ages.

The blaster would be no use here; it was too powerful, and would destroy
the clothing that the man was wearing. He unfastened a strap from his
belt and attached it to a stone to form a hand-loop, then, inched
forward behind the lone herb-gatherer. When he was close enough, he
straightened and rushed forward, swinging his improvised weapon. The man
heard him and turned, too late.

* * * * *

After undressing his victim, Hradzka used the mattock to finish him, and
then to dig a grave. The fugitive buried his own clothes with the
murdered man, and donned the faded blue shirt, rough shoes, worn
trousers and jacket. The blaster he concealed under the jacket, and he
kept a few other Hundredth Century gadgets; these he would hide
somewhere closer to his center of operations.

He had kept, among other things, a small box of food-concentrate
capsules, and in one pocket of the newly acquired jacket he found a
package containing food. It was rough and unappetizing fare--slices of
cold cooked meat between slices of some cereal substance. He ate these
before filling in the grave, and put the paper wrappings in with the
dead man. Then, his work finished, he threw the mattock into the brush
and set out again, grimacing disgustedly and scratching himself. The
clothing he had appropriated was verminous.

Crossing another mountain, he descended into a second valley, and, for a
time, lost his way among a tangle of narrow ravines. It was dark by the
time he mounted a hill and found himself looking down another valley, in
which a few scattered lights gave evidence of human habitations. Not
wishing to arouse suspicion by approaching these in the night-time, he
found a place among some young evergreens where he could sleep.

The next morning, having breakfasted on a concentrate capsule, he found
a hiding-place for his blaster in a hollow tree. It was in a
sufficiently prominent position so that he could easily find it again,
and at the same time unlikely to be discovered by some native. Then he
went down into the inhabited valley.

He was surprised at the ease with which he established contact with the
natives. The first dwelling which he approached, a cluster of
farm-buildings at the upper end of the valley, gave him shelter. There
was a man, clad in the same sort of rough garments Hradzka had taken
from the body of the herb-gatherer, and a woman in a faded and shapeless
dress. The man was thin a