“Not a great move,” Rolfe said softly. “I wouldn’t have done that if I were you. Get up, or you’ve lost.”

The rats were much quicker than their opponent. While the minisaur still struggled to roll over so that its powerful tail and legs could lift it upright, the rats attacked again. Thirty of them went for the mouth and belly and genitals. A dozen others took advantage of the change in the carnosaur’s position and tackled the head, ripping at the eyelids and at the exposed surface of the eyes themselves.

The carnosaur at last reared upright, but it was damaged. It possessed plenty of energy and defiance, but now it gave up any attempt to eat the rats. It tried only to dislodge them from its body and trample them beneath its powerful feet. Blood and aqueous humor was oozing from the torn eyes. More blood ran freely from a severed vein low on the belly, where the wall of the abdomen had been broached. A gray bulge of intestine was visible. The rats tugged at that with their fangs, pulling it farther, tearing pieces off and swallowing them.

Celine stared in horror. “They’re eating it alive.”

“Yeah. What did you expect them to do? Kill it, cook it, and wait for steak sauce?” Rolfe was edging close, as close as he could without coming within striking range of the carnosaur. The animal had begun a low growl of anguish.

Celine’s feelings about the minisaur changed from fear to pity. “Shoot it. You must have some way to kill it quickly.” She wished she had brought a gun herself — every one of her security detail carried weapons, she could have borrowed one easily. “You can’t let it suffer like that.”

“What do you want me to do?” Rolfe was smiling. “Go in and strangle it, the sort of mercy killing you offer to somebody being burned at the stake? You can try that if you want to. I won’t. I hate to work with my hands.” He held up his blackened fingers.

“Then shoot it. This is horrible.”

“I don’t keep guns here.” He was studying the carnosaur. “Anyway, it won’t be long now. The small mammals always beat the dinosaurs.”

Eyeless and partly eviscerated, with bleeding wounds all around the neck and mouth, the beast still stood upright, but it was terribly wounded. As Celine watched, a rat wriggled out from a gaping hole in the belly. The rodent was smeared all over with blood and carried an eight-inch length of greasy intestine in its mouth. It dropped to the floor and hurried away.

“Even if you don’t have a gun, there must be a way to kill it.” Celine stared around, looking for anything that might serve as a knife, a club, a spear.

The floor of the chamber close to the carnosaur was a nightmare of blood and guts and dying rats. She dared not go too near. The blinded beast was sinking forward, unsteady on its legs. The uninjured rats knew. Now that the fight was over they stood at a safe distance, quietly waiting. The animal was still dangerous. The jaws, covered with a froth of saliva, snapped at imaginary enemies. The powerful tail thrashed the floor, flattening any rat too injured to crawl clear. Celine got the message: Pity it, but do not go near it.

Bizarrely, the little cleaning machines were already busy, removing the bodies of dead rats and wiping up blood and slime and fragments of entrails. The machines could be damaged by minisaur jaws, but a swipe of the tail simply knocked them a few yards away. They started right back.

Gordy Rolfe’s gray eyes were bright behind the eyeglasses. If he heard Celine’s words, they had no effect.

She surveyed the rest of the chamber. Weapons. Anything could be a weapon. She hurried across the room to the workbench. Most of the tools were too light or too short. She wanted something heavy and long enough to be used at a distance.

The biggest object on the bench was a huge pair of cutting shears designed to clip sheet metal or bolts. She hefted the tool and decided it was too cumbersome. The second-best was a four-pound steel hammer with a long handle, flat on its main striking face but with a three-inch punch spike sticking out in the other direction.

Celine lifted it. One hand would be possible, but two hands were better. She walked back across the room, swinging the hammer up and over her head to get the balance.

Was she really going to do this, when she had already told herself that it would be total folly to go too near?

Quickly, or not at all. She moved forward. She was now within the carnosaur’s reach if the animal lunged to the end of the chain. The head swung in her direction. It could not see her, but could it smell her?

Quickly. One shot was all you got.

She took another step forward. Hammer up, above her head. Down with the spike, into the carnosaur’s skull, between and behind the ruined eyes — blood and evil-smelling spittle, spraying her face and hair and clothing — a desperate leap backward, away.

She was barely in time. The carnosaur, from intent or muscular reflex, plunged in her direction. It was halted by the chain.

The head and torso fell backward at the same time as the legs jerked forward. Celine saw taloned, three-toed feet flex just inches away from her belly as the body convulsed and the legs stretched to their full length. For a moment the carnosaur stood balanced on the thick tail, then it slowly collapsed.

As the final death spasm began, the scaled head turned again in Celine’s direction. The hammer spike was still embedded there. She saw that in her terror she had hit hard enough to fracture and split the whole skull.

She saw that Gordy Rolfe was looking at her. He was laughing. “Hell of a whack. I wouldn’t like you to get mad with me. But you’ve got a nerve, killing my minirex.”

Celine wiped carnosaur gore and spittle from her eyes and lips. “That was monstrous and unnatural. I had to put the poor beast out of its misery.”

“It would have died anyway in a few minutes. As for unnatural, you’re completely wrong. What we saw is totally natural. That’s how animals die in the wild. Once they get old or sick, something drags them down and eats them.”

Gordy Rolfe was loving every minute. Celine knew it from the pleasure in his glittering eyes and the flush of color on his pallid cheeks. Suddenly, all she wanted to do was get away from him and back to the surface.

“You leaving?” Rolfe watched her intently as she turned toward the circular exit hatch.

Celine did not trust herself to speak. She nodded and kept moving.

“Well, I guess the fun’s over, anyway.” Rolfe reached for the controller at his waist. “One more bit of cleanup to do, then I’ll see you on your way.”

He pressed a sequence of keys. The room filled with high-pitched squeaks. Celine saw scores of rats, their gray skins sparking and smoking, contort into unnatural shapes and collapse to the floor.

“Can’t have them running loose, can we? There’s no saying where they’d get to after they’d eaten.” Rolfe glanced at Celine. “Don’t worry, I only disposed of the ones running free. The ones in the cages are fine. And the dead ones go to the habitat, so they won’t be wasted.”

He led the way down the spiral staircase. Celine followed, very slowly. She felt weak in the knees. Although she had wiped her face, the reek of carnosaur blood saturated her hair and clothing.

Gordy went with her to the elevators. “Don’t forget our deal,” he said. “I’ll keep my end; a set of rolfes will be on the way to Sky City before the end of the week. By that time I expect to hear what you’re doing about my land.”

“I’ll work on it.” Celine forced the words out and pressed the elevator button. She could not wait for the doors to close and the car to ascend. She craved fresh air and sanity. When the slow-rising elevator at last opened on the highest level, she found Chesley Reiter and the rest of his group waiting. One look at her, and the chief of security grabbed her arm.