Talina made a careful circle of the camp, seeing that invertebrates had cleaned out the vegetables. A solar refrigerator had been opened, the contents spilled. She picked up most of the tools, the pick, shovel, chisel, and hammer. Then she boxed Liz’s radio, seeing that the battery still held a feeble charge. Batteries and radios were too damned precious.

The rest of the gear, including the bed, would require an additional trip. The best way to handle it would be to list it as salvage. Some Wild One would be by to pick it up.

On the last trip to the aircar, Tal took a different trail down through the trees. One that took her close to the base of the slope along what had obviously been Liz’s main route to the canyon. Tal walked with her rifle hung from her left hand, the pick and shovel handles over her right shoulder.

Here and there she found evidence that the claim had been worked, the olivine in the kimberlite marred by metal tools. And at the side of the dry drainage, a large hole had been dug, the waste pile partially washed away by one of the periodic rains. In a quartzite boulder above the hole, an arrow scratched into the rock pointed up the canyon.

Talina laid the tools down, hefted her rifle, and followed the faint trail worn into the alluvial soils at the base of the bedrock. A metal hook had been driven into a cleft in the quartzite; from it dangled a canvas sack. It hung maybe a meter and a half above what looked like a pile of . . .

Talina chewed on her lip, glanced warily up and down the canyon, her nose sniffing for the faintest scent of quetzal. And caught Whitey’s distinct odor.

Yeah, she knew what that off-colored pile was. Could recognize the splintered bone sticking out of the dried matrix. What made it particularly gruesome was the human skull perched atop the desiccated pile. Whitey had defecated here and placed Liz’s skull atop the pile in some sort of macabre quetzal statement.

Down in her gut, Demon was chortling in delight.

“Eat shit and die, you little maggot,” Talina growled as she stepped closer. Invertebrates had riddled the dried fecal material, their holes everywhere; Some were shuttling around as Talina inspected the pile.

She carefully lifted the skull, shaking it to dislodge colorful shelled creatures that chittered and glistened in the shadowed light. They’d pretty much cleaned the skull of meat and brain. Looking closely, Talina could see the characteristic grooves left by quetzal teeth. Whitey had chewed off the face and scalp. Maybe he’d used his ropelike tongue to slurp out most of the woman’s brain, too. No way of telling that.

And then he’d deposited the skull atop the pile.

Who said quetzals didn’t have a twisted sense of humor?