"There are a million places in the galaxy he could set up private meetings without this much trouble," Tapper pointed out, sipping at his cup.

"True. Incidentally, did you notice that piece of metal stuck in the ground behind those aleudrupe plants at our first rest stop?"

"Yes," Tapper nodded. "Looked to me like a trans pond marker.

Probably there either to mark the path or else to Keep track of the Morodin migrations."

"Perhaps," Karrde said. "I can't help thinking, though, that Falmal reacted rather strongly when I started toward it."

"You think it's something less innocuous?"

"Could be," Karrde said. "Possibly part of a sensor array to" He broke off. Through the trees, from somewhere nearby, came a deep, rumbling growl. Across the encampment, Falmal straightened up as Buzzy and the Rodian unslung their blaster rifles. "This could be it," Karrde murmured, snagging his own weapon and levering himself to his feet.

"Falmal?"

"Shh!" the Krish hissed. "You will frighten it. We will break into the same groups of three as in the air-speeders."

He hurried over to Karrde and Tapper as the others collected into their own groups and headed into the jungle.

"Come. Quickly and quietly."

They headed out, blaster rifles at the ready. "How can the Morodins get through these trees?" Tapper asked. "I thought they were big."

"Morodins are long but slender," Falmal said, peering carefully through the trees. "They can move easily about the jungle. Ah-look!"

Karrde swung his blaster rifle around; but Falmal was only pointing at the ground. "Fresh slime trail," the Krish said. "You see?"

"Yes," Karrde said, eyeing the wide silvery line cutting across the ground cover and disappearing off into the trees. A remarkably straight line, too, veering only to get around an occasional tree.

"A large one, too," Falmal said. "Come. We will follow it."

"Doesn't seem very sporting," Tapper grunted as Falmal led the way through the trees.

"The trail will not last long," Falmal said over his shoulder.

"It appears and disappears."

Karrde frowned off to his' right. It was hard to tell through all the bushes, but-"Is that another slime trail over there?" he asked Falmal. "Paralleling ours about three meters away?"

"Yes, they usually move in pairs," the Krish said.

"Quiet now. See, the trail is turning."

Ahead, the slime trail had turned sharply to the left.

Karrde craned his neck; sure enough, the other trail was turning to remain parallel. "That's a pretty sharp angle," Tapper muttered.

"You suppose something scared them?"

"Quiet," Falmal said again.

In silence they continued on along the trail. It changed direction twice more in the next few minutes, turns as sharp and precise as the first had been. And then, to Karrde's surprise, it split into two different directions.

"How did it do that?" he asked.

"A third Morodin has joined," Falmal said. "Quiet. It could be just ahead."

"Maybe a third, fourth, and fifth," Tapper said, nodding to the right.

The paralleling slime trail there had split into three lines, two of them angling off three meters farther along the ground ahead of it.

Swallowing, Karrde lifted his blaster rifle and took another step-And suddenly, there it was: fifteen meters long, rearing the front of its rounded body three meters up off the ground, a mottled yellow creature with spoonbill snout, stubby legs, and wide teeth.

A Morodin.

"Shoot it!" Falmal yelped. "Quickly!"

Karrde's rifle was already against his shoulder, the barrel tracking the huge creature in front of them. The Morodin reared another meter off the ground, giving out the same deep growl they'd heard back at the camp.

Karrde squinted down the barrel... "Wait a minute," he told Tapper.

"Hold your fire. It's just standing there."

"It is Morodin," Falmal snarled. "Shoot before it's too late."

But it was already too late. From their right came a sudden sputtering volley of blaster fire, catching the Morodin solidly across its flank.

Tarnish and Cob-caree, with the Rodian behind them, had arrived along one of the lines of the other slime trail. The Morodin growled once more, then toppled to the ground with a thunderous crash.

"Well shot," Falmal all but crowed. "We will summon the airspeeders, and the pilots will prepare your trophy.

Let us return to camp now; the noise will have driven off the others."

He looked speculatively at Karrde. "Perhaps tomorrow, Syndic Hart, will be your day for a kill."

"Perhaps," Karrde said, looking at the downed Morodin. So that was that. The big, dangerous Morodin safari... and it had turned out to be no more challenging than shooting a bruallki in a net. "I can hardly wait."

The pilots arrived within an hour, and for nearly two hours afterward the encampment was busy as they shuttled slabs of Morodin meat in from the kill and held interminable conversations with Tarnish and Colycaree as to which would get which part of the head and their preferences in trophy mount and framing. Karrde stayed out of the activity, retreating back to his seat by the tree with a portable melodium and leaving Tapper to handle their share of the work. He overheard one or two rather finely honed comments about poor sportsmanship directed his way, but he ignored them. Leaning back against the tree, eyes half shut, he let the music from the melodium envelop him.

And, surreptitiously, fiddled with the settings of the comm-relay concealed inside the device.

The sun was dipping low over the forest by the time the pilots finished their work and the airspeeders took off back toward base camp.

"I trust you've been enjoying yourself," Tapper commented, sitting down beside Karrde and wiping his face with the sleeve of his no longer sleek hunter's outfit. "Some of the others think you've been sulking."

"I can't help what they think," Karrde said. "Don't get comfortable; we're going for a walk."

"Wonderful," Tapper groaned, hauling himself back to his feet.

"What's the drill?"

"I've been playing a little with the comm-relay," Karrde said, standing up and slinging the melodium's strap over his shoulder. "If Falmal and company have been planting transpond markers in the vicinity, we should be able to pick them up with it. Nice and easy; let's not attract any attention."

They slipped out of camp and headed into the jungle.

Karrde's hunch was right: almost immediately the rigged comm-relay found a signal, coming from the direction of the Morodin kill.

Following the slime trail again, they soon reached what was left of the carcass, already busy with scavengers.

"There it is," Tapper said, pointing to a group of bushes a few meters away. "It's a transpond marker, all right. And right by one of the slime trails again."

"Yes," Karrde said, kneeling down for a closer look.

The ground at the edge of the slime had been freshly turned, he saw.

Almost as if something had been planted there...

He looked up sharply, catching Tapper's eye. The other nodded: he'd heard the faint crunching noise, too.

"Coming from the camp," he murmured.

The sound came again. "Let's take the long way," Karrde murmured back, pointing to the section of slime trail Tarnish and Cob-caree had arrived along earlier. Explaining to Falmal or his cohorts why he was carrying a melodium on a walk through the jungle could get awkward.

Especially if they found the gimmicked comm-relay inside it.

They heard the crunching sound once more as they left the site, but after that it seemed to fade behind them.

Which was just as well. No more than fifteen meters into the jungle, the slime trail broke off; and when it reappeared three meters farther away, it had suddenly sprouted three more branches. "Uh-oh," Tapper muttered.

"Which way?"

"I'm not sure," Karrde said, glancing behind them.

The thought of a whole herd of Morodins prowling around was not an especially pleasant one. "Let's try this one," he said, pointing to the rightmost of the two trails.

"We'll mark one of these trees first so we can backtrack if we have to."

Tapper was staring off into the jungle. "Let's try going a little farther in first," he suggested slowly. "We can always come back."

Karrde frowned at him. "Something?"

"A hunch," Tapper said. "Just a hunch."

Karrde pursed his lips. "How far in do you want to go?"

"About three hundred meters," Tapper said. "I remember a ridge in that direction on the map that overlooks a sort of wide depression in the ground."

Karrde grimaced. Three hundred meters into an unfamiliar jungle was nothing to be taken lightly. But on the other hand, Tapper's infrequent hunches were nearly always worth following up. "All right," he said. "But no farther than the ridge. And we head back sooner if our trail ends."

"Agreed. Let's go."

The slime trail split again a few meters along, and twice more made one of those short, three-meter breaks with new branches going off in different directions when it resumed. For a while Karrde tried to keep track of the number of lines, hoping to figure out how many animals they were dealing with here. But he soon gave up the effort.

If the Morodins decided to get nasty, the difference between six and sixty of them would be largely academic.

"There's the ridge," Tapper said, pointing ahead at a last line of trees that seemed to open onto blue sky. "Let's take a look."

They stepped forward and between the trees. There, stretched out perhaps 100 meters below them, was the wide valley-like depression Tapper had described.

And gathered together at one side of it were upwards of fifty Morodins.

"We've found the crowd, all right," Karrde muttered uneasily. The slope down from their ridge into the valley was mildly steep, but he doubted it would bother something with the size and musculature of a Morodin. In fact he knew it wouldn't; the slime trail they were following rounded the ridge and continued down without a break.

"Don't look at the Morodins," Tapper said. "Look at the slime trails."

"What about them?"

"Look at them," Tapper urged. "Tell me you see it, tOO."

Karrde frowned, wondering what he was getting at. The whole depression was full of the lines, that was for sure, clearly visible between the trees and over the trampled bushes. Lots of lines, showing the same bends and branches as the ones they'd encountered up here...

And then, abruptly, he got it. "I don't believe it," he breathed.

"I didn't either," Tapper said. "Look-one of them's trying it."

One of the Morodins had detached himself from the group and into the three-meter channel between two of the trails. Waddling quickly on those short legs, it moved to the first bend and turned to the left.

Into the first section of the elaborately constructed maze.

"Let's get back," Karrde said, shaking his head in disbelief.

"I have a feeling we don't want Gamgalon's people finding us here."

"Too late," a soft voice said.

Carefully, Karrde looked over his shoulder. Two meters behind him stood Faimal and two of the Krish pilots, all three with blaster rifles at the ready. Behind them stood a fourth Krish, gazing thoughtfully at him. "Indeed," Karrde said, lowering the muzzle of his own rifle and turning around to face them. "Well. At least we shouldn't have any trouble finding the way back to camp."

"Whether we return to camp directly has yet to be decided," the fourth Krish said in that same soft voice. "Put your weapons down, please.

And tell me what you are doing here."

"We were looking for Morodins," Karrde said as he and Tapper lowered their blaster rifles to the ground. "In the process we stumbled on the fact that they're more than just simple animals." He cocked an eyebrow.

"They're fully sentient beings, aren't they, Gamgalon?"

The Krish smiled. "Very good," he said. "On both counts. You know my name; what is yours?"

Under the circumstances, there didn't seem to be much point in continuing the masquerade. "Talon Karrde," Karrde identified himself.