Brown Limper was suddenly engulfed by the trap Tyler had “set” for him. For a moment he felt the very earth he was sitting on was crumbling under him.

“He knows where this two billion is?” asked Terl.

“Yes,” whispered Brown Limper tensely. Good heavens, how blind he had been! Tyler was going to buy the company and the planet, and what would happen to Brown Limper then?

Terl had it all sized up. “But I wouldn't sell. Not to the animal Tyler. I was thinking of you.”

Brown Limper whistled with relief. Then he looked around over his shoulders both ways and leaned forward, impatient at the delays of cross-translation. “Would you sell the company and the planet to me? I mean us?”

Terl thought about it. Then he said, “It’s worth more than two billion, but if I have it in cash and a few other considerations, I will do it.”

Brown Limper had studied a lot of economics lately. He knew how to be cunning. “With a proper bill of sale?”

“Oh, yes,” said Terl. “The bill of sale would be legal as soon as signed. But it would have to be recorded on Psychlo as a formality.” Oh, devils, if he ever tried to record such a thing, if they even heard of it, they'd vaporize him the slow way!

He pretended the last cartridge had been spent and he bought time with another change. There was a condition where a planet was written off. The company never sold a planet. When one was abandoned, they had a weapon they used. Terl had already decided to destroy this planet. He'd already covered the ground. He got a grip on himself. Any bill of sale he signed would go up in smoke if he destroyed the planet. Good. It might take the company two years to counterattack. He had lots of time. Yes, he could safely sign a bogus bill of sale.

Once more the close huddle was going again. “To make such a concession, you would have to do the following: One, get my old office set up; Two, let me work in there freely to calculate and build the console of a new transshipment rig; Three, provide any and all needed supplies; and Four, provide me with adequate protection and force at the firing itself.”

Brown Limper was a little doubtful. “But I will have to take the two billion to the company offices on Psychlo," said Terl. "I’m no thief.”

Brown Limper could appreciate that.

“And I will have to record the deed of sale for both the planet and the company branch here for it to be totally legal,” said Terl. “I wouldn't want you holding an unrecorded deed. I want to be fair to you, too.” (That was another word, “fair,” he had looked up.)

Yes, said Brown Limper, one could see he was leaning over backward to be fair and legal. He was still a little doubtful.

“And if you have a bill of sale to the company you own all the equipment and minesites as well as the planet, and Tyler won't be permitted to fly about.”

Brown Limper sat a little straighter. He began to get a little eager.

“Also,” continued Terl, “You can let it be known through various channels that you are going to fire a shipment to Psychlo. And the moment he hears that, he’ll be right over here and you've got him!”

That did it!

Brown Limper almost reached through the bars to shake hands on it until Lars reminded him they were electrified. He got up, restraining an impulse to jump about.

"I’ll draw up the deed!” he said. Too loud. “I’ll draw up the deed,” he whispered. “All your conditions are accepted. We will do exactly what you say!” He rushed off in the wrong direction to get to the ground car. Lars had to collect him and get him into it. Brown Limper had a wild look in his eyes.

“Now we will see justice done,” Brown

Limper kept repeating all the way back to Denver.

Terl, in his cage, couldn't believe his luck. Laughs and twitches fought to take over. He had done it! And he would be– was!– one of the richest Psychlos alive!

Power! Success! He had done it! But would he ever have to be sure this accursed planet went up in smoke. As soon as he left.

Jonnie was pitching rocks down off the bluff and into the lake. The vast lake, really an inland sea, stretched out to a cloudy horizon. There was a storm building up out there now, a not uncommon thing for this huge expanse of water.

The bluff on which he stood rose nearly sheer, two hundred feet above the lake. Erosion or some volcanic cataclysm from the cloud-hidden peaks to the northeast had covered the bluff top with rocks the size of a man's fist. They were simply made for throwing.

He had formed the habit of daily trotting down here from the minesite a few miles away. It was hot and humid here at the equator but the running did him good. He was not afraid of the various animals around here, ferocious though they might be, for he never went unarmed and the beasts seldom attacked unless disturbed. There was a road of sorts to follow, and the Pyschlos must have made a habit of coming here from the minesite, perhaps to swim, for the road went across the bluff and down to a beach on the other side. No, not to swim. Psychlos didn't like swimming. Perhaps to go boating?

Once he had read that this lake area had been one of the most heavily populated on the continent. Several millions had lived here. The Psychlos seemed to have taken care of them long, long ago, for there was not even a trace of fields or huts, much less people, left.

He wondered why the Psychlos mainly hunted people. Dr. MacKendrick said it was probably a matter of sympathetic nerve vibration: animals might not suffer acutely enough to add to the enjoyment of the monsters, or perhaps it was just that man's nerve pattern, in a body with two arms, two legs, and upright, paralleled their own. Even their nerve gas specialized in sentient beings and was far less effective on four-legged creatures and reptiles. There was a Psychlo text on its use and it said as much. Something about its being attuned to “more highly developed central nervous systems.” But whatever might be the reasons for that, these Psychlos at the minesite had not made much of a dent in the game. And the game, smelling him, did not go racing away. He suddenly realized that he didn't smell even vaguely like a Psychlo.

The storm out there was building up. He glanced toward the very distant minesite to see whether there was any rush getting back there to beat the storm.

Very tiny in the distance a small tri-wheeler ground car had left the mine. Somebody coming. To see him? Or just somebody out for a ride?

Jonnie went back to pitching rocks. The current state of affairs was a bit gloomy. One of the Psychlos had died; the other three were holding on. They had found about a third of the corpses had two items in their heads, and Dr. MacKendrick was practicing on the cadavers to find out how to bore in and remove them without killing a Psychlo-in case one of the last three made it. They still had two with two objects in their heads. Might even be a relief to them to get rid of the hideous things!

But Jonnie did not much like all this business with cadavers and he turned his mind to something more cheerful.

During the battle he had made an interesting discovery. He had been flying that mine platform with hands. He hadn't recalled that until a week had gone by. MacKendrick said it was another part of his brain taking over the lost functions. Under stress, he had assumed, those “lost” functions and nerves healed because of a battle. But Jonnie didn't believe that.

Jonnie's theory was that he manipulated the nerves. And it was working! He had begun by simply willing his arm and leg to do what he wanted. Each day he had gotten a bit better. And now he could trot. No cane. And he could throw.

For a hunter trained as he was, the inability to sling a kill-club had made him feel helpless. And here he was pitching rocks.