Jum was looking at Deyv, and he was still whimpering.

Deyv patted him on the head. "Don't worry, we'll get by it."

Jum quit making sounds of distress, but he looked as worried as his lack of facial muscles would allow him to look.

There was a lot of driftwood on the beach and the bank, detritus of floods. Deyv dragged two trunks down to the river's edge, and then he cut lianas from the trees with his sword. It took him some time to bind the logs together. Meanwhile, the tall birds returned to the beach but stayed about ninety feet from him. Once, the knobs holding the eyes of the riverbeast appeared, looked coldly at its intended victims, and then sank again. Some time later, Deyv glimpsed the athaksum a few feet below the surface. But it was quickly gone from sight.

When he was ready, Deyv told Jum to get on the forepart of the logs. The dog walked out cautiously and sat down. Deyv pushed the two-log raft, if it could be called such, out from the sand into the water. He'd intended to launch it, and then to jump onto its aft end and sit down. Immediately thereafter, he would draw the blowgun from its case and fit a dart into it.

But just before he slopped through the shallow water and seated himself on the logs, he felt a faint trembling of the sand under his feet, followed by a violent upthrust of sand. Something cracked like a whip. By this time he was in the river. The sand was replaced by mud, which lifted and sank, lifted and sank. The river suddenly rose, churned, and swept in a small wave toward him.

He thought, Earthquake!

It was too late to return to shore. Besides, if he was anxious and uncertain, the athaksum would be too.

On the beach opposite, about nine hundred feet away, the trees dipped and waved, and the sand swelled as if it were the skin of a heavily breathing animal.

Deyv gave a yell, which was half-fright and half-bravado. He shoved the logs out, hopped up on them, and then straddled them. Jum was too scared to whimper; he was standing up, poised, his hairs bristling.

The raft slid outward, rose as a wave lifted it, then dipped.

"Hang on!" Deyv shouted. Later, he was to think that this had been nonsense advice, since the dog had no hands. But he had to say something; that was the essence of a human being. Say something, even if it means nothing, because as long as one is talking, one is alive.

Though he was shocked, he still had enough sense to pull the blowgun out of its case. A moment later, he had the dart in the barrel.

The riverbeast always rose to the surface just before it plunged again to seize its prey from under the water. Or so Deyv had been told by the hunters of his tribe.

He planned to point the gun in the direction from which the beast would come. Just as it raised its eyes clear of the surface, he would blow the dart into the nearest eye. Then the mighty creature would be blinded in it; and the venom of the snorting snake, the quickest-acting and most painful his tribe knew, would race through the blood and send the beast into spasms and death.

Now only The Mother knew what would happen. The earth was quivering like jelly. The water was lifting in waves higher than his head, all going in his direction. At the same time that he had to watch for the brief emergence of the athaksum's eyes, he had to dip his left hand into the water to drive the raft toward the other shore, while his feet were moving to help propel the logs, and he had to hold the blowgun in his right hand, ready to use it on the beast.

Jum was barking crazily, which meant that the sound would course through the waters and reach the ears of the hungry athaksum. With the sound as a target, the beast would drive toward them, and then the wide jaws ... .

Halfway across, while Deyv was paddling desperately and at the same time trying to watch where the beast might pop up, a wave reared before him. The quake must have intensified at that second to create such a wave. The crest rose above his head by the height of two men, the largest so far, and fell on the front of the logs. He cried out as he saw Jum swept off. Then the irresistible heaviness of water struck him, and he too was torn off the raft.

Still, Deyv had enough self-control to hold the blow-gun above his head while he moved his feet and his left hand. He was numb but not so much that he was helpless. There was no thought that he might drown. The only thing that concerned him was the riverbeast.

As he was turned about despite his struggles, he saw the two half-arcs appear. They were not, as he had expected, on his right. They rose boiling from his left. Either the beast had adopted a course which

Deyv's elders said it never took, or the turmoil had swept the thing beyond its intended path. Whatever had happened, there it was, and he wasn't able to cope with the change of events. His blowgun was in his right hand, the thing was on the left. No matter how swiftly he turned, it would have dived before he could do anything about it. And then, below the heavy element, where his dart could not penetrate, it would have come up and gripped his leg with teeth not to be denied.

For a second or two Deyv looked into the pale-blue eyes of death. The eyes began to sink. Deyv tried to twist himself around in the water as it broke over him. It was too late. He knew that. Once those long sharp teeth sank into his leg, he could struggle and struggle, but it would make no difference. His strength would be no match for its.

His sword was in his hand without his thinking about it, and he leaned over. The monster's near eye was only a few inches below the surface when the point drove into it.

The water boiled; the blood spread out. A thick tail came up into the air and crashed down against the water.

Deyv almost dropped the sword while trying to pull himself back onto the raft. His fingers slipped on the wet wood, caught a knob, clung, and soon he was sitting upright again. Immediately, he pulled his legs up and put his feet flat on the logs.

The leaves of the trees on the opposite bank were still fluttering, but the trunks had stopped swaying.

The quake was—for the moment, at least—over. The waves were beginning to subside.

Deyv rose to his feet. Crouching, he put one, hand on the top of the raft to steady himself while he looked around him. Jum was also crouched, and if his coat hadn't been so heavy with water, the hairs would have been bristling. He was facing Deyv's right now. Hoping that the dog had detected the athaksum, Deyv looked at where he was pointing. There it was. A large shadow at first, then a clearly visible body, then a huge head. Its good eye was turned toward Deyv, then the body was turned toward him, and it was coming as swiftly as if it were sliding down a mudbank.

Deyv stood, balancing as the raft rocked in the swells. Just as the tiling shot out of the water, its mouth open to seize him and carry him on out onto the other side of the logs, Deyv leaped to one side. At the same time, he brought his sword down across the neck. But as the creature soared over the raft, its tail whipped around and knocked Deyv off.

He came up out of the river sputtering water. His arm felt as if it had been struck with a heavy club. He couldn't move it. Too numb even to know whether or not he still gripped the sword, thinking that by now it must be on the bottom, he treaded water. Barking, Jum crouched near Deyv as if he intended to spring off the logs after him.

Deyv's foot touched mud. He kicked backward, and both feet were on the river's bottom. He whirled as swiftly as he could in the cloying element and pushed toward the shore. The water receded, was up to his waist He drove forward, fearful that at any second those big sharp teeth would close on a leg and drag him back.

Now the water was up to his ankles, and he was on the sand. Stumbling, panting, he ran toward the jungle. A bellow sounded from behind him, but he did not look back. His feet kicked up sand and then were on soft earth. Another bellow, so close that he thought a hot breath was on his legs.