ure out-of-doors
except in a heat-suit. He couldn't stay long then. It was not a
weakness. It was a matter of genetics. But he was ashamed.

Aletha nodded to him when he found the Project Engineer's office. It
occupied one of the hulls in which colony-establishment materials had
been lowered by rocket power. There were forty of the hulls, and they
had been emptied and arranged for inter-communication in three separate
communities, so that an individual could change his quarters and
ordinary associates from time to time and colony fever--frantic
irritation with one's companions--was minimized.

Aletha sat at a desk, busily making notes from a loose leaf volume
before her. The wall behind the desk was fairly lined with similar
volumes.

"I made a spectacle of myself!" said Bordman, bitterly.

"Not at all!" Aletha assured him. "It could happen to anybody. I
wouldn't do too well on Timbuk."

There was no answer to that. Timbuk was essentially a jungle planet,
barely emerging from the carboniferous stage. Its colonists thrived
because their ancestors had lived on the shores of the Gulf of Guinea,
on Earth. But Anglos did not find its climate healthful, nor would many
other races. Amerinds died there quicker than most.

"Ralph's on the way here now," added Aletha. "He and Dr. Chuka were out
picking a place to leave the records. The sand dunes here are terrible,
you know. When an explorer-ship does come to find out what's happened to
us, these buildings could be covered up completely. Any place could be.
It isn't easy to pick a record-cache that's quite sure to be found."

"When," said Bordman skeptically, "there's nobody left alive to point it
out. Is that it?"

"That's it," agreed Aletha. "It's pretty bad all around. I didn't plan
to die just yet."

Her voice was perfectly normal. Bordman snorted. As a senior Colonial
Survey officer, he'd been around. But he'd never yet known a human
colony to be extinguished when it was properly equipped and after a
proper pre-settlement survey. He'd seen panic, but never real cause for
a matter-of-fact acceptance of doom.

* * * * *

There was a clanking noise outside the hulk which was the Project
Engineer's headquarters. Bordman couldn't see clearly through the
filtered ports. He reached over and opened a door. The brightness
outside struck his eyes like a blow. He blinked them shut instantly and
turned away. But he'd seen a glistening, caterw