World Of The Hunter
By C. H. Thames
Mulveen had come to Earth for a big-game
thrill; it was up to Gilbert to provide it for
him—even if he had to let himself be stalked!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
October 1956
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
"Gun, boy!" Mulveen cried.
The big saurian—a thirty-tonner, at least—came splashing andbellowing out of the swamp. Gilbert quickly brought up the archaicEarth rifle, ramming a shell into the breech with the bolt-actionloader. With almost the same motion he thrust the big, capable weaponinto Mulveen's waiting hands and the hunter brought it to his shoulderwithout a moment to spare.
Actually, it was an adapted old big-game rifle: the shells it firedwere atomic. Standing his ground weaponless, Gilbert saw Mulveen'sfinger whiten on the trigger, saw the scale-hided saurian growimmensely before them, heard its surprisingly high piping challenge,then saw and heard in one quick flash of suspended time the roar andsmoke of the big rifle and the sudden life-ending, sleek-scaled,column-legged death-rearing of the big saurian as it came upright, thepiping a high death scream now, the small forelimbs tearing at air, thehead with the very tiny hole between the eyes swaying as if drunk fromside to side, the long, muscular, five-ton tail still thrashing in theswamp waters.
Then the saurian came down, crashing through the brakes. There was onlya trickle of blood, but the bullet, like a Dum-Dum of three hundredyears before, had exploded inside the monster's head, the minute atomiccharge destroying everything within the thick bone walls of the skullbut leaving skull and metal-tough skin intact.
Time flowed again. Mulveen returned the rifle to Gilbert and wadedforward through the brackish water, his hipboots glistening.
"Beauty, isn't it?" Gilbert said with feigned professional enthusiasmMulveen needed the enthusiasm: the big humanoid from the Sirian systemhad been a grumpy, fussy, dissatisfied hunter throughout the safari.
"Don't try and dun me for a tip," Mulveen snapped. "You get paidwhatever the Earth company pays you." He was a big, bald man with aflorid face, an amazing girth of shoulders, a barrel chest and almostpipe-stem legs which seemed barely able to support his weight.
He reached the saurian's five-foot-long head and walked around it,muttering to himself. It was a prize specimen: a faudi reptile fromEpsilon Aurigae III, bred here on Earth in the huge, planet-widegame-farm. It was the sort of specimen a big-game hunter would give hisproverbial eyeteeth to own, but Mulveen did not look happy. He merelysaid:
"So this is a faudi."
"Want me to prepare the skull, sir?" Gilbert asked. Gilbert waseighteen, one of the youngest guides in the game area known asLewsanna. His father had been a guide for the hunters from theoutworlds, and his father's father. His father had died tracking: itwas a good, clean death and Gilbert's father had never known poverty.That was the most an Earthman could expect, Gilbert thought withoutbitterness. For civilization had left Earth behind. Earth was in thebackwaters of galactic trade. Earth was a game-preserve, with thegreat beasts of five dozen worlds brought to it and bred here for thehunters. It figured, naturally: you couldn't deny it. The outworldswere new; they were built as twenty-fourth century worlds should bebuilt. Earth had been a world of an