Chapter I: Front Matter

AS IT WAS

By PAUL L. PAYNE

_In a cruel Cosmos one lived only to be killer or
killed._ The One _proved that_. It _killed
a hundred times a day. Thisbe II was its blood-red
preserve ... and now, throwing the challenge in_ Its
_myriad faces was Pritchard, the brightest name in big-game
hunting throughout the length and breadth of Galaxy A._

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories November 1952.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

Dawn on Thisbe II was much like dawn on Terra, except for the color. The giant star Piramus lifted its magenta disk above the little planet's fore-shortened horizon and, in that brief moment, sent orange corona flares shimmering out from its limb. An odd ionization effect caused faint ripples of light to flicker in the purple sky above.

As the sun ascended, the magenta brightened into a crimson dazzle with a lavender halo. The flanks of distant mountains flamed curiously, as if their sides were smooth and polished mirrors.

Yet nothing gleamed with such intensity as the good ship _Apollo_, towering a hundred and ten feet on her fins. Her surface--chrome-plated nickel-steel coated with a thick porcelain glaze--was expressly designed to bounce back every slightest beam of light.

So she stood now like a flaming sword, in the center of a wide black circle, the area of yesterday's landing burn, and lay across it a wide fan of reflected sunlight. Presently, a thing like an enormous grasshopper-leg unfolded from her side. In its grasp was something that looked like a tray full of erect ants. The tray touched ground softly, the ants walked off and became men, and the long derrick folded back into the _Apollo_, taking the tray with it.

The men left on the ground stood looking about them eagerly. After some of the barren, hostile worlds they had visited this one seemed little short of Paradise. From the eminence on which the ship stood they could look in every direction at rolling hills, among which clumps of feathery foliage rose profusely, and occasional startling upthrusts of rock, like clubs brandished from underground, leaning in every possible angle and having frequently such straight planes of cleavage that they almost seemed artificial. Olive-hued hills and dramatic fists of rock alike marched off to a disturbingly close-appearing horizon, where began a sky that was not blue but lavender.

They stamped the ground. It was one thing to have watched this wonder swell on the visiscreens as the ship tore around on its landing orbit, and to have craned and peered through the heavy leaded glass of the viewports after the landing in yesterday's sunset. Neither of these quite matched the delight of seeing it all with unaided and unimpeded vision. They smelled the air, so rich and invigorating after the ship's mustiness.

They were all young but one. And this one faced them now, a tall, saturnine man, but with an amusement lurking in his dark, deep-set eyes. "Attention, cadet hunters," he said briskly, "let's have another equipment check."

They rolled their eyes at him and quirked their mouths in simulated resignation. Yet the readiness with which they formed a semi-circle about him showed their pride in obeying his orders. They knew they were lucky to be under Pritchard, the brightest name in planetary big-game hunting throughout the length and breadth of Galaxy A.

For each of them had fought hard for his place in this latest expedition to be led by Pritchard. The ex-pilot-turned-sportsman regularly accepted certain hardy young neophytes of the chase as assistants on his expeditions; some aspired to follow in his footsteps and others merely sought the thrills and danger that lurked along the unknown trails of far-flung worlds.

* * * * *

Each one now showed his regular and special equipment to Pritchard. Butt-first, they held out their snappers--the light Thorp-Snell hand rocket-tube that launched a high explosive needle, deadly up to a thousand yards. Pritchard inspected load and action, and then thumbed the gleaming edge of each man's chopper, or matchet which had been derived from the old Terran hatchet and machete combined. It was really a long, broad blade with a flattened-out, hatchet-shaped head.

The special equipment consisted of a squawkie, the portable radio, carried by the phlegmatic Sturgis; the cam-rec, a light camera and tape recorder combined, slung over Kemp's plump shoulders; the flamer, or flame-thrower, its full plastic tank strapped to Majinski's back; the two packets of synthetabs or food concentrates enough for a week for them all should they get lost--hung to the belt of red-headed McManus; and the first-aid kit strapped to Pritchard's own lean shoulders. To the remaining five men would fall the pleasure of carrying all this stuff back when the little scouting party returned.

At last Pritchard beckoned to the squawkie-man and spoke into its 'phragm. "All set, Cap. See anything?" The voice of Captain Savage, high above the rocket batteries in the towering nose, came back as a thin rasping. His report was negative. "Must be a lull between the night carnivores and the daytime ruminants. Looks like a few flocks of birds far away."

"Fine. We'll head east and dig around in that jungle down there a bit. We'll turn back after noon chow."

The captain's "Good hunting" ended with a click. Pritchard turned calmly and started walking off the hard gloss the _Apollo's_ hell-breathing stern tubes had made of this once-grassy spot, into the blackened wisps and dust. The men followed him in a loose, straggling group, ten men in all, swaggering for the benefit of the envious eyes of those remaining in the ship.

McManus strode rapidly until he had caught up with the tall hunter. The red-haired boy's idolatry was plain in his wide blue eyes.

"Why the jungle?" he said. "Why are you tackling the jungle, Mr. Pritchard?"

"Just for a sample. Also as a check. The whole planet's like this. Can't land anywhere without being near the jungles that seem to fill up every valley. I don't like cover like that so close to the ship. I want to see what's in it."

"Think we'll knock over anything?"

"Not trying for it," said Pritchard shortly. He punched the younger man on the biceps. "And unkink that trigger-finger of yours, hero boy."

McManus grinned shamefacedly. "Ah, change your tapes, will you? I only need one mistake to learn."

Pritchard snorted. "On that Deneb asteroid, you promised. You seemed to understand. Then you thought you'd like one of those big clamshells for a souvenir. Remember what came out of those shells after you fired?"

The boy moved his shoulders. "Remember! I dream about them regularly every tenth night."

"I'm also thinking about a man named Munson." Pritchard's tone had become soft and musing. "That name mean anything to you?"

McManus shrugged. "There must be a million Munsons. None of 'em ever meant anything to me."

"Every hunter remembers Munson," said Pritchard flatly. "And everybody on Terra remem--"

Something squeaked under his foot. Pritchard flung himself sideways into the blackened stubble, rolled, and came up in a crouch, snapper at ready, while McManus stood blinking at him. Pritchard came back slowly, narrowed gaze riveted on the spot where he had stepped. McManus backed away, raising his own snapper. The rest of the men came running up.

Pritchard knelt and picked up something. It was stiff and charred and smelt acridly, but the men clustering around could see it had six legs. There was a click and a whirr as Kemp started the cam-rec.

Then McManus said, "I'll be damned" and picked up something else. It squealed and squirmed in his hand, and it also had six legs.

"What is it?" queried Majinski over his shoulder. "Rabbit?"

"Or squirrel," put in Greene, a rangy blond boy.

"Some kind of rodent, anyway," said Pritchard. He ran a finger the wrong way through baby fur and the little sharp muzzle flicked around to snap at him. He stood up. "The mother shielded it from our stern jetwash. She died that Junior might live." He wiped his hands on his cordron breeches. "Bring it along, Tom. We'll drop it in the tall grass."

By the time they reached the tall grass beyond the perimeter of the burn, Tom McManus had become attached to the little fur-ball, with its whiskery nose and knob-like feet, and found that it snuggled nicely in his breast pocket. Pritchard smiled indulgently and they all waded into the waist-high grass.

* * * * *

They went slowly, partly out of caution and partly because the long, thick-growing blades clogged and bunched around their legs. Little things went hopping and chittering out of their way, and the sun began to lay its heat on them. Birds, as yet unseen, called and cried and whistled in the dense growth ahead.

They went down a long slope, and then bushes began to shoulder up above the grass-tips and trees sprang up, some arching their feathery fern-like trunks until they began to lace together overhead and others dangling enormous round leaves from long drooping stems.

The transition to jungle was gradual, with more and more sunlight filtered out of the growing shade, and vines and creepers becoming abundant about the ankles. The choppers appeared and began swinging and slashing, and all were grateful for the shade and its attendant coolness. Something crashed heavily away, hidden by the dark brown-green wall before them.

It began to be real jungle. Pritchard stopped before a sturdy hedge. He had chopped into it and found a long tough root from which the heavy chopper only seemed to bounce back.

"Hell," he grunted as McManus came up. "Joe," he called, "let's have the flamer here."

"Ah, what's the matter with you!" grinned McManus. He took his own chopper between both hands and raised it high over his head. "You must be ... getting ... _old_!" And he brought the heavy blade down with all his force.

Pritchard had stepped back, amusement twisting his lips. Majinski was shouldering forward with the flamer's nozzle ready. The chopper's edge chunked into the root--

And it came alive. The whole length of it flailed up into the air, flinging the whirling chopper off into the gloom. The next instant the air was full of writhing ropey lengths that whipped down on the men, lashing thick branches off as they came.

"Look out!" yelled Pritchard needlessly, as the men cowered and ducked, arms flung over their heads.

Then something whipped about him hard, stinging and driving the breath from him. He felt himself swung up, his arms pinioned.

He caught a glimpse of other bodies rising with him, heard hoarse screaming and yelling.

Branches lashed by him and suddenly he was looking down on the jungle from high in the air, looking down on a sea of foliage, big, dish-shaped leaves lying atop the spreading ferns. Then he was curving down again, dizzyingly.

He saw it. A great maw, like the throat of an orchid, with a fringe of giant tentacles. It seemed to be rushing up at him.

Fighting to free his arms, he realized they were not held below the elbows. By crossing over with his left hand, he could draw his snapper and shift its butt into his right.

But he was descending into that obscenely working orifice, choking on its acrid stench, before he could manage it. The little needles went tseeu, tseeu, tseeu, down into the quivering pulp. They could be death for him at this range. Pritchard, dangling there in that moment of eternity, could only avert his face from the crisp blasts gusting back at him.

Abruptly he was flying through the air, his arms free. The snapper arced off in one direction and Pritchard went into his own gyrating, twisting, writhing parabola. A frond slapped him. A branch snapped under his hip. He was falling into foliage. A thick stem slithered along his hand and he grabbed at it, to hang on through an insane pendulum swing that carried him whisperingly close to the ground.

They found him crumpled at the foot of the tree against which he had been dashed.

Yet, within five minutes, he was reporting back to the ship that the party was intact. The giant hydra-type plant, in its death throe, had flung only him. The others had been held adangle in mid-air while it chose to feed on Pritchard first and, although he had been sent sailing, the tentacles gripping the others had simply loosened. One man, dropped upside down from ten feet, had a fractured collarbone, but they were even now cementing a flexicast in place and he would continue with the rest. Majinski had had the flamer torn from his hand and they weren't able to find it.

In fifteen minutes they were hacking steadily ahead again, more slowly now that they had no flamer, and having to stop to trace every creeper to its root before they chopped through it.

Pritchard straightened up from a tangle he'd been attacking and eased his bruised and aching back. He peered ahead into light-flecked gloom, the matted mass of vine, creeper and branch that grew so chokingly high they were virtually tunneling through. They would find no game this way, he reflected, their chopping and hacking and swearing spreading the alarm well ahead. The birds, for instance, had stopped singing. He glanced briefly to his left at young McManus grunting and swinging.

"Tom." Pritchard's tone was casual, but his eyes were alert and hard. The red-headed man held his stroke and peered ludicrously under his armpit.

"Freeze," said Pritchard.

The boy went rigid. "What is it?"

"On the branch above you." Pritchard's voice cracked out above the ringing blades. "Hold it, everybody! Hold it!" Then, in a lower tone, he gave orders, and the three or four cadet hunters near McManus slowly began to ease out their snappers. The cam-rec clicked into action.

"For the cripes sake, what is it?" whispered McManus, the red of exertion washing out of his face until it was a dripping ivory mask.

"I don't know." Pritchard began waving his arms slowly to attract the attention of the thing eighteen inches above that red hair. "I'd call it a scorpion if it didn't look like a spider. I'd call it a spider if it didn't look like a scorpion. It's not quite as big as a sheepdog." He uttered a chirping whistle and continued to wave his arms.

"For the love of God, blast it, then."

"I didn't finish telling you about Munson," remarked Pritchard conversationally. "Way back in 2018, he started the Venusian War--"

"Must we have a history lesson now?" said McManus through clenched teeth.