Fluff was a green plant parasite that grew on an animal until the animal died. It attacked humans too. Everybody got it sooner or later, some more than once. But hnmRns had the sense to stay in shadow until the fluff withered and died. Laython could be right. A head injury, sense of direction fouled up and it was meat, a mass of meat as big as the bachelors' longhut. It must be ravenous…and now it turned to face them.

An isolated mouth came toward them: an elliptical field of teeth, expanding.

Laython coiled line in frantic haste. Gavving saw Harp's line fly past him, and tearing himself out of his paralysis, he threw his own weapon.

The swordbird whipped around, impossibly fast, and snapped up Gavving's harpoon like a tidbit. Harp whooped. Gavving froze for an instant; then his toes dug into the foliage while he hauled in line. He'd hooked it.

The creature didn't try to escape: it was still fluttering toward them.

Harp's grapnel grazed its side and passed on. Harp yanked, trying to hook the beast, and missed again. He reeled in line for another try.

Gavving was armpit-deep in branchlets and cotton, toes digging deeper, hands maintaining his deathgrip on the line. With eyes on him, he continued to behave as if he wanted contact with the killer beast. He bellowed, "Harp, where can I hurt it?"

"Eye sockets, I guess."

The beast had misjudged. Its flank smashed bark from the trunk above their heads, dreadfully close. The trunk shuddered. Gavving howled in terror. Laython howled in rage and threw his grapnel ahead of it.

It grazed the swordbird's flank. Laython pulled hard on the line and sank the hardwood tines deep in flesh.

The swordbird's tail froze. Perhaps it was thinking things over, watching them with two good eyes while the wind pulled it west.