Cosmo felt the cold breath of death blow up his spine. His hand slid automatically to his shoulder holster. It was empty. With a curse, he remembered that it had been taken by the Blue Venus. Her dart gun, he'd tossed aside, once free of the Bemmelman plantation.
The three naked giants minced daintily closer, nostrils flaring as they caught their scent. "They're not amok," he said over his shoulder. "The rutting season is months off yet. There's something else behind this."
Mia said with incredulity: "Look at their left shoulders. See that scar. The fern leaf! That's Hal Bemmelman's brand! Cosmo, those are Bemmelman's slaves!"
The blue giants crouched. Their violet eyes were passionless, their handsome faces calm, inscrutable.
"Back!" Cosmo suddenly shouted in a tone of authority, and took a step toward them. A low snarl rumbled in their throats. Then like cats on a mouse, they pounced.
Mia screamed.
Cosmo kicked one of them in the belly, heard him grunt. With balled fist he swung at the placid handsome features of the second blue giant. Pain, like a hot iron, shot up his arm from his bruised knuckles. The Jovian shook his head, grabbed Cosmo's wrist, jerked. His arm felt as if it were being torn from the socket.
He kicked, slugged the emotionless face with his free hand. The grip never relaxed. He heard Mia scream again like a rabbit in a steel trap.
Then the Jovian clouted him brutally alongside the temple with his open fist. Cosmo's head snapped sideways like a punching bag. His knees collapsed. He seemed to be falling into the chasm of the waterfall, down, down into stygian blackness.