The jagged shape of Mucking Great Mountain rose like a primordial cairn, a titanic mass of unweathered rock stacked as if by Neolithic ritual, towering, raw-edged, lost in the clouds that shrouded the plateau.

There was almost no vegetation on the mountain, nothing but moss and a little scrub brush that withered out and died within a hundred meters of its base. Pterodons lived up there somewhere, but on this night they slipped invisibly through the mist or huddled in their nests, rough gray wings enfolding the leathery eggs of their young.

The plateau itself was only a few hundred meters wide, fuzzed with brush, and walled at the northern end by thorn-tree brambles. A failed stand of larger trees formed a rough deadfall at the far southern end: the soil had never been rich, and the trees—gnarled, spiky growths full of knotted fiber—had died before their maturity, too weak to resist the first onslaught of natural parasites. Now the ubiquitous thorn brush fed on the tangled debris. A few tough, rubbery plants surrounded the artesian spring at the base of the mountain, but there was insufficient moss or lichen to break down the rock, and most of the plateau was barren.

Barren, and deserted—except for two men and a single frightened calf.

Cadmann Weyland adjusted a bowline knot around the smooth white curve of its neck, then tugged on the line to check the anchoring: it was securely spiked into the rock. The calf licked his hand, tried to run a warm pink tongue wetly over his face. Cadmann pulled away guiltily. The calf dropped its head and lowed in misery.

"Sorry about this, Joshua." He scratched it behind one speckled ear. In its eyes shone the pitiful gratitude of a retarded child given a rubber bonbon. Cadmann felt dirty.

He pulled his jacket tighter and peered up into the mist. It was deeper than even two hours before, masking the starlight, blanketing the twin moons.

Thirty meters distant, on the eastern side of the plateau, was the half-completed blind he and Ernst had constructed. The big German had worked tirelessly for three hours, driving stakes into the rock with sharp powerful hammer blows, cutting and dragging sections of thorn bush, binding them into place and meticulously adjusting the spiny walls into camouflage position.

Thorns gouged needle points through Cadmann's glove as he helped Ernst haul one last gnarled section into place. "Ouch!"

The big German turned, grinned lopsidedly. "Thorns sharp, hey? I bring lots of band-aids."

"Sylvia swears these things are harmless." He grunted, pulling off his glove. The tip of the thorn had broken off under the skin, and would take tweezers to work free. No time now.

The calf brayed miserably. Ernst clucked sympathetically "Poor Joshua scared. We shoot, you shoot good and straight. Kill wolf. We take calf home."

"So it can grow up to be a cheeseburger. Some consolation."

"Cadmann?"

"Oh, nothing. On Earth I'd stake that calf out for a mountain lion without a second thought. Here—God, I don't know. In comparison with whatever's been pruning our flock, that calf's my second cousin. It just doesn't feel quite right."

Cadmann scanned their blind, the wall of thorn that hemmed them in on three sides. The Skeeter was hidden in the rock niche behind them, invisible from above or the sides. The blind wasn't perfect, but it would have to do.

The wire grid rectangle of their heater sputtered with flame as Cadmann squatted in front of it. The night was colder than he had realized: the waves of heat eased the tension in his back and shoulders.

He unsnapped his rifle case and lifted free his most prized possession.