Never Gut-shoot A Wampus

I'm not exactly broke, but this Major Daphne owned more planets than I do golf balls. Whereas my mining interests were mostly on earth, the Major got in early on the Centaurus grab. A whole generation later, all I could stake out was one hot little hunk of tropical mud that no one else would fool with.

Daphne liked to kid me about my "galactic empire" every time we collided at the club. I was a bachelor and Daphne was married, but he spent more time there than I.

He was a bear of a man with a bull-moose voice, the chest and shoulders of an ape, the appetite of a goat and the morals of a rabbit. There were few wealthier men in the system and none half so noisy about it. His favorite approach to bragging was to tell of his interstellar hunting expeditions.

It costs money to push even a private boat around out there, and nobody but a fatheaded, ostentatious trillionaire would consider blowing half a billion to shoot a brace of pink-eyed grouse, or travel a parsec to blast a two-ton Lartizian lizard.

He nailed me one morning in the slime-bath at the club. I was soaking out a hang-over and a few wrinkles in the filthy anti-biotic goo up in health service, when Major Daphne charged in with a towel around his fat middle and plunked down in the next vat. He splashed a gob of the vile smelling green stuff in my face, and I cursed him out.

He bristled at me as he settled his bulk on the sunken stool, "Young man," he growled, "profanity is the luxury of uneducated lackies and foul-mouthed jackals. Which are you?"

"Splash me again and I'll come over and drown you in this snot," I told him.

He squinted under his gray eyebrows and roared, "Oho! It's my empire-builder friend! Say, when are we going hunting on that free-floating pimple of yours?"

When are we going hunting! He had never so much as bought me a drink, and all of a sudden we were buddy-buddies. "What's the matter?" I said, "run out of game on your private preserves?"

"Just looking for amusement, my boy, I've put a hole in a dozen of every specie on 17 planets. Covered all my Centaurus holdings, but never did get around to, to—what do you call that little spitwad of yours?"

He sounded serious, and an idea popped into my head. "That little spitwad is Tigursh II, and it happens to be the hottest big animal planet in the system."

"Sounds gamey," he nodded. "Have you looked around it much?"

I had made only one trip to drop off a prospecting party on the north polar plains. That was two years ago, and all the word I'd had since was a couple of double-talking messages relayed from Centaurii III, asking either double wages or immediate pickup and dismissal for the whole party.

Sometime in the near future I must get out there and investigate personally, but I had been stalling the trip to accumulate the liquid assets it took to lease a ship and outfit from the main base on Centaurii III.

"Been all over it," I lied. "It's not much for comfort, but it's hell for targets. Some really big stuff out there." This last was true. In the week I had spent on the edge of the grassy plateau I had seen a number of herds of heavy-bodied four-leggers galumphing about.

"We'll make up a little party," the Major decided.

"Get yourself and your friends out to Centaurii III, and I'll provide a small craft and the gear for the hop over to, to—what did you call it?"

"Tigursh II," I told him happily. This was what I had hoped. The $80,000 passage out to the system I could afford, and with Daphne footing the rest of the bill I would save myself quite a piece of change.

"How many will be in your party?" he wanted to know. "I'll send word ahead for suitable accommodations and supplies."

"I hunt light," I told him. "There'll be just me."

"Hmm. You must be nuts about the sport. You don't mind if I bring along a little diversion?"

"It's your party," I reminded him, more to confirm that he was expected to foot the bills than just to be agreeable.

"I'll keep my party small, too," he promised. "Just the wife and—a few nieces."

The Major and his party were already gassed and crated when I arrived at the space-deck for the big jump, so it wasn't until they pulled the needle out of me on Daphne's planet at main base that I got a look at his wife and nieces.

From that moment until we put down on Tigursh II, the shuttle trip was one continuous party. Beside Daphne, there were Annellica, his legal wife, and six variously-hued, large-breasted, slender-hipped young women, each of different planetary origin and talents.

When we were gathered in the cushion-lined salon of the Major's "cosy", 200-foot hunting craft, he introduced them in two sections.

"My wife, Annellica," he said with a casual bow in her direction, "and my nieces." His face brightened with pleasure as he regarded them tumbled around on the billowing underfoot. Although their costumes were of different colors, they were all of singularly identical design. They wore one-piece dresses, demurely high-necked, puffed at the shoulders, belted at the narrow waists—and that was all. The flounced skirts stood out as if heavily starched, but they rippled and floated in the diminished gravity with a most titivating effect.

Annellica wore pants.

I said I was charmed, but actually I was appalled, especially when the Major explained. "I only brought along six nieces this trip. Three for you and three for me."

Where, I wondered, did this leave Annellica? The ship lifted under us without warning, and we tumbled about in a gay tangle of giggles and heavy perfume—all but Annellica and me. We were thrown together, and we lay on our sides motionless, nose to nose, staring into each other's eyes.

"Hello," I said. She heaved herself up against the two-gee pressure and leaned on an elbow regarding me with quiet, gray eyes. Her skin was white, but it was still a relief when she answered in unaccented Aminglish.

"Hello!" she answered. "Thank heavens you speak earth."

At our feet Daphne was tumbling up his galactic geishas with lusty shouts of laughter and gabbling in six different dialects.

"Are you a linguist?" she asked. I shook my head, and she smiled for the first time. "Good!" she exclaimed. "You'll get tired of that bird-talk and pay some attention to me."

She sold herself short. Conversational boredom was the least likely reason I would seek the company of this fabulous creature. Daphne was completely engrossed with two wriggling, giggling extra-terrestrials at the moment, so I rolled back and took in the rest of my hostess with an indiscreet survey.

In gray slacks and high-neck T-shirt, she presented the ever pleasantly mysterious enticement of the fully clothed female. Already my interest in the nieces and their leggy displays faded in favor of the one possibly forbidden morsel aboard.

I reached out to touch the unbelievable platinum hair, but she frowned a warning. "Look, but don't touch," she said softly. I misunderstood, but Daphne put me right on the subject. He was looking over at us.

"You're wasting your time," he called. "She's colder than a methane popsickle. A real chip off of Jupiter. Let's eat, whadda ya say? Come, Nelly, produce!"

Annellica sighed. "That belly of his! Life is one continuous smorgasbord. Excuse me, Mr. Frost." She arose cautiously against the double gravity, but even under these circumstances not a line of her firm curves drooped excessively. She was, I guessed, early thirtyish, judging from her mature manner, but she was firm and resilient as a girl of 18.

The nieces had tired of scuffling in the heavier pull of out acceleration and lay with their cunning costumes plastered to their limp, moist bodies. The Major tried a few last tickles, but the responses were unsatisfactory grunts of fatigue.

He hauled himself over to me. "Great girl, that Nellie. She's my gunbearer. By the way, what weapons do you use?"

"Whatever you brought along," I said. "This is your show."

"Good, good! They ought to outlaw these nasty little nuclear side-arms. No sport at all. I'm a powder and lead man, myself. Give me a good rifle any day. Primitive but positive, if you know what you're doing."

In amazement I asked, "You use inert projectiles on unknown game?"

"Certainly. Oh, I've had a few close ones, but I learned my lesson in Africa. I got over my impulse to gut-shoot everything that ran at me." He showed me a wrinkled red scar on one shoulder at the base of his bull-neck. "You never want to gut-shoot a lion. He keeps coming. Lead has plenty of impact, but it mushes up and loses its shocking effect in the entrails. You got to break a bone to be sure on these fast beasties. Same thing's true with most of these Wampuses."

"Wampuses?" I asked.

"It's what I call any fast moving game that wears its skeleton on the inside," he explained. "Some on every planet. Carnivorous. Teeth, claws and a hell of an appetite's about all they have in common. Come in all shapes, but main thing is they come at you fast. A lion covers a hundred yards in a little more than three seconds. Some of these extra-t's do better than that."

I tried to look casual, but the truth was that I had never fired at a living target in my life.

"Never gut-shoot a wampus," he repeated. "Break a bone. That gives you time to finish him off."

Our sanguinary conversation ended with the appearance of a circular tray loaded with food. It slid in silently, supported from a silvery, over-head trestle. When it reached us it lowered to the pillowed deck, and the Major fell to with both hands.

He had eaten only a few bites when the uncomfortable plummeting of the food down his gullet reminded him of the heavy pull of acceleration. He threw back his head and roared into the concealed microphone over-head, "Ease off to one gee, captain. A man can't enjoy his food."

After a brief pause a man's voice answered, "We'll have to replot the orbit, and it will cost us several days at lower acceleration, Major."

"Ease off while we eat, then pick it up again," Daphne snapped, oblivious to the work he was creating for the navigator. "And don't make me heave when you do it, either!"

The pressure gradually diminished to normal earth gravity. Daphne belched with relief. "That's better."

Annellica was back. She and the girls joined Daphne, nibbling at the platters of meats and swallowing copious quantities of a golden, low-alcohol fluid they sucked from collapsible containers.

"Better eat, Frost," Daphne insisted. "Be in free flight for a bit, and you want to keep up your strength. I can't eat well in free flight. Makes me gassy."

I forced down a few mouthfuls of the exotic rations, wondering why a steward hadn't served us instead of Annellica. After the meal the girls began to perform for us—three of them, singing, dancing and producing weird music on tiny instruments they inserted in their mouths. The other three, Daphne told me, were strictly free flight artists from low gee planets.

Annellica watched for a few minutes then got up and followed the food tray as it drifted away from us. I went after her. In the galley I found her stowing the remnants back into refrigeration. She didn't wait for me to ask the question.

"Daffy dislikes personal servants," she said. "Roboid servers are not practical on the smaller craft, so I take care of our wants."

She scraped some half-chewed food into a disposal unit and slipped the plate into a slot: the wife of the wealthy Major Daphne, handling garbage! Cook and gunbearer!

"You must love him very much," I said.

"Love?" She turned to face me. "What has love to do with—anything?" That was cue enough for me.

I couldn't convince myself she was as frigid as the Major asserted. And I was right. She came into my arms like a hungry tigress. After the most interesting moment of its kind in my eventful bachelorhood, she peeled herself away and went back to her chores.

I gasped, "Lady! What your husband doesn't know about you!"

"And he'll never find out," she said instantly. "He only holds precious things he can't have. My love—passion—call it what you will, is one thing he can't buy."

"I'm afraid I don't understand," I said. "Why did you marry him if—"

"It was that or die a spinster. Every young man who looked twice at me disappeared. At first I thought Daffy would get tired of being married to a perennial virgin, but I was wrong. It's the only thing that has kept him interested in me."

I said, "I suppose it's a natural form of perversity for a man of his wealth and power."

She wheeled, hands on hips. "Perverse? Yes, he's perverse. And perverted and bestial and greedy, boorish, cruel, inhuman, self-centered, insane, piggish—"

She glanced over my shoulder and stopped. "And a completely devoted husband," Major Daphne slobbered behind me. He reeled through the entry, loose-lipped, dishevelled and very drunk. He brushed me aside and lurched past me, arms outstretched. "My li'l Nellie's only one 'preciates me."

For a second Annellica was a platinum-haired statue, then she moved to meet him, bringing up an expert knee that struck too high to injure him, but low enough to crush the breath from his lungs.

Daphne clomped down on all fours gasping. "He knows better than that," his wife said. It was such a cold-blooded blow that I reacted.

"Maybe if you'd give him half a chance—" I said.

"I'd wind up as a niece," she snapped at me. "Wait until you see what happens to them."

"Shut up!" Daphne rolled to his side doubled up and glared at Annellica. "Shut up, Nellie, before I kill you."

I left the domestic tableau to resolve itself and sought my cabin. I stayed there through the remainder of the heavy acceleration, but when we went into free flight the Major dragged me out.

The party was still in full force with the three other girls doing titivating push-offs from wall to wall, convoluting their lovely bodies into incredible ballet formations which Daphne took keen delight in disrupting with licentious hands—like a spoiled child pricking colorful balloons. Each fiasco ended in shrieks of laughter and mock combat, until the Major was snugged back in his hold-down strap, promising to behave.

Frequently he would raise his arms and aim an imaginary rifle. "Ka-chunk! Broke a leg that time. Ka-chunk! Right in the hip!" Then he'd holler over at me, "Never gut-shoot 'em. Break a bone."

Annellica remained bored and indifferent to the revelry. She drank sparingly and passed up a hundred opportunities to be alone with me. She paid meticulous attention to her husband's wants with the quiet efficiency and anticipation of a trained secretary, but I caught her eyeing me with a most provocative, speculating look. My experience with married virgins was too limited to interpret her glances.

All revolved around the Major. When he ate, we all ate. When he over-drank and slept, we slept.

I never did discover which three nieces were supposed to be "mine." None paid me any attention, and Daphne, much to my relief, never insisted upon my activity in his Bacchanalian affairs.

Before we arrived at Tigursh II I was quite fed up with my host, drunk or sober. His indefatigable, sensual tastes wore on my nerves, but I still had no conception of the Roman carnival this was to turn into.

We touched down a few hundred yards from my prospecting camp which was located at the edge of the two-hundred-mile plain. Daphne stowed the girls in their rooms like so many playthings, and the faceless captain announced that the ramp was down.

At the first smell of the hot, humid, over-rich air, the Major rared back his head and said, "I like it!"

I had forgotten the rather exhilarating effect of the high-oxygen content. Coupled with the low-gravity, Tigursh II induced a mild euphoria on its human visitors. My planet was small and dense, and the rapid rotation—once every seven and a half hours—made for violent, capricious air currents and weather.

"I'll hike over to the compound and check on my crew," I told Daphne as the three of us bounced down the ramp.

"Don't bother," he said imperiously. "We passed them on the way in. Meant to tell you. I've been checking on them. You've got a nice thorium deposit, but it's a mile under that mud down there in the jungle." He waved carelessly to the south.

"You what?" I said incredulously.

"They were dissatisfied," Daphne said. "I gave them a furlough with pay. Like to have a place to myself, y'know."

"What goddam right did you have to—"

"Right?" He rolled the word around in his mouth as if it were a brand new concept. Then he chuckled. "Quit crying. They wanted off. I sent my ship after them. Saved you a hunk of cash. Hauled their samples back, too."

When I failed to respond he continued, "Let's not spoil the trip over it. Tell you what. I'll buy the mineral rights from you. How's that?"

"For a cold billion dollars," I said without thinking. He didn't bat a lash.

"Throw in the exclusive hunting rights and it's a deal," he said.

"She's yours to the core," I said quickly, "minerals, animals and vegetables." The cost of mining the thorium was completely beyond my means and my previous efforts to sell the whole planet had met with offers of less than a tenth of this amount.

He tilted his head back to glance at Annellica. "Get that? Easy to remember. A round billy for the parcel." She nodded, and he turned back to me. "Congratulations, Frost. Now you're a billionaire. Let's eat. I'm hungry."

Annellica produced a small hamper and followed along behind us as we strolled over toward the heavy greenery. I was still feeling weak. Having your only planet jerked from beneath your feet was not an experience I especially savored, in spite of the profit I realized. It gave me a better insight to Annellica's answer to my question. "Love? What has that to do with—anything?"

What Daphne wanted was his. He didn't need the minerals, and he was here at my invitation for the hunting. But—let's not have any unpleasantness. Spend a billion, and keep things friendly!

He spotted a herd of heavy animals grazing a quarter of a mile away. Squatting, he waved us down in the deep grass. "We'll eat here," he said. "Keep an eye on those herbivores. They're close to the trees. See if anything comes after them."

Centaurus was a faint, golden ball above a high overcast. It was never meridian in the summer season, so the orb hung well up from the murky horizon to the south.

Daphne seemed unaffected by the oxygen, but I had a feeling of well-being that approached intoxication. Annellica moved between us spreading the lunch. For the first time on the trip I felt genuinely hungry and began popping morsels into my mouth before she was finished laying it out.

I ate alone, however. The Major said, "I think I see a wampus."

Without a word, Annellica departed and returned in a minute with two rifles. Strapped to her side was one of the "nasty little nuclear pistols" that her husband deplored. He took one of the rifles and lined out the telescopic sight in the direction of the herd. I continued eating until he ejaculated, "Blitzmachen!"

On my knees, I could see a brief commotion in the herd, and the gusty wind brought the wavering sounds of grunts and a shrill neighing. A flash of bright orange tore back for the jungle dragging one of the smaller, lumpy herbivores that would have weighed half a ton on earth.

So I was right. There was interesting big game on Turgish II. Daphne sank into a tense silence. Annellica dropped beside me but didn't eat. She sat on her legs, hands folded in her lap while I rustled through the edibles hungrily.

Finished, I stretched out in the dry grass that crackled under me, intending to take a nap. Daphne turned his head and whispered with irritation, "You people are making too much noise. Go on back to the ship until I get a line on what we're after."

His wife shrugged, and we turned back, leaving the picnic debris with Daphne.

When we reached the ship, she tossed her head and breathed deeply. "I like it out here. The air—it's—wonderful."

We sought the shade on the far side, out of view of the crouching Major and lay side by side facing each other. It was the first time we had been alone since the moment in the galley. I was determined not to upset her again, but she kept her gaze on my eyes, waiting, expectant.

This time I answered her unasked question. "No. You're oxygen drunk. Besides, there's no future in it," I said bluntly.

"I know him," she said softly. "He won't return until dark. This may be our last chance to—to find out about each other."

"Find out what?"

Her lips drew into a faint pout. "Aren't you curious—about me?"

While I was strangling for an answer she went on, "And I must discover whether you are worth doing now what I must do some day." Her lips were tight now.

"What is that?"

She didn't answer, but she moved her head closely until her breath was sweet in my nostrils. My discretion vanished and I reached for her. Our lips met but she held our bodies apart with her hands.

It was quite different. The kiss was long and exploring and thoughtful and when my pressure against her fending hands grew more than she could bear she rolled free and jumped to her feet.

"It is worth it," she declared looking down at me with clenched fists and wide eyes, and for the first time I understood why the Major remained married to this lovely creature in spite of her rejection of him.

Watching her graceful limbs as she mounted the ramp I felt sorry for Daphne, an emotion I had thought impossible. But here was a man, foolishly wealthy in every respect but the one which counted most.

My pity was short-lived.

The night was short, but we slept less than half of it. Daphne chattered about the orange animal excitedly and made plans for the hunt.

"There are few of them around these parts," he said, "or else the herds of herbivores would be wiped out. We'll have to stake out bait to draw one, probably. Usually have to anyway."

He cleaned his rifle four times and paced the salon impatiently awaiting dawn. Finally he glanced at his chronometer and told his wife, "Get Suchane—the darkest one. See that she's scrubbed down, well. No perfume, understand?"

It was the first time he had mentioned one of the girls to Annellica by name and she paled. I wondered why taking a "niece" on the hunt with us bothered her after the comportment I had witnessed on the trip.

In a half hour the four of us set out in the first pale light of a dawn that exploded quickly into pink daylight. The Major wore a wicked hunting-knife in his belt, carried only a pint flask in his right hand and his left arm was wrapped intimately around Suchane's slender waist. Annellica carried the rifles.

We had gone only a few yards when he stopped us. "You wait here," he said. Then he sipped from the flask and offered it to the beautiful, dark-haired girl. She drank deeply and handed it back. He waved it to her with his satyr-like smirk, that she finish it. He watched until she was through, then his left hand slid up to her neckline, grasped the material of the dress and tore down with one powerful gesture.

She staggered back, nude and startled. Daphne roared with laughter, clasped her around the waist again and held out his right hand. "Nellie, my rifle. You wait here. Keep your heads down. No fair peeking, eh, Suchane?"

Annellica threw one of the two rifles she was carrying at him, muzzle up. He caught it with a slap of his huge paw and pulled the girl forward with him. She was reassured, now, and giggling with anticipation.

Somehow the lecherous display was more revolting out here in daylight. I mistook Annellica's paleness for humiliation, and I didn't blame her. Why did he have to drag one of his damned concubines out here?

We knelt down obediently, and before Daphne's head disappeared he turned and shouted back, "If the wampus gets by me, remember, no gut shots, Frost."

I muttered to Annellica, "The man has nerve, anyway."

"You confuse bravery with selfishness. He insists on the first shot—won't trust another member of a hunting party to hold his fire. He always stalks out ahead like this," Annellica explained tensely.

I had noticed that the niece carried no weapon. Which brought up another question. "Does he always mix his pleasures?" I asked.

She was in the act of withdrawing a long telescopic sight which she must have had bound to the inside of her thigh. As she mounted it to her rifle with feverish haste she answered, "He is not mixing his pleasures. Suchane is bait."

Before this could sink in completely a shrill, feminine scream tore faintly into the gusty wind and found us. I leaped to my feet. Half way to the edge of the jungle, some hundred yards from us, I watched Daphne pushing the olive-skinned girl ahead of him with rough shoves. A deeper color spread from her neck and swathed one shoulder and her side.

He stopped and raised the rifle threateningly. She turned and fled toward the jungle.

"What in God's name—" I shouted.

"You can't help her," Annellica said hopelessly. "He's cut her jugular. If there's an animal in there the blood scent will bring it out in seconds. If there isn't—Suchane is gone, anyway."

I stared down at my companion in horror. She had warned me about the "Fate of Daffy's nieces," but I couldn't have visualized anything this bestial.

She looked up at me. "She will faint soon. There are worse ways to die. You will see." She arose to stand beside me.

I threw my rifle to my shoulder, fully intending to fire the whole clip into Daphne's back, but three things happened at once. Suchane sank out of sight in the grass, an orange splotch ripped into the open, and the Major, too, sank down and levelled his rifle.

The animal, even at this distance, was undoubtedly one of the Major's wampus varieties. It was stilt-legged, but not clumsy like a giraffe. The long, thick neck swung left and right tracing the scent of warm blood, and its cat-like body arched so high a man could have walked under it.

The wind was directly at our back, and as the several human scents touched the animal's nostrils it jerked the long-fanged mouth. Its belly touched the high grass in a quick crouch, then it sprang in one, deadly accurate leap that carried it forty yards to the prostrate Suchane. Even in the light gravity, the orange blur did not rise in a high trajectory, and the Major had time for only one shot while it was in the air.

The sound startled the beast as it settled on its prey, and it raised its ugly head high while Daphne slammed the rest of his ammunition at it with no effect.

Annellica stood calmly as her husband dropped his rifle unbelievingly. The heavy caliber bullets had failed to cause a quiver in the beast, but the shocking noise had made him nervous.

At the moment when it seemed he would turn and run for the jungle, Annellica raised her rifle. Daphne saw her sight through the telescope. "It's no use," he yelled. "We need higher power charges. Got a hide on him like a—"

She pulled the trigger.

The great animal pirouetted, bit at its own side, then wheeled facing us. Even as it sprang, Daphne, who was only twenty yards from us, screamed, "You gut-shot it! You clumsy—"

His wife dropped her rifle instantly after the shot and drew the little nuclear pistol. I got off one shot as the beast reached the apex of its leap, but I think I missed.

I kept waiting for Annellica's deadly handweapon to speak, but she followed the arc of the raking talons all the way to the ground where they churned briefly. Daphne only screamed once.

At last the pistol spat, just as the furry belly touched the grass in its third crouch. The leap came, but it was almost straight up. The slender pellet had entered the chest and cooked half the spine. The aimless floundering was reflexive spasm.

Annellica grabbed my rifle and fired three quick shots at the impervious hull of the ship. It brought the captain and two crew members to help us with the remains. Before they reached us, however, she was quick to secure Daphne's rifle and examine the chamber.

Even with an eye-witness and three other witnesses after the fact, she insisted that we hack the head and claws from the monster carnivore. We packed them, together with her husband's shredded corpse in the game freezer.

When a financial personage of Daphne's stature dies on a strange planet the investigation is most thorough. It wasn't necessary to take such pains with Suchane's pitiful remains. We buried her on Tigursh II where investigators could exhume her ripped body if they chose. The jugular slash was indistinguishable in the general lacerations.

It was a nasty mess. It cured me from any slight pleasure in hunting and cost me the quickest billion dollars I ever had a chance at.

Naturally, the deal was off without the Major to verify the verbal agreement. Anyway, with characteristic selfishness, he died intestate which threw all his holdings into the courts.

But the greatest change the incident made in my life concerned the loss of my bachelorhood. A man can get his belly full of anything, even promiscuity, and Daphne's little hunting party did me that favor.

I'm still stuck with Tigursh II and its mile-under-mud thorium deposit and orange-colored wampuses but I have prospects. If the courts clear up the Daphne estate my wife will own more planets than I have golf balls.

So, if you ever go big game hunting again don't forget the Major's advice. I pass it on to you for what it's worth, although you may never aim at anything but a lion. Never gut-shoot a wampus. It's better even if you're only shooting blanks!

And I don't feel a damn bit bad about the way Annellica loaded the major's gun....