World Of The Hunter

"Gun, boy!" Mulveen cried.

The big saurian—a thirty-tonner, at least—came splashing and bellowing out of the swamp. Gilbert quickly brought up the archaic Earth rifle, ramming a shell into the breech with the bolt-action loader. With almost the same motion he thrust the big, capable weapon into Mulveen's waiting hands and the hunter brought it to his shoulder without a moment to spare.

Actually, it was an adapted old big-game rifle: the shells it fired were atomic. Standing his ground weaponless, Gilbert saw Mulveen's finger whiten on the trigger, saw the scale-hided saurian grow immensely before them, heard its surprisingly high piping challenge, then saw and heard in one quick flash of suspended time the roar and smoke of the big rifle and the sudden life-ending, sleek-scaled, column-legged death-rearing of the big saurian as it came upright, the piping a high death scream now, the small forelimbs tearing at air, the head with the very tiny hole between the eyes swaying as if drunk from side to side, the long, muscular, five-ton tail still thrashing in the swamp waters.

Then the saurian came down, crashing through the brakes. There was only a trickle of blood, but the bullet, like a Dum-Dum of three hundred years before, had exploded inside the monster's head, the minute atomic charge destroying everything within the thick bone walls of the skull but leaving skull and metal-tough skin intact.

Time flowed again. Mulveen returned the rifle to Gilbert and waded forward through the brackish water, his hipboots glistening.

"Beauty, isn't it?" Gilbert said with feigned professional enthusiasm Mulveen needed the enthusiasm: the big humanoid from the Sirian system had been a grumpy, fussy, dissatisfied hunter throughout the safari.

"Don't try and dun me for a tip," Mulveen snapped. "You get paid whatever the Earth company pays you." He was a big, bald man with a florid face, an amazing girth of shoulders, a barrel chest and almost pipe-stem legs which seemed barely able to support his weight.

He reached the saurian's five-foot-long head and walked around it, muttering to himself. It was a prize specimen: a faudi reptile from Epsilon Aurigae III, bred here on Earth in the huge, planet-wide game-farm. It was the sort of specimen a big-game hunter would give his proverbial eyeteeth to own, but Mulveen did not look happy. He merely said:

"So this is a faudi."

"Want me to prepare the skull, sir?" Gilbert asked. Gilbert was eighteen, one of the youngest guides in the game area known as Lewsanna. His father had been a guide for the hunters from the outworlds, and his father's father. His father had died tracking: it was a good, clean death and Gilbert's father had never known poverty. That was the most an Earthman could expect, Gilbert thought without bitterness. For civilization had left Earth behind. Earth was in the backwaters of galactic trade. Earth was a game-preserve, with the great beasts of five dozen worlds brought to it and bred here for the hunters. It figured, naturally: you couldn't deny it. The outworlds were new; they were built as twenty-fourth century worlds should be built. Earth had been a world of ancient cities and meaningless ancient traditions. Earth was the logical place for the game-farm. Earth, once the parent of all the galactic planets, reduced to a vacation spot for the very rich and the foolhardy....

"No," Mulveen said shortly. "Don't prepare the skull. I don't want the skull."

"But—"

"Forget it, kid! I've hunted everywhere, wherever there's hunting left on the outworlds. When I grew jaded, they said come to Earth. Earth will be different, a hunter's paradise. You know what? It isn't different. It's the same."

"If you—"

"You wouldn't understand kid. Well, let's go back to camp."

"The trophy—" Gilbert began.

"Forget about the trophy, damnit!"

Gilbert followed Mulveen in silence to camp. The beaters and camp-boys had the evening meal prepared. The sun went down over the swamplands. Gilbert ate alone. He was a cut above the beaters and camp-boys, who had willingly surrendered their civilized birthright, but he was several cuts above the hunter from the Sirian System.

Mulveen drank heavily after dinner. Gilbert watched, not caring. Of course, that might make it dangerous when they hunted tomorrow: Mulveen's reflexes might be slower. Well, it had happened before.

"Boy!" Mulveen shouted, his voice thick with alcohol.

Gilbert trotted up obediently. "Sir?"

Mulveen smiled at him. "How would you like to earn five thousand credits?"

The answer was obvious: Gilbert made fifty credits a safari and sometimes went on as many as eight a year. Tips might bring the figure to an even five hundred credits a year. The figure Mulveen had named was ten year's work.

"I'm listening," Gilbert said.

Mulveen paced back and forth. Something had gotten to him. Hunters were like that, Gilbert knew. They were capable of being possessed by an idea—to the exclusion of all else. Gilbert had known hunters who, so possessed, had crossed a dozen light years.

"This planet," Mulveen said, "is real jerkwater, isn't it?"

"If you mean what I think, yes."

"What kind of law do you have?"

"Only what we need. It doesn't apply to extra-terrestrials."

"I thought so. Then an extra-terrestrial can commit any crime, any crime at all?"

Gilbert smiled grimly. "The Earth government—such as it is—considers extra-terrestrials too civilized to commit crimes. Also, extra-terrestrial hunters are responsible for most of Earth's income. This is a poor planet, Mr. Mulveen: civilization and then the attempt to keep up with civilization, has drained it."

"You know a lot for a kid."

"But that isn't what I'm getting five thousand credits for."

"Here," Mulveen said. He gave Gilbert one of the rifles, which had been cleaned during supper by the boys. He gave Gilbert a cartridge belt. "Here."

"I don't get it," Gilbert said.

"If no game on Earth holds a thrill for me, no game anywhere in the galaxy will. The five thousand is yours if you do."

Mulveen took another drink, poured again, drank again, poured....

"If I do what?"

"Get out of camp," Mulveen said. "I'll come for you in the morning."

"Come for me...?"

"Come hunting, Gilbert. I've never hunted a human being before. On Earth I think I can get away with it. Well, can't I?"

Gilbert felt his pulses hammering. It was a drunken impulse, but Mulveen would go through with it. Gilbert was, despite his age, an expert guide. Mulveen was a crack hunter. Five thousand credits....

"To the death?" Gilbert asked.

"I wouldn't be playing games. Hell, yes."

"What if I get killed?"

"I'll put it in writing. The credits go to whatever person you name, in the event of your death."

Gilbert thought, if I'm dead I won't need the credits, but if I live, if I win, those credits can buy me a new way of life....

Five thousand credits....

"Can I fight back?" Gilbert heard himself asking.

"Does an animal? Of course you can. I'll also put in writing that you're not responsible in the event of my death. What do you say, boy? What do you say?"

The swamp smell was thick on the still, heavy air of night. Insects buzzed and sawed off in the darkness. Mulveen was breathing heavily, impatiently, consumed by the fires of his idea. "Well?"

Gilbert broke the silence by holding the rifle up to the firelight and bolting open the chamber. A fresh clip of ammo was in place.

"Didn't trust me?" Mulveen asked.

"Should I have?"

"Up to this minute, sure. But if your answer is yes, stop trusting me about anything. Because then you're on your own."

"For how long?" Gilbert asked. "A day?"

"Day, hell. Till I get you—or you get me."

"And you'll have the beaters, the boys?"

"I paid for them, didn't I?"

Gilbert nodded. The night beckoned. He took his rifle and left camp. Mulveen wrote the agreement.

He had not gone very far until he realized he was being followed. Already? he thought. He slipped silently off the trail and waited in the hot, sweat-producing darkness. Footsteps came along the trail. Gilbert saw a shadowy figure. Too small for Mulveen.

Gilbert waited until the figure was abreast of him, then leaped.

They went down together in the mud. Gilbert's strong young muscles soon bested his opponent. He sat astride the unseen enemy's middle, his fists raised. "Surrender," he said.

"I surrender." Gilbert recognized Wenzi's voice. Wenzi was one of the beaters, an aloofly quiet boy who had kept to himself all during the safari, and who, Gilbert remembered, wore far too much clothing for the warm, sticky weather.

Gilbert got up, holding Wenzi's elbow. Wenzi said, "I heard what the master and you said. I came."

"But why?" Gilbert demanded. "Don't tell me you think I'll beat Mulveen?"

"No," said Wenzi glumly. "Mulveen will win. But I was afraid."

"Of what?"

"Before the hunt this morning," Wenzi said, "I went down to the stream to wash. I went alone."

"You always go alone," Gilbert said. "Sweating in your trousers and shirt no matter how hot it is."

"I have to," said Wenzi.

"Have to?"

"Mulveen must have been suspicious. He followed me this morning. He saw. Tonight, he said. Tonight, Wenzi. I had to come after you, Gilbert."

"Tonight? Tonight what?"

"Mulveen saw me at the stream. This is a good way to make a living, Gilbert. Better than the other ways which are open to me. It is clean. It is decent, if degrading. I am a girl, Gilbert."

The news stunned him. A girl on safari—it was unthinkable. A girl, here....

"But don't you have a family? A father or brother to provide for you?"

"No one. And I'm seventeen."

Seventeen. Wenzi, by modern Earth standards gone primitive, was a woman.

Suddenly Gilbert tensed. He had heard something, a slight stirring in the dark swamp. Had Wenzi been followed? Had this whole thing been elaborately planned by Mulveen, planned already in the morning, giving Wenzi a reason to flee so that Wenzi would flee to Gilbert at night and Gilbert would be caught and killed, legitimate quarry now, even before morning came?

Gilbert touched Wenzi's lips with his fingers, hoping she would understand. He took her arm and led her silently from the swamp-trail.

They waited in among the wet creepers and tree-roots. Gilbert could feel Wenzi's frightened breathing as she leaned close to him. Whatever was pursuing them came on through the swamp. Once it floundered off the trail in darkness, splashing. It came on again. It paused, making a sniffing sound. An animal? A swamp-hog, perhaps? It sounded about the right size and bulk—but so would a man....

Gilbert brought the rifle up. A dark shadow stirred. "Stop!" Gilbert commanded. "You're in my sights. I can kill you."

"Gil!" a voice implored.

Gilbert dropped the rifle and let it swing on the shoulder thong.

"Arnaud," he said. "I could have shot you." Arnaud was the safari's chief beater and second in command to Gilbert.

"Mulveen told me what he was doing," Arnaud said. "I slipped out of camp."

"Why? You think Mulveen's going to lose?"

"With a dozen boys? No, I couldn't help him hunt you and kill you, that's all."

Arnaud touched his hand. They shook hands solemnly. It was an old gesture which Earthmen had never lost. Gilbert told Arnaud Wenzi was there, told Arnaud Wenzi was a girl.

"So there are three of us now," Arnaud said.

Gilbert nodded, then realized the gesture was lost in darkness. He said, aloud, "We'd better put some distance between us and the camp."

They returned to the trail, plodded through the hot darkness. They walked for three hours and reached high ground as Gilbert had expected. "We can sleep here," he said. "But we'll have to be up before the sun. And we'll have to hunt for our food, too. Mulveen has provisions."

"Do you hate Mulveen?" Wenzi asked.

"For his proposition? No, why should I?"

"For his arrogance—"

"He is an outworlder," Arnaud said.

"For what he wanted of you," Gilbert told Wenzi, "yes. But only for that."

"Do you have any plans?" Arnaud asked as they settled on the hillock.

Gilbert thought about it. They would need a plan, all right. It was what the animals of Earth lacked. The ability to plan, to rationally pursue their survival. And so the animals of Earth never had a chance.

"Mulveen will probably stalk us in the morning," Gilbert said. "We'll have to move fast. We'll be able to move faster than Mulveen because he'll be tracking us. We can circle around behind him—while he still believes himself behind us."

"It might work," Wenzi said, but not too optimistically.

"I don't see how it can miss!" Arnaud declared jubilantly. "Now let's get some sleep."

Gilbert was tired all at once. He felt the fatigue crawl through his muscles, dull his senses. He'd been on the go all day, and walking half the night. He drifted quickly into sleep and dreamed of a faudi reptile with the face of the hunter Mulveen, chasing them with tail-supported forty yard leaps....

He awoke in dim light. Like any experienced hunter, he awoke knowing exactly where he was and what was happening. The first thing he did was reach for his rifle. He had placed it at his side.

It was gone.

"Wenzi?" he called. No answer.

"Arnaud?" Silence.

"Wenzi! Arnaud!" he shouted. He stood up quickly. He had the hillock of high, dry ground all to himself.

Distantly, he heard a scream. Wenzi's voice? he thought it was.

"Wenzi!" he shouted again, at the top of his voice.

The scream was faint. She might have been calling his name. It might have been pure terror.

Arnaud, he thought. Arnaud has taken Wenzi. But why? Why? He was only a tracker, a beater. He couldn't provide for her. He wouldn't dare ravish her, for while there was no penalty for an outworlder, the penalty for an Earthman was severe.

Mulveen, he thought.

Mulveen's idea. Arnaud had never left Mulveen. Arnaud had come following Gilbert—as Mulveen's man. Mulveen knew Wenzi was gone. Mulveen reasoned she had gone to Gilbert, further reasoned that Gilbert would protect her. Mulveen had sent Arnaud for her. And for Gilbert's rifle.

Gilbert was weaponless.

Five thousand credits, he thought. And my life.

Wenzi—in Mulveen's possession. Or, in his possession when the traitor Arnaud brought her back to camp.

I can forget about her. I don't know her. Until last night I thought she was a boy, he told himself. I can flee and find a weapon somewhere.

Even while he told himself this, he was walking back along the trail. Wenzi had trusted him. Wenzi had fled to him at once. She had faith in him. A blind, almost childish faith, even if she hadn't put it in words. She had come, and that was enough.

For the first time in his life, Gilbert felt anger. And a burning, consuming hate.

He loped with ground-consuming strides along the trail.

An hour later, he heard the beaters. They were coming. They were coming for him.

They could have waited. But Mulveen was trying everything. Throw the works if you could, that's what the guides always said. Mulveen had Wenzi. It was a kind of bait and Gilbert might or might not rise to it. So the beaters were coming through the swamp.

Beaters. Yesterday, his men. Now, he was their quarry.

He crouched. In a moment he became part of the jungle, a shadow barely seen in the dim swamp, insubstantial, soundless. The beaters came on. If he were hunting a man-sized and weaponless animal, Gilbert thought, he would send the beaters through with staves and machetes....

He watched them come. He could name them, they came so close. They beat the undergrowth and the hanging creepers, vines and lianas with their clubs. Here and there he caught the gleam of a machete blade. If they spotted him they would make a rush, cutting off his retreat, surrounding him on three sides and forcing him back along the trail toward where Mulveen was waiting, probably in a comfortable blind, with an atomic rifle.

Unless, right now, Mulveen was too busy with Wenzi....

No, he told himself. It wouldn't be that way. Mulveen would want his triumph first. Wenzi would wait, a prisoner, for nightfall. But could he be sure?

The beaters went by, advancing through the swamp. One came so close, Gilbert could have reached out and touched him.

Gilbert stood up, stretching his stiff muscles. He waited an agonizing five more minutes, then set out along the trail.

A laggard beater materialized abruptly in his path. The machete blurred overhead, blade gleaming. The man's face showed recognition, but neither pity nor regret. He wouldn't kill Gilbert, naturally. He wanted Gilbert to run—back toward Mulveen.

Gilbert ducked under the upswinging arm. He drove his shoulder into the beater's midsection and felt the hard wall of muscle hold for a split-second, then yield. The beater jackknifed over. Gilbert let himself drop, grasped the beater's ankles and heaved. The beater sailed, yelling, over his head. The beater landed face-first in the swamp and Gilbert dove after him. He found the machete-haft, twisted. The big-bladed weapon came free in his hand, but the beater lifted his head from the mud and cried:

"Mulveen! Mulveen, sir! Mulveen!"

Gilbert struck with the side of the machete blade, using it as a club. The beater subsided face-down in the mud. Gilbert looked down at him, then scowled and turned him face-up in the swamp so he wouldn't drown.

Just then Mulveen's rifle cracked. The swamp-water swallowed the flat sound: there was no echo.

Mulveen heard the cry—he was close. Perhaps close enough to see the white sheen of frothing water where the beater had fallen....

Quickly Gilbert slipped with his machete among the mangrove roots. He made his way through the thick tangle of gnarled roots and the slime of the swamp back in the direction from which the beater had come. Behind him he heard the clubs and machetes of the other beaters, returning now toward the rifle fire.

Up ahead somewhere unseen in the swamp Mulveen was waiting with his atomic rifle. Behind Gilbert, the beaters were coming.

Wenzi screamed, close by. With Mulveen? Gilbert crashed through the mangroves in that direction. Mulveen would hear him—but wouldn't see him. The mangroves were a thick tangle of twisted trunks and roots. Mulveen would have no chance for a clear shot until almost the last moment.

Suddenly, Gilbert stopped dead in his tracks. Wenzi—was she part of it? She could have fled to him, pretending. She could have been in league with Arnaud and Mulveen. There was no reason to believe otherwise. The trackers and beaters knew no loyalties. They were hardly more than animals. But somehow, Wenzi seemed different. As Gilbert thought himself different.

The thoughts raced through his mind. There were the continents of Earth, but the continents were game-reserves. The men were hardly more than game themselves. But there were the offshore islands, which had not been stocked with animals. It was rumored that another brand of men lived there, men who had fled from the continents, men determined to preserve their heritage and one day when they were strong enough return with it to the mainlands....

With his five thousand credits, Gilbert could buy a boat, sail to the islands....

Wenzi screamed again.

Mulveen's rifle roared. He was closer now. Wood splintered from the mangrove roots, peppering Gilbert. Heedless, he plunged on, impelled by the shouts of the beaters behind him. Grimly he thought: I'm giving Mulveen his money's worth. But that wasn't quite true. Mulveen would not really get his money's worth until Gilbert was dead.

The rifle roared again and Gilbert thought he saw the muzzle-flash up ahead in the dark swamp. He ran splashing through the water and felt the spray as the rifle spoke once more. The minute atomic explosion went off in the water not ten yards from Gilbert. The concussion staggered him and he fell forward on his face, his head striking a mangrove root jarringly.

His senses swam. He heard a splashing, floundering sound. Mulveen. Mulveen was coming for him. He ducked behind a mangrove, waiting. Miraculously he still held the machete. He felt blood on his shoulder and chest, realized that he had probably fallen sideways across the blade.

Wenzi and Mulveen came through the swamp. Wenzi was in front. They were so close that Gilbert could see how the girl's hands were secured behind her back, how Mulveen held a trailing rope, how the trailing rope was wrapped around Mulveen's thick waist so he could drop it when he had to and lift his rifle in both hands....

Gilbert came charging at them with his machete. With one swift stroke he parted the rope and shouted: "Run, Wenzi! Run!"

The rifle-muzzle came up. Gilbert dove face-down as the weapon roared. He felt the fierce blast of it, then was clawing through the mud at Mulveen's legs. Mulveen brought the rifle-butt crashing down. It jarred against Gilbert's shoulder, pushing him down into the water. He felt the machete drop from his fingers and from what seemed a long way off he heard Wenzi's scream although he was aware that the girl had not moved, was standing there awaiting the outcome.

The rifle pointed down at him. He reached up, tugging at the muzzle, pulling himself upright. Mulveen stumbled, cursing. Gilbert pulled the rifle-barrel into the mud and Mulveen came down with it on top of him. The beaters had reached them now, but the beaters were indifferent. Mulveen was the hunter: Mulveen had given his orders. But Gilbert was their chief guide and now it was a question of who was hunter and who hunted. Their loyalty would belong to the victor....

Mulveen's great weight came down on top of him. Mulveen had discarded the water-filled rifle. His hands closed on Gilbert's throat. His weight held Gilbert pinned.... In seconds—certainly no more than minutes—Gilbert would lose consciousness, the last air used up and self-poisoned and burning in his lungs, Mulveen's triumphant shouts ringing in his ears.

But it wasn't merely for himself.

And it wasn't merely for Wenzi.

It was for Gilbert of Lewsanna—Earthman. And for a dream of the islands, and of Earthmen claiming their heritage again, if not in Gilbert's generation then in the one which followed....

He scooped a handful of mud and brought his hand, ooze and all, against Mulveen's face. He found the eyes and clawed at them. He heard Mulveen bellowing for the beaters. But the beaters were impartial.

His thumbs were pressing on Mulveen's eyes now, but Mulveen's strong fingers were still on his throat. He felt something give. Mulveen went on bellowing, but also slowly choking the life out of him.

He shifted his hands to Mulveen's mouth. He pulled at the lips. He yanked with all his remaining strength and there was suddenly a pure animal scream of pain and a quick flow of hot blood across his hand and a release of the terrible pressure around his throat.

He got up. Mulveen's face was torn. Mulveen lifted his hand weakly. There was a knife in it. Gilbert slapped out at the hand and the knife dropped. Gilbert caught it, held the point at Mulveen's throat.

"I could kill you," Gilbert said.

Mulveen whined: "Don't! Please, you've earned the money. The money is yours!"

He could kill Mulveen, yes—but would one of the Earthmen of the islands, the real Earthmen, have done that? They would have been content with victory—and with shaming the outworlder Mulveen in front of the beaters and trackers.

"Don't come back to Earth," Gilbert said. "Ever. We don't want you here. Put that in writing too."

"I will. I will, I swear!" Mulveen was cowering.

Arnaud came to them, smiling. "Great work, Gil—" he began. Gilbert hit him and the tracker went sprawling in the mud. He came up snarling but looked at Gilbert and muttered a curse and did nothing.

Later, a completely beaten Mulveen, his face swathed in bandages, counted out the credits. "Make it ten thousand," Gilbert told him. "Five thousand for Wenzi."

Mulveen counted out ten thousand credits. "But you'll have to lead us back to civilization," he said.

Gilbert looked at Arnaud. "He will," Gilbert told Mulveen. "I'm not a guide now. I'm a man. An Earthman."

Mulveen looked at him. Mulveen did not smile. Something in Mulveen's face, in his eyes, spoke clearly of the day when Earthmen would regain their heritage. Mulveen was afraid.

Gilbert took Wenzi's hand and walked off into the swamp. They would buy a boat. And after that....