he’d been given, and now Firstspacer Lors would have to die in the supreme bungle that had created the first native uprising on Thista. He looked up along the face of the high mountain in his rear. Nothing moved in the greenish-purple scrub, but he knew they were there.

He peered over the edge of the rock into the valley, a hundred and fifty kinos away. The patrol [p42]  car was still there, its driver lying grotesquely just a few feet from the hatch. The thick, heavy spear through his chest resembled a finger pointing toward the violet sky. Closer to him, on the slope, one of the enemy lay dying, a greenish-brown fluid pumping spasmodically from the hole put in his chest by the auto-pistol. The alien’s huge yellow eyes blinked owlishly and the slash-like mouth worked as if he wanted to call for help. But no sound came. The antennae swiveled limply as he tried to locate his comrades, but they drooped as the alien died.

[p42]  

[p

]  

Still tightly clutching the auto-pistol, he watched the thin, grey antennae fall to the ground. They pointed off to the left. He swung about and looked in the direction the native had been scanning, but he could see no movement beyond the swaying of the desert grass moving in the faint breath of air.

They should have gotten the message. By now, there was probably a ship on its way to him. He had to hold out until they got here. He flipped open the cartridge box and checked his ammunition. Plenty. Of course, the auto-pistol only held fifteen shots and if they rushed him... He wished fervently that he had thought to bring the projectile launcher from the wrecked patrol car.

Damned natives and their uprisings!

He searched the sky anxiously, cold sweat trickling off his forehead in tiny rivulets. Scenes of other uprisings flickered through his brain, and more horrible scenes of the remains of tortured captives when he reached them too late. Those had been small. This one was for real.

The native seemed to materialize out of the ground, screaming shrill obscenities as he drew [p43]  himself to his full nine feet of height and brandished the heavy maul over his head. He came leaping over the ground and up the hill of tumbled rocks in fiendish rage, his grey antennae pointed directly at Firstspacer Lors. Behind him came the others, eight of them.

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