humans, no matter what our race, are a tough breed. The refugees
discovered that climatically their new world was not too different from
Africa, a lucky chance which might happen only once in a thousand times.
So they thrived, the handful who survived. But the white technicians
they had kidnaped to run the ships didn't. For they set up a color bar
in reverse. The lighter your skin, the lower you were in the social
scale. By that kind of selective breeding the present Khatkans are very
dark indeed.

"They reverted to the primitive for survival. Then, about two hundred
years ago, long before the first Survey Scout discovered them, something
happened. Either the parent race mutated, or, as sometimes occurs, a
line of people of superior gifts emerged--not in a few isolated births,
but with surprising regularity in five family clans. There was a short
period of power struggle until they realized the foolishness of civil
war and formed an oligarchy, heading a loose tribal organization. With
the Five Families to push and lead, a new civilization developed, and
when Survey came to call they were no longer savages. Combine bought the
trade rights about seventy-five years ago. Then the Company and the Five
Families got together and marketed a luxury item to the galaxy. You know
how every super-jet big shot on twenty-five planets wants to say he's
hunted on Khatka. And if he can point out a graz head on his wall, or
wear a tail bracelet, he's able to strut with the best. To holiday on
Khatka is both fabulous and fashionable--and very, very profitable for
the natives and for Combine who sells transportation to the travelers."

"I hear they have poachers, too," Dane remarked.

"Yes, that naturally follows. You know what a glam skin brings on the
market. Wherever you have a rigidly controlled export you're going to
have poachers and smugglers. But the Patrol doesn't go to Khatka. The
natives handle their own criminals. Personally, I'd cheerfully take a
ninety-nine-year sentence in the Lunar mines in place of what the
Khatkans dish out to a poacher they net!"

"So that rumor has spread satisfactorily!"

Coffee slopped over the brim of Tau's mug and Dane dropped the packet of
steak concentrate he was about to feed into the cooker. Chief Ranger
Asaki loomed in the doorway of the mess as suddenly as if he had been
teleported to that point.

The medic arose to his feet and smiled politely at the visitor.

"Do I detect in that obser