"So's the Hog," I said, "but I don't fully believe the Jury's claim that he has no intelligence. He's been clever enough to avoid being killed for three years." Rasmussen braked the tractor so quickly that I fell across the front seat. He growled, "Hogs killed my first wife and two sons. Killed nearly all my old friends. Am the oldest man left on the planet." Toal said, "Killed my parents. Everyone in Joetropolis lost friends or relatives to the hogs." Tears welled from her blue eyes and slid down her brown cheeks. "More horrible," she sniffed, "that most were eaten. Why should you care for the Hog, Kinlock? Hunting is your business. Get a large fee for destroying him." "Shall return?" Rasmussen snarled. Toal produced a square of white cloth, wiped her eyes, and then blew her nose. "No," I sighed wearily. "Show me the Hog--any range up to two thousand meters--and I'll kill him." IX: SIXDAY AFTERNOON We ate lunch under the convoluted branches of a vinetree, having left the tractor on a trail a kilometer away. Surrounding us, except for occasional clearings filled with red plants, the great vines twisted in a confusion penetrated only by paths as entwined as the trees. Rasmussen had scarcely spoken since our debate. Toal remained icy, although the air was asphyxiating. In an effort to keep the halting conversation from the Hog, until my companions were calmer, I said, "I still don't understand how Maggiese came to look so much alike in only two hundred years." Rasmussen grunted and chewed a bread and meat ply. Toal studied the green birds that chased through the fringed leaves of the vinetree. I said, "I recall a few figures about heredity. The chance of any single individual being born from a union is about one in two hundred fifty million. If the parents differed in only twenty dominant genes, this individual would be one of more than a million possible variations. It's hard to produce specific humans to order. "Say you're trying to rid a population of an undesirable trait. If twenty-five per cent of the people show the trait, and none are allowed offspring, it would still take three centuries to bring the incidence of the trait down to one per cent, because many people would carry it as a recessive characteristic. Then, mutations may be undetected for generations and upset the whole system. Joe Nordo must have--" "There he is!" Rasmussen gasped. "Joe Nordo?" I said stupidly. "The Hog!" Rasmussen produced an optical instrument consisting of a small telescope for each eye. He said, "Two hundred yards off!" I jumped up, tripped over a root, fell, crawled to my equipment, and yanked out the quadpod. I set the quadpod close to Rasmussen, lifted the robotic into position, and threw the switches to maximum. "One shot," I predicted. "Explosive pellets with nitrobenzene. Where is he?"