Even with that strange weapon, I knew I couldn’t miss those two running Rumi. I cut them down with three quick blasts and then slid quickly from the top of the ship as the officer poured a stream of fire at me, fire that splashed and roared over my head. As I fell to the ground, I caught a quick glimpse of the girl. She had broken away from her captor and was darting into the undergrowth. He sent one burst of flame after her and then had to leap for cover as I sent a steady stream of fire in his direction. Then I was running, dodging and twisting behind boulders and rocks and firing as I ran until my gun clicked empty. I cursed myself for having forgotten to take the extra clips of ammo from the creature I had killed. As my quarry almost got my range, I plunged headlong into some brush and lay for a minute getting my bearings in the rapidly fading light from the flare. Carefully now and with more deliberate air, the Rumi tried to burn me. As quietly as I could I moved toward him in the heavy undergrowth. The light was almost gone and I didn’t think that even his cat eyes would be much good in the ebony dark Thirty night. I could smell him, clearly in my nose was that musty smell and no matter how still he might lie or how silently he might creep about on those padded feet of his, I could follow him. I stalked him in the darkness and he knew he was being stalked. He blazed away at every shadow, at every bush that moved in the cold wind that whistled along the river bed. He was afraid now and his scent was stronger. Then he was running, trying to get to the lifeboat and I was after him. He was stumbling and sobbing now, occasionally turning to fire back along the way he had come. But I had already bounded around ahead of him and was coming in to attack. He turned, his paw with the flamer darting upward. He was quick but not quick enough. My hurtling body struck him before the gun could fire and we went down in a struggling heap. The Rumi rolled over trying to regain his feet but he couldn’t break my grip. The heat gun had fallen into the undergrowth and he was trying desperately to recover it and to fight me off at the same time. Unable to find the gun he turned his full attention to me. We fought body to body, the musky smell of him almost choking me at such close quarters. At the same time it sent a hot flood of rage surging through me. He clawed vainly for the knife in his belt. He was big and had the muscles of a wildcat but he had evolved too far up the scale of evolution for a battle of fang and claw. I found his throat and he screamed wildly like the big jungle cats his ancestors had been, screamed and thrashed about until I found his jugular vein. Then he lay still and his cat blood was all over me.