"Look," he said. "You are hungry." He wriggled his tongue as a fisherman would cast out bait.

Hungry, hungry, hungry, came the tiny voice.

An eternity passed. Monk's heart was a monstrous hammer pounding in the depths of his body and in the depths of the planet. The Aab was motionless save for the restless, uncertain moving and blinking of its eyes.

Then its forelegs lifted. It drew itself forward. One inch, two, three, four, five, six.

Monk beckoned the creature on with his wriggling, twisting tongue.

"That's it!" he telepathed. "Closer, closer!"

The Aab entered Monk's open mouth.

Crunch!

Monk chewed and spat and chewed and spat. He grimaced hideously. He coughed and choked. The Aab tasted like a combination of paprika and oil. He thought he was going to retch, but did not.

And it was over.

Monk breathed the cool air. His weary mind thought of the stupid white-bearded Martian and of his lovely daughter. He thought of what he was going to do to that idiot space rat, Stardust Luke.

His gaze traveled to the empty red desert where, in about four hours, Stardust's sandcar would appear. It shifted to the sacks of priceless Devil's Egg seed, and he began to chuckle.

And last, his gaze turned to the black, pin-point eyes and the moving fore-claws of the two Aabs which squatted some three feet away from him in the jagged, sharp-edged shadow of a Devil's Egg....

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