"Look here," Rynch rounded on him. "You know this planet, you've been here before."
"I was one of the survey team that approved it for the Guild."
"Then you must have combed it pretty thoroughly. How is it that you didn't know about them?" He gestured to their pursuers.
"That is what I would like to ask a few assorted experts right about now," Hume returned. "The verifiers registered no intelligent native life here."
"No native life." Rynch chewed that over, came up with the obvious explanation. "All right--so then maybe our blue-backed friends are imported. Suppose someone's running a private business of his own here and wants to get rid of visitors?"
Hume looked thoughtful. "No." He did not enlarge upon his negative. Sitting down he pulled a cylinder container from a belt loop and shook out four tablets, handing two to Rynch, mouthing the others.
"Vita-blocks--good for twenty-four hours sustenance."
The iron rations depended upon by all exploring services did not have the satisfying taste of real food. However Rynch swallowed them dutifully before he descended with Hume to river level. The Hunter splashed water from the stream into a depression in the rock and dropped a pinch of clarifying powder into it.
"With the dark," he announced, "we might be able to get through their lines."
Hume laughed. "No--but one doesn't overlook the factor of sheer luck. Also, I don't care to finish up at the place they may have chosen for us." He tilted his chin to study the sky. "We'll take watches and rest in turn. No use trying anything until it is dark--unless they start to move in. You take the first one?"
As Rynch nodded, Hume edged back into a crevice as a shelled creature withdrawing to natural protection, going to sleep as easily as if he could control that state by will. Rynch, watching him curiously for a second or two before climbing up to a position from which he judged he could see all sides of their refuge, determined not to be surprised.
The watchers were crouched down, waiting with that patience which had impressed him from his first sight of the camp sentries back in the forest. There was no movement, no sound. They were simply there--on guard. And Rynch did not believe that the darkness of night would bring any relaxation of that vigilance.