without firearms."

"Think we ought to camp here?"

Kalvar Dard shook his head. "No wood here for fuel, and the blast will
have scared away all the game. We'd better go upstream; if we go down,
we'll find the water roiled with mud and unfit to drink. And if the game
on this planet behave like the game-herds on the wastelands of Doorsha,
they'll run for high ground when frightened."

Varnis rose from where she had been sitting. Having mastered her
emotions, she was making a deliberate effort to show it.

"Let's make up packs out of this stuff," she suggested. "We can use the
bedding and spare clothing to bundle up the food and ammunition."

They made up packs and slung them, then climbed out of the gully. Off to
the left, the grass was burning in a wide circle around the crater left
by the explosion of the rocket-boat. Kalvar Dard, carrying one of the
heavy rifles, took the lead. Beside and a little behind him, Analea
walked, her carbine ready. Glav, with the other heavy rifle, brought up
in the rear, with Olva covering for him, and between, the other girls
walked, two and two.

Ahead, on the far horizon, was a distance-blue line of mountains. The
little company turned their faces toward them and moved slowly away,
across the empty sea of grass.

3

They had been walking, now, for five years. Kalvar Dard still led, the
heavy rifle cradled in the crook of his left arm and a sack of bombs
slung from his shoulder, his eyes forever shifting to right and left
searching for hidden danger. The clothes in which he had jumped from the
rocket-boat were patched and ragged; his shoes had been replaced by high
laced buskins of smoke-tanned hide. He was bearded, now, and his hair
had been roughly trimmed with the edge of his dagger.

Analea still walked beside him, but her carbine was slung, and she
carried three spears with chipped flint heads; one heavy weapon, to be
thrown by hand or used for stabbing, and two light javelins to be thrown
with the aid of the hooked throwing-stick Glav had invented. Beside her
trudged a four-year old boy, hers and Dard's, and on her back, in a
fur-lined net bag, she carried their six-month-old baby.

In the rear, Glav still kept his place with the other big-game gun, and
Olva walked beside him with carbine and spears; in front of them, their
three-year-old daughter toddled. Between vanguard and rearguard, the
rest of the party walked: Varnis, carrying her baby on her back, and
Dor