He stopped to tread water, barely moving his tired legs and fluttering his palms. He thought he heard the rushing sound of a powered boat, but he could not be sure. At that moment he would not have cared; capture would have been relief. But the sound, or ghost of a sound, died away and he was again in a grey and featureless wilderness.

He arched his back to shift again to swimming and his toe struck bottom. Gingerly he felt for it-yes, bottom... with his chin out of water. He stood for a moment or two and rested, then felt around. Bottom dropped away on one side, seemed level or even to rise a little in another direction.

Shortly his shoulders were out with his feet still in the muck. Feeling his way like a blind man, his eyes useless save for balancing, he groped out the contour, finding bits that rose, then forced to retreat as the vein played out.

He was out of water to his waist when his eyes spotted a darker streak through the fog; he went toward it, was again up to his neck. Then the bottom rose rapidly; a few moments later he scrambled up on dry land.

He did not have the courage yet to do anything more than move inland a few feet and place between himself and the water a clump of Chika trees. Screened thus from search operations conducted from boats he looked himself over. Clinging to his legs were a dozen or more mud lice, each as large as a child's hand. With repugnance he brushed them off, then removed his shorts and shirt, found several more and disposed of them. He told himself that he was lucky not to have encountered anything worse-the dragons had many evolutionary cousins, bearing much the same relationship to them that gorillas do to men. Many of these creatures are amphibious-another reason why Venus colonials do not swim.

Reluctantly Don put his wet and filthy clothes back on, sat down with his back to a tree trunk, and rested. He was still doing so when he again heard the sound of a power boat; this time there was no mistaking it. He sat still, depending on the trees to cover him and hoping that it would go away.

It came in close to shore and cruised along it to his right. He was beginning to feel relief when the turbine stopped. In the stillness he could hear voices. "We'll have to reconnoiter this hunk of mud. Okay, Curly-you and Joe."

"What does this guy look like, corporal?"

"Now, I'll tell you-the captain didn't say. He's a young fellow, though, about your age. You just arrest anything that walks. He's not armed."

"I wish I was back in Birmingham."

"Get going."

Don got going, too - in the other direction, as fast and as silently as possible. The island was fairly well covered; he hoped that it was large as well-a precarious game of hideand-seek was all the tactics he could think of. He had covered perhaps a hundred yards when he was scared out of his wits by movement up ahead; he realized with desperation that the boat party might have landed two patrols.

His panic died down when he discovered that what he was seeing were not men but gregarians. They spotted him, too, and came dancing up, bleating welcome, and crowding up against him.

"Quiet!" he said in a sharp whisper. "You'll get me caughtl"

The move-overs paid no attention to that; they wanted to play. He endeavored to pay no attention to them but moved forward again, closely accompanied by the whole group, some five. He was still wondering how to keep from being loved to death-or at least back into captivity-when they came out into the clearing.

Here was the rest of the herd, more than two hundred head, from babies that butted against his knees up to the grey-bearded old patriarch, fat in the belly and reaching as high as Don's shoulder. They all welcomed him and wanted him to stay a while.

One thing that had worried him was now cleared up-he had not swum in a circle and blundered back onto Main Island. The only move-overs on Main Island were half-domesticated scavengers such as those which had hung around the restaurant; there were no herds.

It suddenly occurred to him that it was barely possible that he might turn the ubiquitous friendliness of the bipeds into an advantage rather than a sure giveaway. They would not let him be; that was sure. If he left the herd, some of them were certain to trail along, bleating and snorting and making themselves and him conspicuous. On the other hand...

He moved straight out into the clearing, pushing his friends aside as he went. He shoved himself right into the center of the herd and sat down on the ground.

Three of the babies promptly climbed into his lap. He let them stay. Adults and half-grown bucks crowded around him bleating and snuffling and trying to nuzzle the top of his head. He let them-he was now surrounded by a wall of flesh. From time to time one of the inner circle would be shouldered out of the way and would go back to grazing but there were always enough around him to block out his view of his surroundings. He waited.

After a considerable time he heard more excited bleating from the fringe of the herd. For a moment be thought his personal guard would be seduced away by this new excitement, but the inner circle preferred to keep their privileged positions the wall held. Again he heard voices.

"For Pete's sake-it's a whole flock of those silly billies!" Then-"Hey! Get down! Quit licking my face!"

Carly's voice replied, "I think he's fallen in love with you, Joe. Say-Soapy said to arrest anything that walks: shall we take this one back to him?"

"Stow it!" There were sounds of scuffling, then the high bleating of a move-over both surprised and hurt.

"Maybe we ought to burn one and take it back anyway,'" Curly went on. "I hear they are mighty tasty eating."

"You turn this into a hunting party and Soapy will haul you up before the Old Man. Come on-we got work to do."

Don could follow their progress around the edge of the herd. He could even tell by the sounds when the two soldiers managed to cuff and kick the most persistent of the creatures off their trail. He continued to sit there long after they were gone, tickling the chin of a baby which had gone to sleep in his lap, and resting himself.

Presently it began to grow dark. The herd started to bed down for the night. By the time it was fully dark they were all lying down except the sentries around the edge. Because he was dead tired and completely lacking in any plan of action Don bedded down with them, his head cradled on a soft and velvety back and himself in turn half supporting a couple of youngsters.

For a while he thought about his predicament, then he thought about nothing.

The herd stirred and he awakened. There was much snorting and stomping mixed with the whimpering complaints of the young, still not fully awake. Don got his bearings and got to his own feet; he knew vaguely what to expect-the herd was about to migrate. Gregarians rarely grazed the same island two days in a row. They slept the first part of the night, then moved out before dawn when their natural enemies were least active. They forded from one island to another, using paths through the water known-possibly by instinct-to the herd leaders. For that matter, gregarians could swim, but they rarely did so.

Don thought: well, I'll soon be rid of them. Nice people, but too much is too much. Then he thought better of it-if the move-overs were moving to another island it was sure that it would not be Main Island and it would certainly have to be farther away from Main Island than was this one. What could he lose?

He felt a bit light-headed but the logic seemed right; when the herd moved out he worked his way up near the van. The leader took them down the island about a quarter of a mile, then stepped off into the water. It was still so nearly pitch dark that Don was not aware of it until he too stepped into it. It was only up to his ankles and did not get much deeper. Don splashed along almost at a dogtrot, trying to stay inside the body of the herd so that he would run no chances of blundering into deeper water in the darkness. He hoped that this was not one of the migrations involving swimming.