With some surprise, I found that my pack remained on my shoulders, although it dangled by a single strap. I pulled the water pump from its pocket, walked to the river, and threw in the intake hose. Uncoiling the line, I moved back toward the Hog. The hose was too short, but I set the nozzle for maximum force and, remembering instructions in the booklet, sprayed water over the Hog's head. The liquid revived him until he could push himself to a grotesque sitting position with his front feet. I shot water into his mouth and said, "Did you catch the woman in the tunnel?" "Nooo," the Hog answered. "You killed Toal," I said, dropping the hose and once more filling my hands with dynamite. "Nooo," the Hog repeated. With a mouth unsuited for speech, he laboriously made a proposal. If I would spare him, he would attempt to leave the peninsula, going around the swamp to the coast and risking the currents and sea life in an effort to swim to the main continent. With my finger on a dynamite fuse, I considered the plan. The Hog swayed to his feet. Something fiendish screeched overhead. An explosion thundered in the rocks beside the river. Fragments whined through the hot air. The Hog squealed. I dropped prone and wriggled into a depression. A second explosion rent the ground in front of me, showering me with dirt and brush. The Hog tried to run. His weakened legs quivered under him. The third blast occurred between his front hoofs. I crawled into a gully and, idiotically clutching the dynamite tubes, put my arms over my head. Tensed for more destruction, I lay there for several minutes. When I looked up, five or six toothies ran past my face. Wearily, I stood erect. The Hog's remains lay in a pond of blood. Toothies scuttled out of the brush and the rocks and moved around the carcass. Having seen enough nonhuman intelligence for the present, I refused to believe the rodents were dancing in gleeful victory. I stumbled off toward the vinetrees to learn the fate of Betty Toal, but she peeped over a rock. "You killed the Hog," she said. "What was that screeching?" I stopped and breathed deeply. Toal said, "Was lost in the side tunnels." "No," I murmured, "I didn't kill the Hog." XIV: SEVENDAY EVENING Long shadows fell across a device on a hill two kilometers from the river. The thing was a large firearm with a heavy barrel about three meters long. The barrel rested on wooden supporting and trailing pieces and projected from between two high wheels. Rasmussen lay with his fat right leg crushed and twisted under a wheel. The old hunter shook an optical instrument at Betty Toal and me. We were wet from the usual daily thunderstorm, which had delayed our search for the killer of the Hog. "Blasted him!" Rasmussen groaned. "Take this cannon off me! Have waited hours. Why did you not come?"