grith cats?" she said, straightening.

"Not here," Caine said.

"Just where we're going tomorrow?"

"Yes." Caine looked back to the man. He was about fifty, Caine judged, at least twenty years older than the woman. His face was lean and sad, and there were thin lines traveling out from the corners of his eyes and mouth that contrasted with the youthful cut of his wiry hair.

These two had come to Caine because his reputation in the Colony was established. He had been flying tourists into the jungle for more than three years, and while he could not predict all of this country, he at least knew the general traits of those sections within a reasonable radius of the Colony.

"Did you ever shoot a grith cat?" the woman asked, looking at Caine over her glass.

"No," said Caine.

"But you've heard that they're pretty horrible and dangerous?"

"Yes." Caine wiped a hand at the sweat on his forehead. The woman was working at the cats, her eyes shifting to look at her husband with every word, to see how he was reacting. So far he had done nothing, said nothing, only sat there and drank.

However, the cats were not the reason the couple were in the Venusian jungle. Hunting animals was a dead sport for them, something done in the past and something which had become boring.

They were looking for bigger game now. The Screece gem. And they had flown all the way from Earth to Mars, from Mars to Venus, to find it. The Screece gem was a myth, Caine was certain, a bit of fantasy out of ancient Venusian lore. But they paid him well for the trip, and he would ask no questions.

The woman stayed with the cats. "How big are these grith cats, Mr. Caine?"

"Eight to ten feet long," Caine said. "About like a large horse."

"Only they're cats, with the claws and the fangs and all."

"Essentially."

Caine felt himself tightening inside a little. The woman was trying to break through her husband's armor, because somewhere, sometime, he must have had trouble hunting a cat-like animal. Tiger. Or panther. The Martian frynx, perhaps. But she had not found her target, yet.

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