Killer

"As you have observed, RyRelee, you share many physical similarities to the native race of this world. You will find their gravity, atmosphere and climate quite compatible, and you will be protected against their disease strains and parasites. It will require only minor cosmetic modifications and surgical adjustments for you to pass as a native from some distant region of the planet-each civilization there is ignorant of lands and cultures beyond its own sphere of influence. We have recordings of scans acquired from several of the aborigines, so your communications nodes will be programmed with an adequate selection of native languages and customs. Of course, you will be issued the usual essential equipment for operations in the field."

RyRelee knew it was pointless to inquire further about such modifications and adjustments. He had experienced such indignities on previous assignments, and there was some comfort in knowing that Coran surgery could usually undo what it had done.

"How will I be able to destroy the phile?"

"You will be equipped with the necessary weapons, concealed within your cosmetic constructions: a device to stun the natives should the need arise, and another to destroy the phile. To the aborigines it will appear that you have only gestured with your hand; try not to be observed, but if you do arouse their curiosity, explain it as magic."

"Their cultural level is that low? I thought I was to be sent to the central region of their civilization."

"It is, after all, a Class 6 world, emissary," the Coran reminded him. But RyRelee was more aware of that than the Coran could guess.

"There is another critical matter that you must attend to," the Coran continued. "An extremely critical matter. We do not know whether the phile is male or female. You must make the necessary surgical identification once you have destroyed it. You know what happened on Doronin…"

RyRelee knew the story all too well, but the Coran supplied him the images of what had taken place on Doronin-all the more to impress upon the emissary the importance of his mission.

An entrepreneur on Doronin had imported a variety of exotics for blood sports staged in defiance of Coran-of Federation-law. There had been a pair of philes, both males it had been believed, but one turned out to have been a gravid female. Because of their deadly environment, philes mated only once-after which the female continued to produce fertile eggs at regular intervals throughout life. While one gravid female had the potential to produce thousands of offspring, on their homeworld only a few chicks would manage to survive to reproduce. But that was on Zuyle, and Doronin was a placid world-or once had been.

The images were of what had been a city before it became an abattoir. RyRelee did not need the voice whispering "… Doronin…" to identify the scene. The viewpoint shifted, shuddered-blinked to a view from a thousand feet in the air of an armored antigravity raft that had been drifting down a boulevard just below the height of the tallest buildings alongside it. The raft was bucking like a fish with hooks set in its guts. When the armored vehicle yawed and overturned abruptly, the cause became clear. On the raft's belly plates was a smudge of blue which the focus sharpened instantly into a phile. The beast was gripping minute projections on the metal surface with three of its clawed limbs. With the full length of its remaining arm, it was reaching into the interior through an inspection plate that it had ripped off. Out of control, the raft clipped the side of a building and plummeted into the street.

The armor would have protected the raft's crew against the philes, except that the force of the craft's impact was enough to start seams all across the domed surface.

They poured from every building in sight, philes of every size. Some of them leaped aboard the raft even as momentum carried it cartwheeling down the street. Their timing was as flawless as that of the phile that had first leaped onto a grip on the survey craft's underside. Their numbers were staggering. Even without the chicks clinging to the backs of some of the females-of most of the females-there were thousands of the blue-scaled killers in view.

Tracks of dazzling orange began to tear pavement apart and rake the philes that leaped across its length. A phile whose legs and haunches had been vaporized continued to crawl on its elbows toward the disabled raft. The expression on its dying face could only have been delight.

Covering fire from the other survey craft could not slow the tidal motion of the philes. Waves of activity were visible in the far distance, surging toward the first chance of prey in days, weeks. And the downed craft already boiled with ravenous life even if no more philes arrived to fight for a purchase among their frenzied fellows.