dawn colored the east; Az was gone, followed by Braz. The three hurried through plum-colored gloom, and finally took shelter in a dense clump of torquil. At sunrise, among the litter of twigs and curled black leaves, Traz found a node the size of his two fists. When cracked loose from its brittle stem and split, hundreds of sequins spilled forth, each glowing with a point of scarlet fire.