e Fuzzy had dumped the stones out of the
biscuit tin and made an arrangement, and laid the wood chisel in a neat
diagonal across the blanket.

After getting dinner assembled and in the oven, he went out and called for
a while, then mixed a highball and took it into the living room, sitting
down with it to go over his day's findings. Rather incredulously, he
realized that he had cracked out at least seventy-five thousand sols'
worth of stones today. He put them into the bag and sat sipping the
highball and thinking pleasant thoughts until the bell on the stove warned
him that dinner was ready.

He ate alone--after all the years he had been doing that contentedly, it
had suddenly become intolerable--and in the evening he dialed through his
micro-film library, finding only books he had read and reread a dozen
times, or books he kept for reference. Several times he thought he heard
the little door open, but each time he was mistaken. Finally he went to
bed.

As soon as he woke, he looked across at the folded blanket, but the wood
chisel was still lying athwart it. He put down more Extee Three and
changed the water in the bowl before leaving for the diggings. That day he
found three more sunstones, and put them in the bag mechanically and
without pleasure. He quit work early and spent over an hour spiraling
around the camp, but saw nothing. The Extee Three in the kitchen was
untouched.

Maybe the little fellow ran into something too big for him, even with his
fine new weapon--a hobthrush, or a bush-goblin, or another harpy. Or maybe
he'd just gotten tired staying in one place, and had moved on.

No; he'd liked it here. He'd had fun, and been happy. He shook his head
sadly. Once he, too, had lived in a pleasant place, where he'd had fun,
and could have been happy if he hadn't thought there was something he'd
had to do. So he had gone away, leaving grieved people behind him. Maybe
that was how it was with Little Fuzzy. Maybe he didn't realize how much of
a place he had made for himself here, or how empty he was leaving it.

He started for the kitchen to get a drink, and checked himself. Take a
drink because you pity yourself, and then the drink pities you and has a
drink, and then two good drinks get together and that calls for drinks all
around. No; he'd have one drink, maybe a little bigger than usual, before
he went to bed.

III

He started awake, rubbed his eyes and looked at the clock. Past twenty-two
hu