It was pretty much the same amount he'd taken on his last trip-freeze-dried food, spare clothing, a sleeping bag, and a disposable cigarette lighter made entirely of plastic. There was also a plastic pocket compass, and aside from the magnetic compass needle, the only metal he was carrying was the blade of his knife. It was a U.S. Marine Kabar, not as elegant as his old commando knife but a lot more useful for chopping up kindling, gutting fish, and dressing game. Again, it was not a very incriminating piece of equipment.

Everything was in the right place and in good condition. Blade would have been surprised if it hadn't been. The Project's Field Operations officer was a former Royal Marine Commando who knew how a leaky cigarette lighter could be a major disaster if you were a long way from home.

Finally he took off his belt and wrist bracers, and inspected them. They looked like they were made of ordinary pliable plastic from Home Dimension, but it actually was a very special sort of plastic. It was Oltec from Kaldak, part of the harness of the uniform Blade wore back from that Dimension on his second trip.

Normal plastic softened when heated and hardened when cooled. This plastic worked the other way around. Thrust into boiling water, the belt and wrist bracers hardened until they were nearly as tough as steel and much lighter. Laid on a block of ice or immersed in cold water, the plastic softened until Blade could shape it between thumb and forefinger and then put it back on. Most of the plastic was still in the laboratories of the Project's Complex Two, being analyzed. Blade had kept enough for the specially designed belt and cuffs, which, when straightened out and hardened, became a spear and two daggers with sharp points. He could be wearing nothing but his bare skin and the innocent-looking plastic, and still hold a dozen men's lives in his hands. Cheeky wore a harness and belt of the same material.

Blade took off his wrist bracers, straightened them out, held each piece over the flame of a cigarette lighter, and watched them begin to harden. Suddenly Cheeky gave a soft yeeep of warning. Blade looked up, and saw that he and the feather-monkey were no longer alone.

Chapter 3

A number of dark-skinned men were climbing down the slope of the far bank of the river, moving sure-footedly from the cover of one boulder to another. They were closing in on both sides of the mouth of a canyon that opened on the riverbank. The canyon's floor was level but it twisted so sharply that Blade could see barely fifty yards into it. From somewhere up the canyon a cloud of dust rose.

Blade counted at least twenty men. Fortunately all their attention seemed to be on the mouth of the canyon. Blade's camouflage coveralls were also doing a good job of hiding him against the dark gravel of the riverbank. He easily found cover for himself and Cheeky before the men reached the bank of the river.

The men's skins were brown with a tinge of bronze, and their hair long, dark, and glossy. Most of them wore nothing but sandals and leather loinguards; some were completely naked. The ones with loinguards seemed to have daggers thrust into their belts; all carried spears with wicked-looking barbed heads and tufts of feather at the butt ends. Some had their hair tied up with vividly colored headbands. More than anything else, they made Blade think of a hunting party of North American Indians before the white man came.

The dust cloud in the canyon seemed to be getting closer and thicker. Now Blade could hear an occasional bellow and the echoing rumble of many hooves. The hunters hurried out onto the open ground along the bank and divided into two parties, one on each side of the canyon mouth. Each party formed a line that reached from the base of the slope to the water's edge. All raised their spears, and those with daggers drew them. The sound of hooves swelled to a roar.

Then suddenly the canyon spewed out a solid mass of furious animal life. In the lead were a dozen shaggy animals, looking like oversized elk-except that no elk ever had a rack of antlers like these. The antlers were a deep red, at least seven feet from tip to tip, and so massive Blade wondered how the creatures ever managed to keep their heads up. He could have chinned himself on either side of such a rack! Finding themselves suddenly in the open, the elk slowed down and began to mill around, bellowing to one another.

Five of the dark-skinned hunters rode out of the canyon after the elk. The hunters were mounted on creatures that obviously must have had lizards somewhere in their family trees. Their scaly bodies weren't much larger than a Shetland pony's, but their thick legs were a good five feet long and ended in splayed, clawed feet. Their eyes swiveled like a frog's, but when they opened their mouths they displayed a fine set of teeth. The hunters rode bareback, with only ropes for bridles, and carried ten-foot lances or spiked clubs. Blade wasn't sure if these, weapons were for their prey or to control the strange-looking members of the hunting party that were bringing up the rear.

There were four of these creatures at the heel of the hunters. They were hairy humanoids that reminded Blade of the legendary Sasquatch or Bigfoot.

The smallest was at least seven feet tall and four feet across the shoulders, with arms reaching almost to its knees. Both hands and feet were clawed, and their long muzzles were studded with teeth. Great clumps of matted brown hair sprouted all over them like weeds. Blade even caught a whiff of their rank odor, which made him perfectly happy to watch the end of the hunt from a distance.

The lizard-riders slowed their mounts and urged the Bigfeet forward with high-pitched cries and prods from their lances. The Bigfeet threw back their heads and bellowed. Blade recognized the noise; he'd heard it from down in the first canyon. He realized he'd narrowly escaped meeting a den of these creatures in the wild. Then the Bigfeet shambled forward in a crouch that was almost a parody of a karate adept's stance.

Now the elk panicked again. Some of them ran left or right, straight at the hunters waiting for them. Blade saw a hunter stand up, ignoring the lowered antlers coming at him until the last moment. Then he leaped aside, catching the antlers in one hand and swinging himself up on the elk's back. Before the elk could figure out what to do next, the hunter stabbed it at the base of the neck. The elk reared in one desperate twisting convulsion. The hunter flew off but landed on his feet as lightly as a gymnast, avoiding the elk as it crashed to the ground.

The other elk were too confused to run. Or perhaps they thought the Bigfeet were less dangerous than the human hunters. They were wrong. Blade saw one Bigfoot leap on an elk's back and jerk its head back until the neck snapped. Another grabbed an elk by the antlers, threw it to the ground, then tore out its throat. A third waited until the elk in front of it reared. Then it struck with both hands, claws outstretched. The elk's belly opened in a wound six feet long, and steaming entrails poured out as it fell. The Bigfoot knelt down by its victim, feeding on the entrails even before the elk was dead. A lizard-rider rode up beside the Bigfoot and not too gently prodded it away with a lance.

In a matter of minutes all the elk were dead or dying except two. One had the sense to run back up the canyon; two of the lizard-riders went after it. The other ran at the right-hand line of hunters, with one of the Bigfoot after it.

A totally naked hunter stood between it and escape. He raised his spear and made a half-hearted thrust. The spear caught in the elk's thick hide and the animal's speed wrenched it out of his hands. He took a couple of steps after the elk, then jumped back as the Bigfoot headed toward him. For a moment it looked as if the Bigfoot thought the hunter was its prey, and the young man froze, staring at the Bigfoot. That moment was long enough to let the elk through. With open ground ahead, it broke into a run.