nty during the night. One
hundred more had died from the Hell Fever that often followed exposure
and killed within an hour.

He went the half mile to the group that had arrived on the second
cruiser as soon as he had eaten a delayed breakfast. He saw, before he
had quite reached the other group, that the _Constellation_'s Lieutenant
Commander, Vincent Lake, was in charge of it.

Lake, a tall, hard-jawed man with pale blue eyes under pale brows,
walked forth to meet him as soon as he recognized him.

"Glad to see you're still alive," Lake greeted him. "I thought that
second Gern blast got you along with the others."

"I was visiting midship and wasn't home when it happened," he said.

He looked at Lake's group of Rejects, in their misery and uncertainty so
much like his own, and asked, "How was it last night?"

"Bad--damned bad," Lake said. "Prowlers and Hell Fever, and no wood for
fires. Two hundred died last night."

"I came down to see if anyone was in charge here and to tell them that
we'll have to move into the woods at once--today. We'll have plenty of
wood for the fires there, some protection from the wind, and by
combining our defenses we can stand off the prowlers better."

Lake agreed. When the brief discussion of plans was finished he asked,
"How much do you know about Ragnarok?"

"Not much," Prentiss answered. "We didn't stay to study it very long.
There are no heavy metals on Ragnarok's other sun. Its position in the
advance of the resources of any value. We gave Ragnarok a quick survey
and when the sixth man died we marked it on the chart as uninhabitable
and went on our way.

"As you probably know, that bright blue star is Ragnarok's other sun.
It's position in the advance of the yellow sun shows the season to be
early spring. When summer comes Ragnarok will swing between the two suns
and the heat will be something no human has ever endured. Nor the cold,
when winter comes.

"I know of no edible plants, although there might be some. There are a
few species of rodent-like animals--they're scavengers--and a herbivore
we called the woods goat. The prowlers are the dominant form of life on
Ragnarok and I suspect their intelligence is a good deal higher than we
would like it to be. There will be a constant battle for survival with
them.

"There's another animal, not as intelligent as the prowlers but just as
dangerous--the unicorn. The unicorns are big and fast and they travel in
herds. I haven't