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tug a length of the dead slang out into view. "It ain't et
lately," he commented. "If it would've, there'd be a bulge. So maybe
Gertie's OK. Unless it killed her by mistake, or just for meanness. We'd better
find her as soon as we can."
                "Let's
start here," Retief suggested as he started off along a dimly marked
trail.
                "One
spot is as good as another," Yong said. "These are animal trails.
Like you said, we might as well start here." He went past Retief to lead
the way into the black-green gloom; Retief followed, skirting the boles of
giant buttressed trees, thrusting aside leafy fronds, ripping through clinging
tangles of vine, to emerge on a tunnel-like path which twisted off into the
deep jungle. Yong's camouflage was effective here, Retief noticed; his
pink-and-green hide was invisible at a few feet's distance among the dark green
shadows and glancing streaks of sunlight which penetrated here. The Terran was
hard put to keep pace with his lithely slinking guide. After five minutes'
headlong progress, Yong recoiled suddenly, turning quickly to face Retief.
                "Bad
luck, Terry; it's a tud. Great big frothy sort of creature; it can engulf you
in a trice or two and dissolve you in nothing flat. By the way, I got that
'nothing flat' and 'trice' out of a phrase-book we had to learn at the academy.
What do they mean?"
                "Nothing
much," Retief dismissed the matter absently as he went past Yong to look
at what appeared to be a thick, yellowish blanket with a wet-glistening surface
which bubbled and seethed here and there. Behind it stretched a trail of bare
stems, denuded of foliage. A leaf fell on the heaving surface, and was
instantly engulfed. The mass rippled and edged closer, extending a lumpy
pseudo-pod toward Yong, skirting Retief widely. A dead branch fell on the tud,
splashing fluid matter before it sank from view, smoking. As Yong recoiled with
a yowl, slapping at a fleck which had spattered on his forelimb, Retief
observed other droplets burning their way through foliage or deep into the
boles of trees. A small gob had come to rest on his sleeve, he noted, but after
an initial spasm it appeared quiescent. He flicked it away. There was no visible
damage to the synthetic fibers of the jacket, he noted, nor did the tiny smear
of fluid left on his fingertip appear to be active.
                Yong
had retreated a few yards along the trail. "We'll have to go around,"
he called. "Nothing can go over a hungry tud."
                "Maybe
I can," Retief countered. "I don't think the tud likes Terries for
lunch any more than the slang did."
                "Hold
it!" Yong snapped. "This is different: chemical action, you know, not
metabolic digestion. Step on that and you'll be shorter by a foot."
                Before
Retief could respond, a shrill scream sounded from the deep jungle ahead With a
crashing of underbrush, Gertrude appeared, upside down, enmeshed in the coils
of a squid-like creature, deep red in color. The tigress was fighting
desperately, raking deep-purple furrows in the smooth leathery hide of the
thing that had seized her. Her yellow eyes fell on Retief and she redoubled her
efforts, wresting both hind legs free of the muscular, sinuous tentacles; but
now a great bone-yellow parrot beak was snapping bare inches from her flank.
                "Too
bad," Yong called. "That's a zuzz's got her. They can eat anything.
She's a goner."
                "Hang
on, Gertrude," Retief called encouragingly to the embattled feline. He put
a foot on the pulsating surface of the tud, which spasmed—then seemed to melt
away underfoot as the creature withdrew its substance from contact with the
alien matter. In four strides Retief was across and crashing through dense
brush to come up on the zuzz from the side, where a single lidless foot-wide
eye stared blankly at him. Quick as thought,