Free A Feast Unknown by Philip José Farmer

was faster in the trees, even though I went no faster than a slow walk, because I could avoid the almost impenetrable undergrowth. Icould have made even better time if I had abandoned the rifle.
    On the broad branch of a great oak which grew on an almost vertical slope, I waited for the dusk. I was tearing at the delicious meat of a scaly anteater and watching the dying dust from the three parties after me. They had gone as far as they could in their vehicles, and besides they had to camp for the night. Each was only about a mile apart from the next, but the hills barred their views. This did not mean that they were not aware of each other.
    The Kenyan army personnel would stop where they were, if they observed national boundaries. I was now in Uganda. The Albanian-Arab party paid no attention to it, of course. Thirty tiny figures walked down a hill and then were lost. As nearly as I could determine, they carried no weapons heavier than rifles.
    Doctor Calibans party threaded down a narrow ravine. I counted them. Two blacks were missing. They had stayed behind, probably to operate equipment in the camper. It was then that I decided to go back down the mountainside. This took into account the strong possibility that Caliban anticipated just such a move and had taken measures against it. He was the most dangerous man I had ever encountered, and I’ve run up against scores of the most cunning and vicious of killers. Although I knew little about him, I felt that he was by far the most intelligent and the best equipped, technologically, teleologically, and physically (in a neuromuscular sense).
    The shadows had flooded that side of the mountain and stretched out to cover the smaller hills and some of the plains. Despite the growing dark, I saw a party leave the Kenyan camp. They did not intend to stop at the border.
    I passed them on the way down. They were struggling through the undergrowth in a very narrow path which then enlarged with machetes. An officer said something about stopping soon, and they went on by me. We were separated by a few feet. I was tempted to approach the single file from the rear and cut a few throats before disappearing, but I resisted. To harass them for my own amusement would spoil my plans.
    In the darkness, I watched the Kenyans that had stayed behind. They were busy. Evidently others were going to follow the first party in the morning. And from what I could hear of the radio operators conversation, planes—transports—and helicopters were bringing in other men and supplies. I did not know what they were after. Surely they would not be going to this trouble and expense, and risking unpleasantness with Uganda, just to kill me. No, it had to be the gold. And they were acting as if they knew where they were going.
    I went on to the camp of Doctor Caliban. The trucks and jeeps were parked to form a square in a clearing inside the woods. No men were in sight, and the camper shed no light. A small dish-shaped antenna on top of the camper turned around and around. This was probably only one of the devices for detecting intruders.
    I waited. The night stretched out and blackened. Clouds were covering the stars. The moon was a dim irregular shape, like the just-beginning-to-form body of a chick in the yolk.
    The door in the rear of the camper opened and shut. No light shone. Undoubtedly the door was connected to an off-switch so that the light would not give them away when they passed through.
    Only one man had come out. He walked around the inside of the rectangle formed by the vehicles. He was smoking but took care to shield the fire in his palm. It would have been easy to get him with the rifle, but I did not want to alarm the other man or attract the Kenyans. He was pacing back and forth in the square, stopping short of one jeep and turning and striding back to the other and turning. He carried a submachine gun in his hand, as nearly as I could tell in the dark.
    I timed him for a while and then leaped