"fatal: index-pack failed" on git-clone

I get the error "fatal: index-pack failed" when I attempt to clone a  
remote bare repository. The repository works well on other machines,  
including the repository's own.

The repository lives on a version of Mac OS X I'm not allowed to talk  
about (I repeat: It works well for working copies on other machines,  
and on its own). The client is RHEL5. Git is version 1.6.3 on both  
machines, and was built from the tarball.

Here's the debug transcript:

===========
$ sudo GIT_TRACE=1 git clone myusername@remote.example.com:/Users/ 
myusername/scientia/scientia.git
trace: built-in: git 'clone' 'myusername@remote.example.com:/Users/ 
myusername/scientia/scientia.git'
Initialized empty Git repository in /srv/scientia/.git/
trace: run_command: 'ssh' 'myusername@remote.example.com' 'git-upload- 
pack '\''/Users/myusername/scientia/scientia.git'\'''
Password:
trace: run_command: 'index-pack' '--stdin' '-v' '--fix-thin' '-- 
keep=fetch-pack 17580 on local.example.com'
trace: exec: 'git' 'index-pack' '--stdin' '-v' '--fix-thin' '-- 
keep=fetch-pack 17580 on local.example.com'
trace: exec failed: No such file or directory
trace: exec 'index-pack' failed: No such file or directory
fatal: index-pack failed
remote: Counting objects: 2797, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (2388/2388), done.
$
===========

/Users/myusername/scientia/scientia.git on remote is a symlink to  
a .git repository on another volume. I've verified that the path is  
valid.

One post I saw via Google said that attempting to clone large files  
can choke the process. I've done git-rm on my largest, reconstructable  
files, to no effect. (Though I suppose it does no good wrt the files  
that are still in the history.)

I've fooled around with git-verify-pack without result.

Prior to all this, my last push to the repository failed with  
"[rejected] ... non-fast forward". I got past that with a "git push -- 
force".

How can I get the clone done?

	— F