Johnny smiled. He knew Jeb would never tell where he was hiding, in spite of the gruff warnings. Jeb was a nice old fellow. He'd shot his marva years before, gone down to earth, spent his millions in a few wild years and returned to Venus dead broke. In twenty years hunting he had never made another kill. Marva were as hard to find as they were valuable.
"Guess you just weren't quite bad enough!" Baba clicked to Johnny. "My claws are dry. Let's go before your mother finds us."
Johnny crawled down to the little bear.
"We gotta think of something else bad to do. It's that or just plain refuse to go. But then they'd think something was funny, sure as shooting!"
"There's lots of ripe meat fruit in the tree," Baba clicked, and grinned. "Maybe you could drop one on Captain Thompson!"
"Oh boy!" Johnny exclaimed in excitement. Then he frowned. "Aw, he probably won't come by here again."
"Somebody will!" Baba said. "Let's keep an eye out."
The two of them posted themselves in different parts of the tree and watched for possible targets for ripe meat fruit. No one seemed to want to walk under the tree. Finally Johnny caught sight of a short fat bald-headed man and a tall redhaired man leaving the Hunters Hotel together. One was Trader Harkness, who all but ran the colony, and the other, his bodyguard, Rick Saunders. They seemed to be headed for the trading post and would have to pass directly under Johnny's tree to get there. Baba saw them at the same time.
"How about Trader Harkness?" the little bear clicked. "Do you think he'd be a good target?"
"A kind of dangerous one," Johnny clicked back, his heart racing. "But where's that meat fruit?"