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“We’ll have to walk it,” Doallyn said. “There are hubba-gourds. We can survive on them for a couple of days.”

“But what about your breathing cartridges?” she asked, quietly.

He stood still, as transfixed by that thought as she had been by the dragon. “I put a couple into my pocket,” he said, slowly, digging his fingers down. Moments later, he held out three cartridges. “Not good,” he said, slowly.

“Enough hydron-three to see you into Mos Eisley? We can buy more there, can’t we?”

“Yes, most vendors who sell spacesuits or breathing gear would have it,” he said, slowly. “As to whether it will be enough … it should be. If we don’t dawdle.”

Yarna tugged at his sleeve. “Then let’s start walking right away.”

“In a minute,” he said. “There’s something I have to do first.”

Realizing that he was asking for privacy, Yarna realized that she, too, could use a few minutes to herself. She nodded at Doallyn. “Which way do we go?”

He pointed. “Due east.”

“Meet you back here in a few minutes, then.”

He nodded, and turned away.

The Askajian dancer turned and walked in the opposite direction, past the krayt dragon’s snout. In death, the beast appeared only a little less fearsome than it had in life. It’s a reptile, Yarna thought, remembering similar creatures (though only a fraction of the size) on Askaj. It won’t really die until the sun goes down …

• • •

As soon as Yarna was out of the way, Doallyn sprinted as quickly as he could back to the krayt dragon’s hindquarters. Sketches of the beast’s anatomy flashed through his mind as he drew his blaster again, resetting the weapon so it would fire a narrow, slicing beam rather than explosive bursts.

It was a gory, smelly job, carving up the krayt dragon’s innards, but finally he had alternately sliced and vaporized enough hunks of scale and meat to reveal the creature’s intestines. The last chamber of the gizzard, he thought, studying the bloody welter of internal organs that splooshed messily outward, sliding onto the ground. Where is it?

“There you are,” he muttered softly. Drawing a vibroblade out of his boot, Doallyn waded in for the final few strokes. The first sac he cut into was one of the middle chambers—the stones he drew out were larger than his fist, hunks of granite and sandstone only a little rounded and smoothed.

Using that chamber as a guide, the hunter was able to locate the organ he wanted—the last chamber of the krayt dragon’s massive gizzard system. The beasts had teeth, yes, but those teeth were used only to kill and rip apart prey. The dragon had no grinding molars for chewing. Instead it had a gizzard, rather like a bird’s, but multichambered. As food passed through the organ in progressively more pulverized and digested chunks, the rocks in the gizzard ground it finer and finer—until it reached the intestinal system.

Doallyn braced himself, said a quick invocation to the Sky Seraphs, and sliced open the last chamber. Reaching inside, he felt around, then pulled forth five perfectly round objects. Each was as large as the last joint of his thumb. As he wiped the blood and ichor away, they glowed in the sunshine like the jewels that they were.

Dragon pearls.

Beauty incarnate. Two were clear green, the color of Yarna’s eyes. One was the blue of the sky just after sunset. The fourth was white, and iridescent—and the fifth was as black as the depths of interstellar space. As Doallyn stared at it, marveling at its perfection, he seemed to be able to see into the stone, as though black light were trapped deep inside.

Doallyn wanted to shout, to dance, to sing—but he remembered that with every breath he was using up his precious stock of hydron-three. Quickly, he stowed the dragon’s pearls away in the inside, sealed pocket of his tunic. Glancing around, he realized he was covered in dragon’s blood. He had to have some excuse for that, or Yarna would ask questions …

The hunter headed purposefully for the krayt dragon’s tail. He’d cut off one of the spiky fins for a trophy, and that