Beastchild

circle of wicked-looking nails enclosing this. Tossed across another chair was his greatcoat, a heavy, fuzzy thing that looked like it was made of fur-lined velvet. This was black. On the shoulders there were black leather decorative straps. A black leather belt around the middle. There were buttons instead of a pressure seal, and they were as large around as a naoli eye, stamped from heavy black metal, each with the reaching claw and the ring of nails.
        Banalog shuddered.
        He knew that Hunters wore clothes for a practical reason: as Hunters, destined to their trade even before birth, they were in all ways more sensitive to external stimuli than other naoli. Their body temperature could not easily adjust to changes in the atmosphere as could those of normal naoli. In intense summer heat, they were forced to remain in shadows as much as possible and to drink great quantities of fluids to replace those lost by their bodies. In bitter winter cold, they needed protection against the elements just as fragile humans did.
        Yet, there was something sinister in their clothes. Not just in the fact that they wore them-but in the type of garments they chose. Or was this just a childish fear of the unknown? Banalog thought not. He could not pinpoint what, exactly, disturbed him about the sort of uniform the Hunters had adopted, but his uneasiness persisted.
        Docanil turned away from the window, looked across the gloomy chamber to the traumatist. Hunters did not seem to need much light to see well…
        "What you have told me is of little value," he said. His voice was haunting, a deep, whispered hiss of a voice that somehow managed to carry as well as Banalog's own.
        "I have tried to-"
        "You have told me about the guilt. About the sort of trauma growing more common which has caused Hulann to act as he has. I understand what you say-though I do not understand the trauma. But I must have more information, more theories about how this individual will act now that he is on the run. I cannot go by normal standards."
        "You haven't tracked naoli before?" Banalog asked.
        "It is rare, as you know. Once before. But he was a common criminal, similar in his reaction patterns to our enemies. He was not, however, a traitor. I cannot understand Hulann."
        "I don't know what else I can say."
        Docanil crossed the room.
        His boots made soft ticking sounds on the floor.
        He stopped by Banalog's chair, looked down from his great height, his hideously high cranium picking up bits of the glow lamps. He looked down, smiling the most frightening smile Banalog had ever seen. Beneath his blue-black sweater, his heavy, abnormal muscles bulged and rippled as if they were alive.
        "You will help me further," he hissed to Banalog.
        "How? I have told you-"
        "You will accompany me in the chase. You will give me your advice. You will try to analyze Hulann from what he does and try to project his next move."
        "I do not see how I-"
        "I will use the Phasersystem in an attempt to get his general location. That should succeed. Whether it does or not, we will then begin. Be ready in an hour."
        The Hunter turned away, started for the door into the other room of his quarters.
        "But-"
        "An hour," he said as he passed through the portal and closed it behind him, leaving Banalog alone.
        The tone of his voice permitted no argument…
        On the northernmost petal of the daisy-shaped continent of the home world of the naoli system, next to a pincer-formed cove where the green sea beat softly insistent, stood the House of Jonovel, a respected and ancient establishment. Deep within the rock-walled, hand-hewn cellars of the venerable mansion was the family's brood hole in which the most recent Jonovel children rested and grew. There were six of them-blind and deaf and mostly dumb as well-snuggled in the warm, wet richness of the brood hole mothermud. Each was no larger than a human thumb, looked more like a small fish than a naoli. There were no visible legs, though the tail had already formed and would remain. The arms were little more than filaments. The tiny heads were buds that could be crushed between thumb and forefinger with little effort. They laid in their individual womb-wads, the slimy white semi-living discharges that had carried them out of their mother after the first stage of their