"It'll be sunset within the hour," he said savagely. "If it's the intention of the newcomers ... the invaders to burn the bodies of all plague victims, he'll come back here to dispose of these three. He didn't do it before lest the smoke warn the rest of you. But he knows the shelters held more than three people. He'll be back!"
Murgatroyd said "Chee!" in a bewildered fashion. He was on all fours, and he regarded his paws as if they did not belong to him. He panted.
Calhoun checked him over. Respiration way up. Heart-action like that of the girl Helen. His temperature was not up, but down. Calhoun said remorsefully:
"You and I, Murgatroyd, have a bad time of it in our profession. But mine is the worse. You don't have to play dirty tricks on me, and I've had to, on you!"
Murgatroyd said "Chee!" and whimpered. Calhoun laid him gently on a bed of leaves which was not occupied by a murdered man.
"Lie still!" he commanded. "Exercise is bad for you!"
He walked away. Murgatroyd whined faintly, but lay still as if exhausted.
"I'm going to move you," Calhoun told the girl, "so you won't be sighted if that man from the city comes back. And I've got to keep out of sight for a while or your friends will mistake me for him. I count on you to vouch for me later. Basically, I'm making an ambush." Then he explained irritably, "I daren't try to trail him because he might not backtrack to return here!"
He lifted the girl and placed her where she could see the glade in its entirety, but would not be visible. He settled down himself a little distance away. He was acutely dissatisfied with the measures he was forced to take. He could not follow the murderer and leave Helen and Murgatroyd unprotected, even though the murderer might find another victim because he was not trailed. In any case Murgatroyd's life, just now, was more important than the life of any human being on Maris III. On him depended everything.
But Calhoun was not pleased with himself.