"Three char!"
"Four."
"Six."
"Ten char."
"Ten?" The man who was Charlie Stedman laughed. "Ten char indeed! One hundred is not enough."
The bidding continued, became hot, became a contest between two mental voices. Steiner went for seventy-four char, whatever a char was.
They took him down and carted him away, struggling. It looked like an ugly scene would develop, for a score of men surged toward the front of the block angrily. But some of the creatures held what looked like strange, possibly lethal weapons, and Kevin growled: "Not now! There's no sense getting all of us killed. Relax, and we'll see."
Grumbling, the men subsided, and Kevin turned to Steve: "If this isn't the damndest cosmic joke of all."
"What do you mean?"
"We're hunters, big game hunters. We go out into space to hunt for specimens, only this time we've become specimens ourselves! This time we weren't the hunters, but the quarry!"