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e's shoulders and saw that the knife

now lay across the widened post-hole.

As he had thrashed blindly around in his efforts to free himself, he

had inadvertently kicked the knife towards the hole. It now lay with

the blade tipped up at an angle and the handle lodged precariously

against the opposite side of the hole, some six inches below the rim.

With painful slowness, Steve humped his double burden towards the

knife. His two day struggle against the combined weight of the dead

cee-bee and the post had sapped his strength to the point where he

could barely move. But there was also another problem. He had a clear

view over the cee-bee's shoulder but he could not see his own hands

which were tied around the dead man's waist. He could manoeuvre

himself into approximately the right position but from there on it

would be pure guesswork. And he could not afford to make a mistake.

One false move on his part might cause the handle to slip. If the

knife dropped down to the bottom of the hole he was finished.

Reaching what he judged to be the best position, Steve probed the air

delicately with his fingers. He felt the tip of his right middle

finger brush the edge of the tilted blade. He took a deep breath and,

with infinite care, he nudged the dead body forward and tried again.

This time he managed to slide the flat of the blade between the two

middle fingers of his right hand. Gripping it as tightly as he could,

he pressed down firmly on the tip of the blade with the first two

fingers of his left hand and seesawed the knife out of the hole.

Dragging it clear, he laid it down carefully then slid it under his

right hand and got a firm grip on the handle.

Well done, Brickman. Now for the next step. He had to free his hands

but there was now no play in the rope that bound Steve's wrists

together behind his victim's back. As the body became more and more

distended, it had forced his palms apart making it impossible to grip

the knife handle with both hands. There was only one thing to do. He

had to vent the gases that had built up in the stomach and the

abdominal cavity.

Guiding the blade between his fingers, Steve lodged it in the soft part

of the back between the rib cage and the pelvis, wedged the butt of the

handle in a small depression in the ground and drove the blade home by

rolling their combined weight on top of it. The body emptied with a

slow, gurgling hiss. A foul stench assailed Steve's nostrils and made

his bile rise. He lay there coughing and retching then, a short while

later, he noticed that the ropes had slackened off a little. He was

still bound securely but the cords no longer bit deeply into his

flesh.

Clawing at the handle of the knife, he succeeded in pulling it partway

out. With the last quarter of the cutting edge exposed Steve began to

saw through the cords around his wrists. A great-surge of relief

flooded through him as the last strands fell away. He was going to

make it!

Cutting the other ropes took hardly any time at all.

Steve stood up, stretched his aching limbs then stumbled down through

the trees towards the stream, rubbing his chafed wrists to get the

blood flowing again. He drank greedily. He had survived yet again but

for how long?

Apart from the knife Jodi had provided and the clothes on his back he

had nothing. The renegades had stripped the dug-out down to the dirt

walls. They had taken every scrap of food, the fishtraps and snares,

the firepot, his backpack, weapons, helmet, and the items of clothing

removed from the dead cee-bees prior to their burial.

Worst of all, they had taken his boots.

Steve started back up the slope, his initial feeling of euphoria fading

rapidly as he considered the formidable problems that now confronted

him. The object whose loss he felt most keenly was Naylor's combat

knife.

During his stay at Rio Lobo, a tiny but powerful radio transceiver had

been cleverly concealed in the handle.