Part 2

She staggered back, nude and startled. Daphne roared with laughter, clasped her around the waist again and held out his right hand. "Nellie, my rifle. You wait here. Keep your heads down. No fair peeking, eh, Suchane?"

Annellica threw one of the two rifles she was carrying at him, muzzle up. He caught it with a slap of his huge paw and pulled the girl forward with him. She was reassured, now, and giggling with anticipation.

Somehow the lecherous display was more revolting out here in daylight. I mistook Annellica's paleness for humiliation, and I didn't blame her. Why did he have to drag one of his damned concubines out here?

We knelt down obediently, and before Daphne's head disappeared he turned and shouted back, "If the wampus gets by me, remember, no gut shots, Frost."

I muttered to Annellica, "The man has nerve, anyway."

"You confuse bravery with selfishness. He insists on the first shot--won't trust another member of a hunting party to hold his fire. He always stalks out ahead like this," Annellica explained tensely.

I had noticed that the niece carried no weapon. Which brought up another question. "Does he always mix his pleasures?" I asked.

She was in the act of withdrawing a long telescopic sight which she must have had bound to the inside of her thigh. As she mounted it to her rifle with feverish haste she answered, "He is not mixing his pleasures. _Suchane is bait._"

Before this could sink in completely a shrill, feminine scream tore faintly into the gusty wind and found us. I leaped to my feet. Half way to the edge of the jungle, some hundred yards from us, I watched Daphne pushing the olive-skinned girl ahead of him with rough shoves. A deeper color spread from her neck and swathed one shoulder and her side.

He stopped and raised the rifle threateningly. She turned and fled toward the jungle.

"What in God's name--" I shouted.

"You can't help her," Annellica said hopelessly. "He's cut her jugular. If there's an animal in there the blood scent will bring it out in seconds. If there isn't--Suchane is gone, anyway."

I stared down at my companion in horror. She had warned me about the "Fate of Daffy's nieces," but I couldn't have visualized anything this bestial.

She looked up at me. "She will faint soon. There are worse ways to die. You will see." She arose to stand beside me.

* * * * *

I threw my rifle to my shoulder, fully intending to fire the whole clip into Daphne's back, but three things happened at once. Suchane sank out of sight in the grass, an orange splotch ripped into the open, and the Major, too, sank down and levelled his rifle.

The animal, even at this distance, was undoubtedly one of the Major's wampus varieties. It was stilt-legged, but not clumsy like a giraffe. The long, thick neck swung left and right tracing the scent of warm blood, and its cat-like body arched so high a man could have walked under it.

The wind was directly at our back, and as the several human scents touched the animal's nostrils it jerked the long-fanged mouth. Its belly touched the high grass in a quick crouch, then it sprang in one, deadly accurate leap that carried it forty yards to the prostrate Suchane. Even in the light gravity, the orange blur did not rise in a high trajectory, and the Major had time for only one shot while it was in the air.

The sound startled the beast as it settled on its prey, and it raised its ugly head high while Daphne slammed the rest of his ammunition at it with no effect.

Annellica stood calmly as her husband dropped his rifle unbelievingly. The heavy caliber bullets had failed to cause a quiver in the beast, but the shocking noise had made him nervous.

At the moment when it seemed he would turn and run for the jungle, Annellica raised her rifle. Daphne saw her sight through the telescope. "It's no use," he yelled. "We need higher power charges. Got a hide on him like a--"

She pulled the trigger.

The great animal pirouetted, bit at its own side, then wheeled facing us. Even as it sprang, Daphne, who was only twenty yards from us, screamed, "You gut-shot it! You clumsy--"

His wife dropped her rifle instantly after the shot and drew the little nuclear pistol. I got off one shot as the beast reached the apex of its leap, but I think I missed.

I kept waiting for Annellica's deadly handweapon to speak, but she followed the arc of the raking talons all the way to the ground where they churned briefly. Daphne only screamed once.

At last the pistol spat, just as the furry belly touched the grass in its third crouch. The leap came, but it was almost straight up. The slender pellet had entered the chest and cooked half the spine. The aimless floundering was reflexive spasm.

Annellica grabbed my rifle and fired three quick shots at the impervious hull of the ship. It brought the captain and two crew members to help us with the remains. Before they reached us, however, she was quick to secure Daphne's rifle and examine the chamber.

Even with an eye-witness and three other witnesses after the fact, she insisted that we hack the head and claws from the monster carnivore. We packed them, together with her husband's shredded corpse in the game freezer.

When a financial personage of Daphne's stature dies on a strange planet the investigation is most thorough. It wasn't necessary to take such pains with Suchane's pitiful remains. We buried her on Tigursh II where investigators could exhume her ripped body if they chose. The jugular slash was indistinguishable in the general lacerations.

It was a nasty mess. It cured me from any slight pleasure in hunting and cost me the quickest billion dollars I ever had a chance at.

Naturally, the deal was off without the Major to verify the verbal agreement. Anyway, with characteristic selfishness, he died intestate which threw all his holdings into the courts.

But the greatest change the incident made in my life concerned the loss of my bachelorhood. A man can get his belly full of anything, even promiscuity, and Daphne's little hunting party did me that favor.

I'm still stuck with Tigursh II and its mile-under-mud thorium deposit and orange-colored wampuses but I have prospects. If the courts clear up the Daphne estate my wife will own more planets than I have golf balls.

So, if you ever go big game hunting again don't forget the Major's advice. I pass it on to you for what it's worth, although you may never aim at anything but a lion. Never gut-shoot a wampus. It's better even if you're only shooting blanks!

And I don't feel a damn bit bad about the way Annellica loaded the major's gun....