Beastchild

irresponsibility, if it became popular, would be a danger to the race. Yet… He did not stop to analyze himself. He did not dare…
        They boarded the chopper again.
        Docanil pulled the patch-ins from their slots and reconnected himself to the exterior pickups. The cords dangled. When the copper alloy needles had slid into his flesh, he started the machine and-keeping it under manual control-took it up into the grayness.
        "What now?" Banalog asked.
        "We quarter the mountain."
        "Quarter?"
        "You are not familiar with search techniques."
        "No," Banalog agreed.
        The Hunter said no more.
        At length, after they had danced back and forth, up and down a relatively small portion of the slope for some time, Docanil brought the copter in over a pylon boarding station that was part of an aerial cableway running from the base of the mountain to the top.
        "There," he hissed, as excited as a Hunter could get.
        Again, Banalog could see nothing.
        Docanil said, "Ice. See? Broken from the steps. And it has been melted from the control board recently." The helicopter passed over the platform; he brought it around once more. "They've used the cablecar. Also notice that the ice has been broken from the cable going to the top of the slope, though it still remains on the cable leading to the bottom. They went up."
        He turned the copter; they fluttered toward the peak.
        The cable ran by below them.
        The Swiss-styled header station laid ahead, becoming visible through the snow…
        Leo had heard stories of naoli and the condition they entered when they slept and when they drank alcoholic beverages. He knew there were other ways to wake them, but he did not know what they were. He had only heard about the application of pain, heard about it from spacers who had been in the outer reaches, among the many races of the galaxy. He did not want to hurt Hulann. There was no other choice.
        The chopper was working closer now, swaying back and forth directly down the slope from them, around the cableway system. He could hear it coming gradually closer, then receding, only to come back again.
        "Hulann!"
        The naoli did not respond, and there was no time to try anything but that which he knew would work. He stood and ran through the lobby, along a corridor and into the main dining hall. The tables were set, everything ready for a full house-except dust had collected on the silverware. Leo moved between the tables, through the double doors at the rear of the room and into the large hotel kitchen. In moments, he found the knife and went back to the lobby.
        He knelt next to the couch where Hulann slept. His hands shook as he brought the blade forth, and he dropped it as if it were red hot the first time the gleaming point touched the tough alien skin. He looked at the knife on the carpet and could not bring himself to lift it.
        The helicopter's engine changed tone. Then, the roar of it grew steadily louder. It was coming directly for the hotel!
        He picked up the knife in both hands so that he could be sure of holding onto it. He pricked the point of it in Hulann's biceps.
        The alien slept on.
        He jabbed deeper. A small well of blood sprang up around the edges of the knife. A thin trickle of it ran down Hulann's arm and dripped onto the couch.
        Leo felt ill.
        The copter's engine boomed abruptly louder, three times the volume as before, as it came over the brow of the mountain down near the header station.
        He twisted the blade, opening the wound farther.
        More blood sprang up.
        The copter passed over the hotel, turned to come back.
        The room shook with its noise.
        Leo gritted his teeth, twisted the blade viciously in the rubbery flesh.
        Instantly, Hulann sat up, striking out with an arm that caught the boy on the side of the head and knocked him sprawling on the floor.
        "They're here!" Leo shouted, not angry that he had been struck.
        "I thought you were-"
        "They're here!" he insisted.
        Hulann listened as the Hunter's craft swept low over the hotel roof. He stood, his entire body trembling now. It had to be a Hunter, for they could not have been found so quickly by anyone else. The Hunter-Docanil. Yes, that was his name.
        Dark blue velveteen trousers and shirt… Black