"I guess we have to help you," Dem said. "Myla's decided on it for reasons of her own." He grinned sardonically. "Her mother and I told her she was wrong, but she insisted. And since she's the only one of us who can skren, we must let her have her own way." Myla said, "Even with us helping you, there's very little chance that you'll live through the Hunt." "If I'm killed," Barrent said, "how will your prediction come true? Remember, you saw me looking at my own corpse, and it was in shiny fragments." "I remember," Myla said. "But your death won't affect the prediction. If it doesn't happen to you in this lifetime, it will simply catch up to you in a different incarnation." Barrent was not comforted. He asked, "What should I do?" The old man handed him an armful of rags. "Put these on, and I'll go to work on your face. You, my friend, are going to become a mutant." * * * * * In a short time, Barrent was back on the street. He was dressed in rags. Beneath them he was holding his needlebeam, and in his free hand was a begging cup. The old man had worked lavishly with a pinkish-yellow plastic. Barrent's face was now monstrously swollen at the forehead, and his nose was flat and spread out almost to the cheekbones. The shape of his face had been altered, and the livid hunt-marks were hidden. A detachment of Hunters raced past, barely giving him a glance. Barrent began to feel more hopeful. He had gained valuable time. The last light of Omega's watery sun was disappearing below the horizon. Night would give him additional opportunities, and with any luck he could elude the Hunters until dawn. After that were the Games, of course; but Barrent wasn't planning on taking part in them. If his disguise was good enough to protect him from an entire hunting city, there was no reason why he should be captured for the Games. Perhaps, after the holiday was over, he could appear again in Omegan society. Quite possibly if he managed to survive the Hunt and altogether escape the Games, he would be especially rewarded. Such a presumptuous and successful breaking of the law would have to be rewarded.... He saw another group of Hunters coming toward him. There were five in the group, and with them was Tem Rend, looking somber and proud in his new Assassin's uniform. "You!" one of the Hunters shouted. "Have you seen a Quarry pass this way?" "No, Citizen," Barrent said, bowing his head respectfully, his needlebeam ready under his rags. "Don't believe him," a man said. "These damned mutants never tell us a thing." "Come on, we'll find him," another man said. The group moved away, but Tem Rend stayed behind. "You sure you haven't seen one of the Hunted go by here?" Rend asked.