BEN ADJEI had estimated the day this year—and he hadn’t been wrong in twenty years—when the great reptiles would migrate from the salt marshes to the low-lying desert fifty kilometers inland to lay their eggs. Only offworlders bet against him, the local population shrewdly inciting them to do so. A Sighter had landed her small copter behind the Reeve ranch house early in the morning to alert Todd that the egg-heavy female snakes were arriving in the desert and beginning to burrow into the dunes. Immediately, Todd called a meeting of leaders of the Hunt at the colony Assembly Hall. They had gathered from all over Doona and had been staying in or around First Village for the last few days, in case Ben Adjei’s estimate was off a bit. For the past fifteen years, Todd and Hrriss had been in the first line of Hunters. Their rapport was instinctive: they seemed to read each other’s mind. They never took unnecessary chances or risked lives, theirs or others. Their impressive tally of kills and captures of the dangerous reptiloids had reached legendary totals.
