The Manhuntress by John Cleve

Author:John Cleve [Cleve, John]
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

He couldn't put a finger on it, but something was wrong, and he knew it. "Songan, Varn, take a look." They scooted over beside their captain to stare through the van's windscreen. Ahead lay Deephole. Dorjan's own gaze traced and retraced the half-klom dirt strip that was jokingly referred to as Main Street. (The crude road was Deephole's only street.) Buildings, none over three stories high, lined each side of the muddy strip that ran from north to south.

Every Galactic-made structure onplanet (with the exception of Nav's home) was on Main Street. The road dead-ended to the north. There lay the shuttleport. To the east and west was a soft glow of lights - the cyprium mines. "I don't notice anything," Yuw said from Dorjan's right. "Deephole looks about as busy - or lazy as usual, depending on your point of view." Varn was right. For the daytime. But dawn was at least an hour and a half away.

There were too many people on Main Street for this hour. Dorjan was sure of that: he and Songan had made the trek back from Nav's house in the predawn hours every day for a week. "There's too many lights on and too many people."

Songan sank back to the floor. "Nav has prepared a welcoming committee for us.

The whole town's turned out." Dorjan's head nodded without his knowledge while his gaze ran down the half-klom of Main Street. To attempt a straight run for the shuttleport would be suicide. Even with the hovervan gunned to full speed they might make a quarter klom. Stoppers would be useless against the van. The trouble was that this was a mining planet. Explosives and plasma guns were readily available. It wouldn't take an expert marksman or even luck to knock out the van. A plasma gun in the hands of a child would do the trick.

All it had to do was point and keep squeezing the trigger. Main Street was too narrow for the shots to miss for long. "Suggestions?" Dorjan glanced at Songan and Yuw. It was Kefira who spoke. "Give me and the TZ back to Nav. The four of you might be able to make it through the town unnoticed. But there is no way to disguise my appearance." "No!" Edrek's head snapped around to the Akil. His arms shot out, hands firmly clamping atop her shoulders to let her know he would never allow such a ridiculous scheme. Three voices from the rear of the van echoed his cry of dismay. Kefira was right, Dorjan realized.

Even in her HOME-spun jumpsuit, the silky golden down of her face and the white-gold of her shoulder-length hair were unmistakably alien. Ginneh was a Galactic planet. Here, as on all Galactic worlds, skin pigmentation lighter than golden-brown was more than just a rarity; it was unheard of. The same was true of hair. Black and dark brown were the rule, despite the wide use of dyes and exotic wigs. When the vast majority of the

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