heel ground car stopping
not far from the doorway.

He stood wiping tears from his light-dazzled eyes as footsteps sounded
outside. Aletha's cousin came in, followed by a huge man with remarkably
dark skin. The dark man wore eyeglasses with a curiously thick, corklike
nosepiece to insulate the necessary metal of the frame from his skin. It
would blister if it touched bare flesh.

"This is Dr. Chuka," said Redfeather pleasantly, "Mr. Bordman. Dr.
Chuka's the director of mining and mineralogy here."

Bordman shook hands with the ebony-skinned man. He grinned, showing
startlingly white teeth. Then he began to shiver.

"It's like a freeze-box in here," he said in a deep voice. "I'll get a
robe and be with you."

He vanished through a doorway, his teeth chattering audibly. Aletha's
cousin took half a dozen deliberate deep breaths and grimaced.

"I could shiver myself," he admitted "but Chuka's really acclimated to
Xosa. He was raised on Timbuk."

Bordman said curtly:

"I'm sorry I collapsed on landing. It won't happen again. I came here to
do a degree-of-completion survey that should open the colony to normal
commerce, let the colonists' families move in, tourists, and so on. But
I was landed by boat instead of normally, and I am told the colony is
doomed. I would like an official statement of the degree of completion
of the colony's facilities and an explanation of the unusual points I
have just mentioned."

The Indian blinked at him. Then he smiled faintly. The dark man came
back, zipping up an indoor warmth-garment. Redfeather dryly brought him
up to date by repeating what Bordman had just said. Chuka grinned and
sprawled comfortably in a chair.

"I'd say," he remarked humorously, in that astonishingly deep-toned
voice of his, "sand got in our hair. And our colony. And the landing
grid. There's a lot of sand on Xosa. Wouldn't you say that was the
trouble?"

The Indian said with elaborate gravity:

"Of course wind had something to do with it."

Bordman fumed.

"I think you know," he said fretfully, "that as a senior Colonial Survey
officer, I have authority to give any orders needed for my work. I give
one now. I want to see the landing grid--if it is still standing. I take
it that it didn't fall down?"

Redfeather flushed beneath the bronze pigment of his skin. It would be
hard to offend a steelman more than to suggest that his work did not
stand up.

"I assure you," he said politely, "that it did no