Callously, Charlie stepped over Ellis’ twitching form and stumped up the ladder to his shack. Max, who had taken to the porch rafters at the crash of the launch, came meowing gingerly down to meet him. “It’s all right,” Charlie told him. “Just some fool that don’t know how to handle a boat.” He leaned his rifle against the wall and brought a split-bamboo chair from the kitchen. He was not too late; the bucket, when he took it from its peg, still slithered satisfactorily with live shrimp. The squawking of the launch radio roused Ellis. He groaned and sat up, dazed and disoriented by the combined shock of Xaxtol’s telepathic bombshell and his own rude landing, just as Weyman gave up his attempt at radio contact. In the silence that fell, Ellis would have fainted again except for the chilling knowledge that he was unarmed and afoot on the same key with a man-eating alien monster that might make its appearance at any moment. He collected wits and breath to stave off the black pall of shock that still threatened. “Come down from there and help me push the launch off,” he called up to Charlie Trask. “We’ve got to get off this key. Fast!” Charlie separated a menu-sized shrimp from his bucket. “You grounded her,” he said sourly. “Push her off yourself.” “Listen,” Ellis said desperately. “That blast was a ship from space, from another star. A wild animal escaped from it, something worse than you ever dreamed of. We’ve got to get out of here before it finds us.” Charlie grunted and chose another shrimp. The Morid, as Xaxtol had pictured it, rose vividly in Ellis’ memory, fanged and shaggy and insatiably voracious, a magenta-furred ursine embodiment of blood-lust made the worst by its near-human intelligence. He described it in dogged haste, his eyes frozen to the tangle of inland underbrush behind the shack. “No such varmint in these kays,” old Charlie said. The launch radio blared again in Weyman’s voice, speaking urgently of jet bombers and deadlines. A glance at his watch brought Ellis up from the sand in galvanic resolution. “In twelve minutes,” he said grimly, “a squadron of planes will pinpoint this key and blast it out of the water. I’m not going to be eaten alive or blown to bits arguing with you. If I can’t push the launch off alone, I’ll swim.” He scooped up his fallen Telethink helmet and ran for the launch. At the fourth step his foot caught in the iron-hard stump of a mangrove root that had been chopped off inches above the sand and he fell heavily. Pain blinded him; his right ankle lanced with fire and went numb. He fought to rise and fell again when the ankle collapsed under him. “_Hell_,” he said, just before blackness claimed him for the second time. “I’ve broken my leg!” * * * * *