more thousand years by irrigation, and forget about immigrating to
Tareesh."

"Well, maybe, in a hundred thousand years, our descendants will build a
ship and go to Doorsha, then," Olva considered.

"Our descendants?" Eldra looked at her in surprize. "You mean, then...?"

* * * * *

Kyna chuckled. "Eldra, you are an awful innocent, about anything that
doesn't have a breech-action or a recoil-mechanism," she said. "Why do
you think the women on this expedition outnumbered the men seven to
five, and why do you think there were so many obstetricians and
pediatricians in the med. staff? We were sent out to put a human
population on Tareesh, weren't we? Well, here we are."

"But.... Aren't we ever going to...?" Varnis began. "Won't we ever see
anybody else, or do anything but just live here, like animals, without
machines or ground-cars or aircraft or houses or anything?" Then she
began to sob bitterly.

Analea, who had been cleaning a carbine that had gotten covered with
loose earth during the explosion, laid it down and went to Varnis,
putting her arm around the other girl and comforting her. Kalvar Dard
picked up the carbine she had laid down.

"Now, let's see," he began. "We have two heavy rifles, six carbines, and
eight pistols, and these two bags of bombs. How much ammunition,
counting what's in our belts, do we have?"

They took stock of their slender resources, even Varnis joining in the
task, as he had hoped she would. There were over two thousand rounds for
the pistols, better than fifteen hundred for the carbines, and four
hundred for the two big-game guns. They had some spare clothing, mostly
space-suit undergarments, enough bed-robes, one hand-axe, two
flashlights, a first-aid kit, and three atomic lighters. Each one had a
combat-dagger. There was enough tinned food for about a week.

"We'll have to begin looking for game and edible plants, right away,"
Glav considered. "I suppose there is game, of some sort; but our
ammunition won't last forever."

"We'll have to make it last as long as we can; and we'll have to begin
improvising weapons," Dard told him. "Throwing-spears, and
throwing-axes. If we can find metal, or any recognizable ore that we can
smelt, we'll use that; if not, we'll use chipped stone. Also, we can
learn to make snares and traps, after we learn the habits of the animals
on this planet. By the time the ammunition's gone, we ought to have
learned to do