"No, this way."
Toal dodged in front of me and undulated rapidly through the vines. I kept tripping and catching my head or the hisser barrel in the tendrils. We, at length, stepped through an arch into a clearing.
A horde of striped toothies swarmed around a clay bank that had been excavated until cross sections of tunnels were exposed. A hundred little eyes stared. One or two toothies even stood erect on hind feet for a better view. One rodent squeaked. Others answered. Some went into holes in the bank, and others vanished among the matted red flowers that filled the clearing.
I examined the great cloven depressions left in the damp ground by the Hog's feet. "He was rooting for toothies," I said. "The Jury claimed he has no part in this planet's bionomics, but he's checking the toothie population." I glanced at Toal and said, "Don't start glaring like that again. I'll finish the Hog for you. He's probably the only one surviving, since the Jury says he isn't—and one old boar can't carry on the species."
I followed the footsteps of the Hog across the clearing and into the silent green corridors. Infrequent glimpses of the sky revealed darkening clouds sweeping up from the horizon. Something rumbled in the distance. "Thunder," Toal said.
Soaked with perspiration generated by the humid heat and by anticipation of meeting the Hog, I tiptoed around a vine trunk and almost stepped in the mess made by the robotic pellet that should have blasted the Hog. Toal said, "A jumpalong."
The animal, a brown thing with four horns, had been blown nearly in half. The flesh around the wound had turned purple. "Stay away from it," I warned. "Nitrobenzene is potent stuff."
The Hog had departed through a tunnel of his own manufacture, penetrating the vines in a straight line for fifty meters. As I moved into the hole, lightning bathed the forest floor in green light, and thunder crackled. "Do you have rain every day all summer?" I complained.
"Yes," Toal said, "but this is only spring."
Big raindrops splattered against the canopy of leaves. I said, "Do you want to go back? A thunderstorm's not an ideal time to hunt."