Dumarest looked down at his hands and saw their fault trembling. Never before during his long search had he felt so close to success, so certain that it was to be found. If he was correct, and logic said he must be, then the people who had settled Emijar had come from his home world.

"Earl?" Navalok hitched at the gun bolstered at his waist. "Are you going to stay here much longer?"

For as long as it took to find the answer.

"Why? Are you getting hungry?"

"Aren't you, Earl?"

"No, but if you want to fix a meal go ahead." The boy had helped all he could and his presence was a distraction. As he headed towards the opening, now a deep purple, Dumarest said, "Be careful, Navalok."

"Of what, Earl?" The boy smiled and touched the gun at his waist. "Anyway, I'm armed."

Alone Dumarest swept the torch around in another examination. Reflected light glowed from the masks, the rayed disc, shone from the ceiling, the walls, warm swathes of color blending with crystalline twinklings. The sun, it had to be the sun, every instinct drove him towards it. Why else should this place have been built in the position it occupied? Why the reflection from the orb transmitted to the depicted stars? Why the name?

Guardians of the Sun.

Guarding what? A memory? A heritage?

The knowledge of how to return?

In the light of the torch the rayed disc seemed to shimmer, little strands of color playing over the surface as if it had been coated with oil. Dumarest stepped closer, tilted his head to stare through narrowed eyes, seeing in the glare a mesh of shallow lines close-set as if part of a refraction grating used to determine a spectrum.

Lowering the torch he stepped back and looked around for something on which to stand.

Then froze as, from outside, came the sound of a young voice shouting, the sudden roar of a gun.

* * * * *

The raft was on the flat promontory, the spark of a fire beside it; small flames which shone bright in the purple dusk. As Dumarest thrust himself through the opening he saw the flash of a gun, heard the rolling echoes of the report.

"Earl!"

Navalok was crouched beside the vehicle, face turned towards the slope, the gun in his hand firing as he shouted. In the flash Dumarest could see a bulk beside a heap of stone, a shape which seemed to flicker, to move. He swung the beam of his flash towards it and saw a dull ocher hide, the gleam of exposed teeth. An olcept, perhaps drawn by the sound of the previous gunfire, now moving in for the kill.

Dumarest shouted, hurled himself down the slope, dirt showering from beneath his boots. The beam of the flash wavered, danced over the raft, the crouching boy, the fire, the ground, the beast which had scented prey.

"The gun, boy! Keep firing!"

The blast alone would shock the sensitive hearing, the flash dazzle the eyes, the whine of bullets perhaps force the thing into caution. An old teaching of those who trained young soldiers, the art of covering fire and a distractive barrage based on the principle that, while a man was protecting himself, he couldn't fire back.

An effective means of keeping a human at bay, but the olcept was far from human and obeyed a more primitive law. Dumarest saw it move as he reached the level ground, a flash of teeth, the scrabble of claws and the whine of air as the knobbed tail lashed towards the boy. He fired as it hit close beside him, the side of the raft bending to the impact, the graze of the natural club sending him spinning to lie sprawled on the ground, blood at his temple.

Stunned or dead-in either case he was out of the fight. Dumarest had to face the beast alone and he had nothing but his hands, the flash, and the knife in his boot. No natural advantage but his brain.

As the olcept rushed towards him he sprang to one side, raced to the edge of the promontory and turned, the flashlight in his left hand, the naked blade of the knife poised in his right. The creature had halted at the fire, the long snout questing, the eyes like rubies from the reflected glow. A thing about nine feet long and three high, not a large specimen of its kind but its weight would be at least three times that of a man.

A machine designed to kill, the claws capable of disemboweling at a stroke, the tail able to crush a skull or snap a bone, the teeth set in powerful jaws which could bite a man in half. An animal, armed and armored and, to itself, invincible. One which would be a stranger to the concept of fear. A predator which lived to eat and killed so as to eat to live.

Sparks flew as it lunged over the fire, snout extended, claws ripping at the gritty soil. Dumarest waited poised, Aiming the beam of the light into the deep-set eyes. An artificial sun which dazzled the thing and caused it to halt, tail lashing, head turning as it scented the air. A momentary pause but before it could move again Dumarest had sprung forward and to one side, leaping over the compact body and racing towards the raft.

In it were the spears he had bought, the weapons with which the boy would gain his trophy. Long-shafted, with edged and pointed blades, the shaft protected by outcurved crescents of steel, they had been designed to penetrate a tough hide and to block the rush of a stabbed beast. A good weapon if used with skill-useless unless he could get his hands on one before the olcept attacked.

Instinct saved him. Dumarest dropped, rolled, felt the brush of air across his scalp as the tail lashed the spot where he had stood. Turning the beast snapped, teeth gouging the soil where he had lain, the snout moving as, still rolling, he slashed out with the knife and dragged the razor-sharp edge across the flared nostrils. A superficial injury which caused no real damage but which sent a flood of blood dripping from the injured organ. Blood which would blunt the sense of smell.

Rearing, the olcept screamed.

It was a thin, high, shrilling sound, one born of rage and designed to freeze prey into immobility by the grating harmonics. The instinctive reaction of a beast which had been hurt and one which gave Dumarest the chance to climb to his feet.

The flashlight had been knocked from his hand and lay to one side, the beam throwing a cone of brilliance over the ground, one edge touching the side of the raft. A guide to the weapons within, but to try and reach them was to risk too much. To run from the olcept was to invite swift and sudden death.

"Navalok! Can you hear me? Navalok!"

A chance, the boy, if dazed, could be recovering and with the gun he could at least provide a distraction, but he made no answer and Dumarest knew that he was alone. As the olcept rushed he moved, darting backwards, lunging forward, the knife a blur in his hand, the point reaching for the snout, the edge rasping over scales, sliding to cut at the side appendage, to send the severed tissue to the ground.

Like an uncoiling spring the beast spun, tail whining through the air, lashing beneath Dumarest's boots as he jumped high into the air. Landing he threw himself forward, the knife like a sword as it stabbed at the junction of a rear leg with the body, the point reaching the soft portion and burying itself deep in the gut.

A savage stab which freed a shower of blood, a shower which gushed into a flood as, twisting the blade, he jerked it free.

Again the olcept screamed. It reared high on its back legs, turning, tail and snout and talons ripping the air in a circle of rending destruction. Dumarest felt the blow across his chest as, too late, he hurled himself backward. A blow which stripped plastic from the buried mesh as the claws gouged deep.

He landed hard against the side of the raft and threw himself over it, snatching at a spear and lifting it as the creature, vicious with pain, came after him. The long blade stabbed at the jaw, sank into the soft flesh beneath the chin, was torn free as the beast shook its head, stabbed again at the eyes.