“Off this ship,” Badger said. “We'll take one of the escape pods and leave this death ship behind. We'll go down to AR-32.”

“Yeah, okay,” Glint said. Then he thought of some-thing. “But where'll we go after that, Red? There's no civilization down there!”

“Well then make contact with Lancet.”

Glint turned it over in his mind. Lancet? Dimly he remembered that that was the name of the Bio-Pharm ship that had nuked the other ship, the Valparaiso something. The one they had gotten the flight recorder from.

“Red, are you sure we want to do that? Those people are killers!”

“Of course I'm sure. We're on their side now. They'll give us good money for turning our information over to them. They're going to be very interested to hear about Captain Hoban and the doctor and what they're up to. We'll be heroes.”

“I don't know,” Glint said.

“Trust me, “ Badger said. “Anynow, what else can you do?”

“I guess you're right,” Glint said. You could tell from his voice that it was a load off his mind, letting Badger make the decisions for both of them.

The others in the party weren't interested in asking questions. They wanted to be led, to be told what to do, and that was what Badger liked to do, lead people. It made him feel strong and good, until something went wrong, which, unfortunately, it did all too often. But not this time. This time he knew what he was doing.

“Come on,” Badger said. “We've got to get the spare lander.”

Andy Groggins said, “They're apt to be waiting for us there, Red.”

“If they are,” Badger said, “then so much the worse for them.

46

Stan sat in the lander and watched through Norbert's viewing screen as the robot's view of AR-32 swayed precipitously and began to slide off the screen. The lander was still vibrating after its bobsled descent through AR-32's turbulent atmosphere. Stan felt battered and bruised: sitting at the controls trying to steer all that liveliness and power to a safe landing was like going fifteen rounds with the Jolly Green Giant. Stan still wasn't sure which had won.

He fine-tuned the knobs on the viewing screen, trying to focus on the images Norbert was sending back from the surface of AR-32. The picture lurched with each of the robot's footsteps, and jumped in and out of focus.

Stan hated out-of-sync pictures like that. They seemed to trigger some long-dormant primeval receptor in his brain stem. He found the oscillations of the picture upsetting his own psychic balance.

He tried consciously to steady himself. He didn't want to go freaking out now, but the way that picture jumped was going to do it to him yet, and they'd have to scrape him off the wall.

Then the picture stabilized and the focus locked in. Stan was looking at a pile of wind-polished boulders in various shades of orange and pink. When Norbert raised his head, Stan could see ahead of him a narrow valley of stone and gravel. The swirling clouds of dust made visibility difficult after about fifty feet.

“Look at this place,” Stan remarked to Julie. “We haven't seen a green thing since we got here. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that this place has no natural vegetation. None on the surface, anyhow.”

“If plants won't grow here,” Julie remarked, “how are the aliens able to sustain themselves?”

“I said there was no vegetation on the surface,” Stan said. “Belowground it could be a very different story. There's an ant species that practices underground gardening. The aliens might have followed the same course of evolution.”

“This isn't their home world, is it?” Julie asked.

“I doubt it very much. It's extremely unlikely that they evolved here. No one knows the location of their original home planet.”

“So how'd they get here?”

“I have no idea. But however they did, they must have brought their culture with them. And their nasty habits.”

Norbert's picture began to bounce again.

“He's going uphill,” Stan said. “Have you spotted Mac yet?”

“He ran on ahead,” Julie said. “He's out of the picture now.”

Gill said, “There's something in the viewer's top right quadrant.”

Stan studied it. “Yes, there is. Norbert, magnify that quadrant.”

Norbert did so. The object sharpened, resolving from a black dot to a blocky shape of lines and angles.

Gill said, “It looks like a cow skeleton, Doctor.” Norbert walked over to it. Up close, it did turn out to be a cow skeleton, though the head was missing. Norbert panned the remains. Mac had found it, too, and had pulled loose a thighbone. The animal's rib cage had been exploded outward under great pressure from something inside.

“What could have done that?” Julie asked.

“Probably a chestburner,” Stan said, alluding to the young of the alien species.

“I doubt that cow creature came here naturally,” Gill put in.

“Of course it didn't,” Stan agreed. “If those bones could speak, I think we'd find that cow and a lot of her sisters were brought to this planet from Earth.”

“As hosts for the alien young?” Julie asked.

“No doubt. That's what Neo-Pharm was up to back in those days. And as T-bone steaks for the crew of the Lancet.”

“Speaking of Lancet,” Julie said, “I wonder when we're going to run into them?”

“Soon enough, no doubt,” Stan said. He studied the image Norbert was sending. “Hello, what's that? Another cow skeleton?”

“Lower left quadrant, Norbert,” Julie said, spotting it.

Norbert turned obediently and walked over. Within twenty yards he came across the body of an alien.

It lay facedown in the gravel, its long black form alternately concealed and revealed by the windows of dust that blew incessantly across the valley floor.

At Stan's instruction, Norbert viewed it through an infrared scanner, and then an ultraviolet, to make sure the body wasn't booby-trapped.

It appeared to be free of danger. He approached and bent over it, with Mac — hair bristling and teeth barred — coming along at his heels.

“What can you see?” Stan asked.

“It is an alien,” Norbert replied. “There is no doubt of that. It is perfectly motionless, but not dead. There is no sign of life, but also no sign of damage or decay. It looks almost as if it could be asleep, I'm switching to ultrasonic scanner to conduct a survey of the internal organs.”

After a short delay Norbert reported again. “It's internal organs are functioning, but at a very slow rate. It's like it's asleep or unconscious. There are several more tests I could try —“

Whatever Norbert had in mind, it didn't happen, because Mac chose that moment to sense movement on the other side of a nearby hill and ran there, barking. Norbert got up and followed.

When he reached the crest of the hill and looked over, the first thing he noticed was the small, fatbellied little spaceship, resting on its supports, nose pointed skyward, ready for takeoff.

The second thing he noticed was the aliens, a dozen or so of them, lying motionless on the ground, just like the one he had left.

And the third thing he noticed were the humans, three of them, bending over the unconscious aliens.