"Must have been the tail of something big, huh? How come it got past the radar?" Pritchard shrugged and continued to peer attentively ahead. "Sure is a mighty pretty hunk of country," sighed the blond boy. "In places it reminds me of the stuff around the Cumberland Gap. If it weren't for that lavender sunlight, that is." Pritchard didn't answer, his eyes steadily sweeping the terrain unfolding ahead. "That was a hell of a thing happened to poor Tom last night," Greene went on. "Do you figure he had much pain before it finished him?" Pritchard made no response. "Tom was a right good boy, and a hard man to beat once he had the chance to get his feet under him. Remember the time big Hayes hit him?" There was no answer. Greene sat relaxed, one foot on the rudder bar and an index finger curled indolently around the jet firing toggle. "Boy, old Hayes let him have it before Tom was set. Just like you clipped him yesterday." "I thought you'd say that." Pritchard's voice was even. "You an' the rest of the boys want to be sure I don't forget that, don't you?" "I wasn't meaning a thing, chief," complained the other. "Hell, we understand. Tom made a mistake and--and--well...." "You can pass the word," said Pritchard softly, his eyes remaining hard on the vista ahead. "You can pass the word that I haven't forgotten the last thing Tom McManus had from me. Nor am I likely to--" He grabbed the mike. "Cut, Sturgis, cut! Cut and glide--after me." Greene, following instructions meant for him, too, snapped the jet toggle closed. The high-pitched thunder that had been chasing them across the sky was chopped off into utter silence. "What you got?" he managed to say and then Pritchard's hip swung against him, neatly bowling him off the seat as the tall hunter thrust his feet toward the rudder bar. "Stand by to fire," snapped Pritchard over his shoulder. The younger man lurched toward the rocket controls in the nose in front of Pritchard as the jet cruiser heeled silently over into a dive. * * * * * The bowl of Thisbe II tilted up toward them and its features steadied in the face of that arrowing plunge. Dead ahead lay a meandering thread of river stitching up a wide, jungle-filled valley. At one point the river either split in two or broadened momentarily into a lake. At any rate, there was an island, right above the little flight-sight bead on the jet cruiser's prow. The island swelled into detail. It was fairly large, for up from its center thrust one of those strange rock mountains, the three straight planes of its cleavage converging in a jagged, towering peak, making it seem an elongated triangular pyramid that had been driven forth at a slant and had then had its extreme tip snapped off. The primrose light of Piramus high above reflected now in a dazzling shimmer from one flank.