The padding vehicle went quietly in among the wooly sheep. It saw the tiny blossom of flame that was Antonio's campfire. Another high-temperature oxidation process.... It would be interesting to see if the biped was burning another carcass of its own killing.... * * * * * The shape was two hundred yards from the fire when Salazar scented it. It was upwind from the dog; its own smell was purely that of metals and plastics, but the fur, now, was bedabbled with the blood of the sheep which had been its first specimen of the night. Salazar growled. His hackles rose, every instinct for the defense of his flock. He had smelled that blood when the thing which wasn't a mountain-lion left him behind with impossible leapings. He went stiff-legged toward the shape. Antonio followed in a sort of despairing calm born of utter hopelessness. A sheep uttered a strangled noise. The Qul-En had come upon a second specimen which was exactly what it wished. It left the dead sheep behind for the moment, while it went to look at the fire. It peered into the flames, trying to see if Antonio--the biped--had another carcass in the flames as seemed to be a habit. It looked.... Salazar leaped for its blood-smeared throat in utter silence and absolute ferocity. He would not have dreamed of attacking a real mountain-lion with such utter lack of caution, but this was not a mountain-lion. His weight and the suddenness of his attack caught the operator by surprise, the shape toppled over. Then there was an uproar of scared bleatings from sheep nearby, and bloodthirsty snarlings from Salazar. He had the salty taste of sheep-blood in his mouth and a yielding plastic throat between his teeth. The synthetic lion struggled absurdly. Its weapon, of course, was a ray-gun which was at once aimed and fired when the jaws opened wide. The being inside tried to clear and use that weapon. It would not bear upon Salazar; the Qul-En would have to make its device lie down, double up its mechanical body, and claw Salazar loose from its mechanical throat with the mechanical claws on its mechanical hind-legs. At first the Qul-En inside concentrated on getting its steed back on its feet. That took time, because whenever Salazar's legs touched ground he used the purchase to shake the throat savagely. In fact, Antonio was within twenty yards when the being from the ship got its vehicle upright. It held the mechanical head high, then, to keep Salazar dangling while it considered how to dislodge him.