He turned his head to face Thane as he spoke and Thane saw his eyes for the first time.

They were the lifeless, staring eyes of a dead man.

He flicked his light over the faces of the other two guards. They were the same; all three were like walking dead.

"Did the monsters harm you?" he asked Bellam.

Bellam hesitated, seeming to tense with suspicion. "No." The dead eyes stared into his. "What makes you ask?"

He saw that Curry had noticed nothing different about the three guards. It was typical of Curry; to him subordinates were only automatons to carry out his orders.

"We were discussing a mad dog, Thane," Curry said. "Not the health of my men." He spoke to Bellam. "As I recall, rabies was a pre-Technogration plague, often fatal."

"The bite of a rabid animal is invariably fatal, the death prolonged and painful," Bellam said. "There is no preventative or cure among the medical supplies on the ship. The dog must be killed at once, together with all other animals in the Outlander camp."

"If the dog was mad, why hasn't it bitten any of the Outlanders," Thane asked Curry. "I suggest we keep it on a leash until we know for sure."

"The dog was smuggled aboard the ship in defiance of regulations," Curry said. "It would have been destroyed before had I known about it."

He turned to Bellam, ignoring Thane. "The three of you will search the Outlander camp from end to end. Kill all animals and report to me the names of the owners."

The three departed, to begin the search at the nearer end of the camp. Thane made no further objection. He knew the Outlanders well enough to know that they would have overheard the discussion on the hill and slipped the dog out through the guard lines before that discussion ended. Outlanders could be very clever in such matters—the searchers would find no dog.

There was satisfaction on Curry's face as he turned and with his two bodyguards started back up the hill to his camp. Thane watched him go, smiling a little. Curry was making the mistake that had been fatal for so many before him; he was taking it for granted too soon that he had won.

A man came hurrying from the north guard line before Curry had 

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