As he finally managed to withdraw the rifle, a heavy sandaled foot came down on his truhand. Several of the delicate manipulative digits crumpled under the weight, but the wounded hydrologist was beyond feeling the pain. Despite the strong bracing of his chitinous internal structure, his insides were starting to leak out through the hole that had appeared just beneath his upper set of vestigial wing cases.

Consciousness and sight fading in tandem, he looked up to see a pair of homicidally alert eyes staring down at him. Then the piece of sky that framed the eyes shifted and he was able to discern the smooth outline of the skull, clad in camouflage suiting that was struggling to simulate a cloud. A second pair of eyes hovered nearby, glaring at him from behind a fluid mask of falsified brush. Words passed between the two figures. No linguist, Wor understood none of what they were saying in their clipped, sharp tones. He kept trying to reach his rifle with his foothand alone.

"What do we do now?" the smaller of the two assassins wondered aloud. "Take it in?"

"Of what use is a corpse?" Removing her foot from the thranx's crushed truhand, the scout nudged the gaping, bleeding abdominal wound with the tip of her weapon. The helpless researcher cried out softly beneath her. "The shot was a lethal one." Moving the muzzle forward, she placed it against the side of the blue-green, valentine-shaped head. Her expression did not change as she pulled the trigger. The skull jerked once, twin antennae twitched violently, and then the body lay still. As the two scouts deliberated how best to proceed, the bands of red and gold that shone from the compound eyes of their victim gradually began to take on the blank brown tint of lifelessness.

The scouts were stolid but apprehensive when they were called before the tripartite board of inquiry. Following the conclusion of the usual terse formalities, questions were put to the female pair by their superiors, to which answers were unhesitatingly given.

"We felt we had no choice," the senior scout explained yet again. "The thranx was about to depart."

"We had to act," added her comrade by way of support.

The senior officer present scratched at an itch behind his head. His neck scales were dulled with age, and he was long overdue to shed and replace his skin. But his eyes were still bright, his mind sharp.

"You did the only thing you could." He emphasized his conclusion with a gesture indicative of second-degree conviction. "If the field researcher had returned to his settlement with the information he had gathered, our solitude would immediately have been compromised. That revelation must be prevented until our presence here is militarily secure."

"Then we were correct in our assumptions about his activities?" the senior scout inquired.