She paused. "On the other hand," she said, "there we are--together for three-four days. I don't want to spend them fighting off attempts to clobber me every thirty seconds. So any time you try and miss, Comteen, mama is going to pin you down fast, and hot up your seat with whatever is handiest." Trigger stared at her. She cleared her throat. "While I'm carrying a gun?" she said shakily. "Don't be ridiculous, Mihul!" "You're not going to gun me for keeps to get out of a licking," Mihul said. "And that's all the Yool can do. How else will you stop me?" Trigger's fingernails drummed the table top briefly. She wet her lips. "I don't know," she admitted. "Of course," said Mihul, "all this unpleasantness can be avoided very easily. There's always the fourth method." "What's that?" "Just give parole." "No parole," Trigger said thinly. "All right. Which of the other ways will it be?" Trigger didn't hesitate. "The sporting chance," she said. "The others aren't choices." "Fair enough," said Mihul. She stood up and went over to the wall. She selected a holster belt from the pair hanging there and fastened it around her. "I rather thought you'd pick it," she said. She gave Trigger a brief grin. "Just make sure it's a good opening!" "I will," Trigger said. Mihul moved to the side table, took up the Denton, looked at it, and slid it into her holster. She turned to gaze out the window. "Nice country!" she said. "If you're done with breakfast, how about going out right now for a first try at the birds?" Trigger hefted the coffee pot gently. It was about the right weight at that. But the range was a little more than she liked, considering the un-incentive. Besides, it might crack the monster's skull. She set the pot gently down again. "Great idea!" she said. "And I'm all finished eating." 10 Half an hour later there still hadn't been any decent openings. Trigger was maintaining a somewhat brooding silence at the moment. Mihul, beside her, in the driver's seat of the tiny sports hopper, chatted pleasantly about this and that. But she didn't appear to expect any answers. There weren't many half-hours left to be wasted. Trigger stared thoughtfully out through the telescopic ground-view plate before her, while the hopper soared at a thousand feet toward the two-mile square of preserve area which had been assigned to them to hunt over that morning. Dimly reflected in the view plate, she could see the head of the gun-pup who went with that particular area lifted above the seat-back behind her. He was gazing straight ahead between the two humans, absorbed in canine reflections. There was plenty of bird life down there. Some were original Terran forms, maintained unchanged in the U-League's genetic banks. Probably many more were inspired modifications produced on Grand Commerce game ranches. At any other time, Trigger would have found herself enjoying the outing almost as much as Mihul.