lume on the desk.

[Illustration]

"May I ask," asked Bordman with some irony, "what your work happens to
be just now?"

She looked up.

"I thought you knew," she said in surprise. "I'm here for the Amerind
Historical Society. I can certify coups. I'm taking coup-records for the
Society. They'll go in the record-cache Ralph and Dr. Chuka are
arranging, so no matter what happens to the colony, the record of the
coups won't be lost."

"Coups?" demanded Bordman. He knew that Amerinds painted feathers on the
key-posts of steel structures they'd built, and he knew that the posting
of such "coup-marks" was a cherished privilege and undoubtedly a
survival or revival of some American Indian tradition back on Earth.
But he did not know what they meant.

"Coups," repeated Aletha matter-of-factly. "Ralph wears three
eagle-feathers. You saw them. He has three coups. Pinions, too! He built
the landing grids on Norlath and--Oh, you don't know!"

"I don't," admitted Bordman, his temper not of the best because of what
seemed unnecessary condescensions on Xosa II.

Aletha looked surprised.

"In the old days," she explained, "back on Earth, if a man scalped an
enemy, he counted coup. The first to strike an enemy in a battle counted
coup, too--a lesser one. Nowadays a man counts coups for different
things, but Ralph's three eagle-feathers mean he's entitled to as much
respect as a warrior in the old days who, three separate times, had
killed and scalped an enemy warrior in the middle of his own camp. And
he is, too!"

Bordman grunted.

"Barbarous, I'd say!"

"If you like," said Aletha. "But it's something to be proud of--and one
doesn't count coup for making a lot of money!" Then she paused and said
curtly: "The word 'snobbish' fits it better than 'barbarous.' We are
snobs! But when the head of a clan stands up in Council in the Big Tepee
on Algonka, representing his clan, and men have to carry the ends of the
feather headdress with all the coups the members of his clan have
earned--why one is proud to belong to that clan!" She added defiantly,
"Even watching it on a vision-screen!"

Dr. Chuka opened the outer door. Blinding light poured in. He did not
enter--and his body glistened with sweat.

"Ready for you, Mr. Bordman!"

Bordman adjusted his goggles and turned on the motors of his heat-suit.
He went out the door.

* * * * *

The heat and light outside were oppressive. He darkened