The man held a shovel, but he had not raised it to defend himself. His posturedid not seem brave, but rather phlegmatic. Could it be he did not understand hisdanger?

"Hurry!" I cried to the kaiila.

The paws of Grunt's beast thundered beside my own. "He is insane!" cried Grunt.

The beast itself seemed puzzled, uncertain, regarding the man.

Never before, perhaps, had it found itself viewed with such incomprehension.

The men wore gray garments, open at the bottom, which fell between the knee andankle.

The beast turned its head suddenly to face us. In less than a handful of Ehn Ipulled up the kaiila, rearing and squealing, between the beast and the man.

The beast snarled and took a step backward. I saw that it was neither Kog norSardak.

"Get back!" I warned the men.

Obediently they all, including the fellow who had been most forward, drew back.

I did not take my eyes from the beast. It raised one darkly stained paw. Thehair between the digits was matted and stuck together. I supposed this was fromthe kill a pasang or so back.

I backed the kaiila a step or two from the beast. "Back away," I told the men.

They obeyed.

The fur of the beast was rent and thick, here and there, with clotted blood. Ithink, more than once, it might have been struck with lances. It had perhapslost consciousness in the grass, from the loss of blood, and had been left fordead. It was not the sort of thing the red savages would mutilate. They wereunfamiliar with it. They would presumably classify it with sleen or urts, notmen.

The beast, snarling, took a step forward.

"It is going to attack," said Grunt. "I can kill it," he said. He raised thecrossbow.

"Do not fire," I said.

Grunt did not discharge the weapon.

"Look at it," I said.

The beast regarded Grunt, and then myself. Its lips curled back over the doublering of white fangs.

"It is showing contempt for us," I said.

"Contempt?" said Grunt, puzzled.

"Yes," I said. "You see, he is not similarly armed."

"It is a beast," said Grunt. But he lowered the weapon.

"It is a Kur," I said.

The beast then backed away from us, snarling. After a few feet it turned anddropped to all fours, moving through the grass. It did not look back.

I moved the kaiila a few feet forward, to where it had originally stood in thegrass. I wished to study the pattern of grasses there. Then I returned to whereGrunt, and the others, were waiting.

"You should have let me kill it," said Grunt.

"Perhaps," I said.

"Why did you not have me fire?" asked Grunt.

"It has to do with codes," I said.

"Who are you, truly?" asked Grunt.

"One to whom codes were once familiar," I said, "one by whom they have neverbeen completely forgotten."

I brought my kaiila about, and before the fellow who had been most obviouslythreatened by the beast.

"I feared there might be violence," he said.

"I have examined the grass, whence the beast arose," I said. "It had beenapproaching you, unseen. It was stalking you."

"I am Pumpkin," he said. "Peace and light, and tranquility, and contentment andgoodness be unto you."

"It was stalking you," I said, the kaiila moving uneasily beneath me.

"Sweetness be unto you," said the fellow.

"Did you not realize the danger in which you stood? I asked. "You could havebeen killed."

"It is fortunate, then, that you intervened," be said.

"Are you so brave," I asked, "that you faced the beast so calmly?"

"What is life? What is death?" he asked. "Both are unimportant."

I looked at the fellow, puzzled. Then I looked, too, to the others, standingabout. I saw now they wore gray dresses, probably their only garments. The hemsof these dresses fell between their knees and their ankles. Men, they appearedungainly and foolish in these garments. Their shoulders were slumped. Their eyeswere spiritless and empty. Rags were bound about their feet. I saw, however, tomy interest, that two of them now held feathered lances.

I looked again to the fellow who had been most threatened by the beast.

"Sweetness be unto you," he said, smiling.

I saw then that he had not been brave. It had been only that he had little tolive for. Indeed, I wondered if he had been courting destruction. He had noteven raised his shovel to defend himself.

"Who are you?" I asked these fellows.

"We are joyful dung," said one of the fellows, "enriching and beautifying theearth."

"We are sparkles on the water, making the streams pretty," said another.

"We are flowers growing in the fields," said another.

"We are nice," said another.

"We are good," said another.

I then again regarded he who seemed to be foremost among them, he who had calledhimself Pumpkin.

"You are leader here?" I asked.

"No, no!" he said. "We are all the same. We are sames! We are not not-the-sames!" In this moment he had showed emotion, fear. He moved back,putting himself with the others.

I regarded them.

"We are all equal," he said. "We are all the same."

"How do you know?" I asked.

"We must be equal," he said. "It is the teaching."

"Is the teaching true?" I asked.

"Yes," said the man.

"How do you know?" I asked.

"It is the test of truth," he said.

"How do you know?" I asked.

"It is in the teaching," he said.

"Your teaching, then," I said, "is a circle, unsupported, floating in the air."

"The teaching does not need support," said the fellow. "It is in and of itself: It is a golden circle, self-sustained and eternal."

"How do you know?" I asked.

"It is in the teaching itself," said a fellow.

"What of your reason?" I asked. "Do you have any use for it?"

"Reason is very precious," said a fellow.

"Properly understood and employed it is fully compatible with the teaching, and,in its highest office, exists to serve the teaching."

"What, then, of the evidence of your senses?" I asked. "The senses arenotoriously untrustworthy," said one of the fellows.

"What in the senses might seem to confirm the teaching may be kept," said one ofthem. "What might, mistakenly, seem incompatible with the teaching is to bedisregarded."

"What arguments, or what sorts of evidence, if it could be produced," I asked,"might you take as indicating the falsity of the teaching?"

"Nothing is to be permitted to indicate the falsity of the teaching," said thefellow who had been foremost among them.

"That is in the teaching," explained another one of them.

"A teaching which cannot be disconfirmed cannot be confirmed, either," I said.

"A teaching which cannot, even in theory, be disconfirmed is not true, butempty. If the world cannot speak to it, it does not speak of the world. Itspeaks of nothing. It is babble, twaddle as vacant as it is vain and inane."

"These are deep matters," said the fellow I had taken to be their leader. "Asthey are not in the teaching, we need not concern ourselves with them."

"Are you happy?" I asked. Verbal formulas, even vacuous ones, like music ormedicine, I knew, might have empirical effects. So, too, of course, tight havetruncheons and green fruit.

"Oh, yes," said the first fellow quickly. "We are wondrously happy."

"Yes," said several of the others.

"Sweetness be unto you," said another.

"You do not seem happy," I said. I had seldom seen a more tedious, bedraggled,limp set of organisms.

"We are happy," insisted one of them.

"True happiness," said another, "is keeping the Teaching."

I drew forth my blade, suddenly, and drew it back, as though to slash at theforemost fellow. He lifted his head and turned his neck toward me. "Peace, andlight, and tranquility, and contentment and goodness, be unto you," he said.

"Interesting," I said, thrusting the blade back in my scabbard.