ver, Birken had drawn level with them,
about fifty feet away.

"Birken!" shouted Kinton. "Where do you think you're going?"

Seeing that no one ran after him, Birken slowed his pace, but kept
walking toward the ship. He watched them over his shoulder.

"Sorry, Kinton," he shouted with no noticeable tone of regret. "I figure
I better travel on for my health."

"It's not so damn healthy up there!" called Kinton. "I told you how
there's no clear path--"

"Yeah, yeah, you told me. That don't mean I gotta believe it."

"Wait! Don't you think they tried sending unmanned rockets up? Every one
was struck and exploded."

Birken showed no more change of expression than if the other had
commented on the weather.

Kinton had stepped forward six or eight paces, irritated despite his
anxiety at the way Birken persisted in drifting before him.

Kinton couldn't just grab him--bad leg or not, he could probably break
the older man in two.

He glanced back at the Tepoktans beside the helicopter, Klaft, the
pilot, the officer, the constable with the rocket weapon.

They stood quietly, looking back at him.

The call for help that had risen to his lips died there.

"Not _their_ party," he muttered. He turned again to Birken, who still
retreated toward the ship. "But he'll only get himself killed _and_
destroy the ship! Or if some miracle gets him through, that's worse!
He's nothing to turn loose on a civilized colony again."

* * * * *

A twinge of shame tugged down the corners of his mouth as he realized
that keeping Birken here would also expose a highly cultured people to
an unscrupulous criminal who had already committed murder the very first
time he had been crossed.

"Birken!" he shouted. "For the last time! Do you want me to send them to
drag you back here?"

Birken stopped at that. He regarded the motionless Tepoktans with a
derisive sneer.

"They don't look too eager to me," he taunted.

Kinton growled a Tepoktan expression the meaning of which he had deduced
after hearing it used by the dam workers.

He whirled to run toward the helicopter. Hardly had he taken two steps,
however, when he saw startled changes in the carefully blank looks of
his escort. The constable half raised his heavy weapon, and Klaft sprang
forward with a hissing cry.

By the time Kinton's aging muscles obeyed his impulse to sidestep, the
spear had already hurtled past. It had missed him by an error of o