The Dirdir halted to examine the track into the forest. They came into the wood slowly, one in the lead, another behind, two holding up the rear. Reith faded back to his post.

"Trouble," he told Anacho. "We may have to fight our way out."

" 'Fight'?" cried Anacho. "Four Dirdir, three men?"

Traz, a hundred yards down the trail, decided to stimulate the Dirdir. Stepping into the open, he aimed his catapult at the foremost and fired a bolt into the creature's chest. It gave a whistle of outrage and sprang forward, effulgences stiff and furiously bright.

Traz dodged back, went to stand in his usual spot, a grin of irrational pleasure on his face. He brandished his blade. The wounded Dirdir charged, and crashed into the pitfall. Its yells became a weird keening of shock and pain. The remaining three stopped short, then came balefully forward, step by step. Reith pulled the net release; it dropped, capturing two; one danced back.

Reith came forth. He yelled to Anacho and Traz. "Kill those under the net!" He jumped through the tangle to confront the remaining Dirdir. Under no circumstances must it escape.

Escape was remote from its mind. It sprang upon Reith like a leopard, ripping with its talons. Traz ran forward brandishing his dagger and threw himself on the Dirdir's back. The Dirdir rolled over backward, and tearing Traz's legs loose, made play with his own dagger. Anacho leaped forward; with one mighty swordstroke he hacked apart the Dirdir's arm; with a second blow he clove the creature's head. Staggering and tottering, cursing and panting, the three finished off the remaining Dirdir, then stood in vast relief that they had fared so well. Blood pumped from Traz's leg. Reith applied a tourniquet, opened the first-aid kit he had brought with him to Tschai. He disinfected the wound, applied a toner, pressed the wound together, sprayed on a film of synthetic skin, and eased off the tourniquet. Traz grimaced, but made no complaint. Reith brought forth a pill. "Swallow this. Can you stand?"

Traz rose stiffly to his feet.

"Can you walk?"

"Not too well."

"Try to keep moving, to prevent the leg from going stiff."

Reith and Anacho searched the corpses for booty, to their enormous profit: a purple node, two scarlets, a deep blue, three pale greens and two pale blues.

Reith shook his head in marvel and vexation. "Wealth! But useless unless we get it back to Maust."

He watched Traz limping back and forth with obvious effort. "We can't carry it all."

The corpses they rolled into the pitfall, and covered them over. The net they hauled off into the underbrush. Then they sorted out the sequins, making three packs, two heavy and one light. There still remained a fortune in clears, milks, sards, deep blues and greens. These they wrapped into a fourth parcel, which they secreted under the roots of the great torquil.

Two hours remained until dusk. They took up their packs, went to the eastern edge of the forest, accommodating their gait to Traz. Here they argued the feasibility of camping until Traz's leg had healed. Traz would hear none of it.

"I can keep up, so long as we don't have to run."

"Running won't help us in any case," said Reith.

"If they catch us," said Anacho, "then we must run. With nerve-fire at our necks."

The afternoon light deepened through gold and dark gold; Carina 4269 disappeared and sepia murk fell over the landscape. The hills showed minuscule flickers of flame. The three set forth, and so the dismal journey began: across the Stage from one black clump of dendron to another. At last they came to the slopes, and doggedly began to climb.

Dawn found them under the ridge, with both hunters and hunted already astir.

Shelter was nowhere in sight; the three descended into a gulch and contrived a covert of dry brush.

The day advanced. Anacho and Reith dozed while Traz lay staring at the sky; the enforced idleness had caused his leg to stiffen. At noon a hunt of four proud Dirdir, resplendent in glittering casques, crossed the ravine. For a moment they paused, apparently sensing the near-presence of quarry, but other affairs attracted their attention and they continued off to the north.

The sun declined, illuminating the eastern wall of the gulch. Anacho gave an uncharacteristic snort of laughter. "Look there." He pointed. Not twenty feet distant the ground had broken, revealing the wrinkled dome of a large mature node. "Scarlets at least. Maybe purples."

Reith made a gesture of sad resignation. "We can hardly carry the fortune we already have. It is sufficient."

"You underestimate the rapacity and greed of Sivishe," grumbled Anacho. "To do what you propose will require two fortunes, or more." He dug up the node. "A

purple. We can't leave it behind."

"Very well," said Reith. "I'll carry it."

"No," said Traz. "I'll carry it. You two already have most of the load."

"We'll divide it into three parts," said Reith. "It won't be all that much more."

Night came at last; the three shouldered their packs and continued. Traz hopping, hobbling, grimacing in pain. Down the north slope they moved, and the closer they approached the Portal of Gleams, the more ghastly and detestable seemed the Zone.

Dawn found them at the base of the hills, with the Portal yet ten miles north.

As they rested in a shadowed fissure, Reith swept the landscape through his scanscope. The Forelands seemed quiet and almost devoid of life. Far to the northwest a dozen shapes made for the Portal of Gleams, hoping to reach safety before full daylight. They ran with the peculiar scuttling gait that men instinctively used within the Zone, as if they thereby made themselves inconspicuous. A band of hunters stood on a relatively nearby crag, still and alert as eagles. They watched the fleeing men with regret. Reith put aside all hope of reaching the Portal before dark. The three passed another dreary day behind a boulder, with camouflage cloth overhead.

During the middle morning a sky-car drifted overhead. "They're looking for the missing hunts," said Anacho in a hushed voice. "Undoubtedly there will be a tsau'gsh ... We are in great danger."

Reith looked after the sky-car, then gauged the miles to the Portal. "By midnight we should be safe."

"We may not last till midnight, if the Dirdir close off the Forelands, as well they may do."

"We can't set out now; they'd take us for sure."

Anacho gave a dour nod. "Agreed."

Towards middle afternoon another sky-car came to hover over the Forelands.

Anacho hissed between his teeth. "We are trapped." But after half an hour the sky-car once more drifted south beyond the hills.

Reith made a careful scrutiny of the landscape. "I see no hunts. Ten miles means at least two hours. Shall we make a run for it?"

Traz looked down at his leg with a wistful expression. "You two go on. I'll follow when the sun goes down."

"Too late by then," said Anacho. "Already it is too late."

Once more Reith searched the ridges. He helped Traz to his feet. "It's all of us or none."

They started out across the barrens, feeling naked and vulnerable. Any hunt which chanced to look down from the ridge into this particular sector could not fail to notice them.

They proceeded for half an hour, scuttling half-crouched like the others. From time to time Reith paused to sweep the landscape to the rear with his scanscope, dreading lest he see the dire shapes in pursuit. But the miles fell behind, and hope correspondingly began to rise. Traz's face was gray with pain and exhaustion; nevertheless he forced the pace, tottering at a half-run, until Reith suspected that he ran from sheer hysteria.

But suddenly Traz stopped. He looked back at the ridges. "They are watching us."

Reith scrutinized the ridges, slopes and dark gulches, but saw nothing. Traz had already set off at an erratic lope, with Anacho hunching along behind. Reith followed. A few hundred yards further north he paused again, and this time thought he saw a flicker of light reflecting from metal. Dirdir? Reith gauged the distance ahead. They had come roughly halfway across the barrens. Reith drew a deep breath and ran off after Traz and Anacho. Conceivably the Dirdir might not choose to pursue so far across the Forelands.