Curry loomed out of the darkness, his two bodyguards with him, and flashed his light over the fallen monsters. "So you let three get through?" he said. He glanced to the north guard line where the searchlights of the guards showed only the dark, lifeless edge of the forest. "But no one was harmed and there's no indication that they are going to attack again." He regarded Thane with cold thoughtfulness. "Apparently the camp is in no danger, after all." To Thane the implication of his words was obvious: if the monsters were not a menace his cooperation was no longer needed by Curry. The three guards were Curry men and Curry had two with him. He was outnumbered six to one.... "Sir--" It was one of the three guards; Bellam, the ship's pharmacist. He hurried up to Curry, the other two close behind him. Curry swung on him, impatiently. "What is it?" "We must combine our forces to fight a new danger. This camp is infected with rabies." "Rabies?" "Yes, sir," Bellam answered. "The Outlander's dog had a convulsion beyond the guard line and then almost attacked the three of us. That dog is mad." "How do you know it was a convulsion?" Thane asked. "You saw it, yourself," Bellam answered. He turned his head to face Thane as he spoke and Thane saw his eyes for the first time. They were the lifeless, staring eyes of a dead man. He flicked his light over the faces of the other two guards. They were the same; all three were like walking dead. "Did the monsters harm you?" he asked Bellam. Bellam hesitated, seeming to tense with suspicion. "No." The dead eyes stared into his. "What makes you ask?" He saw that Curry had noticed nothing different about the three guards. It was typical of Curry; to him subordinates were only automatons to carry out his orders. "We were discussing a mad dog, Thane," Curry said. "Not the health of my men." He spoke to Bellam. "As I recall, rabies was a pre-Technogration plague, often fatal." "The bite of a rabid animal is invariably fatal, the death prolonged and painful," Bellam said. "There is no preventative or cure among the medical supplies on the ship. The dog must be killed at once, together with all other animals in the Outlander camp." "If the dog was mad, why hasn't it bitten any of the Outlanders," Thane asked Curry. "I suggest we keep it on a leash until we know for sure." "The dog was smuggled aboard the ship in defiance of regulations," Curry said. "It would have been destroyed before had I known about it." He turned to Bellam, ignoring Thane. "The three of you will search the Outlander camp from end to end. Kill all animals and report to me the names of the owners."