"Every hunter remembers Munson," said Pritchard flatly. "And everybody on Terra remem—"
Something squeaked under his foot. Pritchard flung himself sideways into the blackened stubble, rolled, and came up in a crouch, snapper at ready, while McManus stood blinking at him. Pritchard came back slowly, narrowed gaze riveted on the spot where he had stepped. McManus backed away, raising his own snapper. The rest of the men came running up.
Pritchard knelt and picked up something. It was stiff and charred and smelt acridly, but the men clustering around could see it had six legs. There was a click and a whirr as Kemp started the cam-rec.
Then McManus said, "I'll be damned" and picked up something else. It squealed and squirmed in his hand, and it also had six legs.
"What is it?" queried Majinski over his shoulder. "Rabbit?"
"Or squirrel," put in Greene, a rangy blond boy.
"Some kind of rodent, anyway," said Pritchard. He ran a finger the wrong way through baby fur and the little sharp muzzle flicked around to snap at him. He stood up. "The mother shielded it from our stern jetwash. She died that Junior might live." He wiped his hands on his cordron breeches. "Bring it along, Tom. We'll drop it in the tall grass."
By the time they reached the tall grass beyond the perimeter of the burn, Tom McManus had become attached to the little fur-ball, with its whiskery nose and knob-like feet, and found that it snuggled nicely in his breast pocket. Pritchard smiled indulgently and they all waded into the waist-high grass.
They went slowly, partly out of caution and partly because the long, thick-growing blades clogged and bunched around their legs. Little things went hopping and chittering out of their way, and the sun began to lay its heat on them. Birds, as yet unseen, called and cried and whistled in the dense growth ahead.