"City?"
Then it was civilized, too. What had induced it to leave its communal eyrie in the San Mountains? The terries had avoided men for over fifty years. Many was the time that Graff, intent on stalking meat for the colonists, had been startled by a flock of pterodactyls winging overhead and shouting curses down at him in the three languages of the early settlers.
"City?" the question was repeated more insistently. "Heatwave or New Kalamazoo?"
"New Kalamazoo."
A relieved nod of the triangular head. "This I thought. You wish knowledge which Heatwave man has man and girl from shif?"
Graff's whole body tensed. "Yes! Do you know?"
Another nod. "This I know. Name is Fuvina."
"Fuvina?" The hunter repeated it with a frown. He knew the names of most of Heatwave's big shots; some were political criminals, escaped from Earth. Others were former residents of his own town who had left in search of an easier living than the continual struggle with marshy soil and carnivorous jungle.
But he couldn't recall any Fuvina. Possibly a new arrival; possibly one of the smaller fry who had recently killed and looted his way to the top of bloody Heatwave society. Fuvina? Fuv—
Of course! The not-quite-flexible pterodactyl beak was incapable of labial sounds like p and b, and transformed them into the labiodentals f and v. Pubina! Max Pubina had left New Kalamazoo in a hurry three years ago after cutting some farmer's throat in a boundary dispute and, by combining organized raids on isolated families with the smuggling of the illicit Venusian dunging drug to Earth, had become a power of sorts.