The other four talked constantly. Chiang and the two women seemed to have accepted MacAllister in spite of his abrasiveness. Nightingale was once again hampered by his natural shyness and de-fensiveness. He tried to make acute observations, throw in occasional witty remarks, but it didn't work. Nobody really seemed to listen to him. He was the outsider, and gradually he withdrew and concentrated his efforts simply on trying to keep up.

It should have been different. After all, they were the only five human beings on the planet. That fact alone should have bound them together, should have prevented the development of factions and militated against the exclusion of any single member.

It was unfair, especially in light of the fact he'd given them their one chance at survival.

By sundown, he was limping badly and was being actively assisted by Kellie. They'd arrived in a glade, and Hutch called a halt. Nightingale eased himself gratefully to the ground, killed his field, pulled off his shoes, and rubbed his soles. By God it felt good.

He applied more of the salve from the medkit. Warmth spread through his feet, and then a general sense of relief.

The others fell quiet.

And something moved in the shrubbery.

There was a scramble for weapons.

The thing looked like a big scorpion, a scorpion the size of a child's wagon. It had a pair of antennas, which swept them in a kind of rhythm. Mandibles clicked audibly. The tail was shorter by far, and bisected. It had eight legs.

"Stay still," said Hutch,

It didn't matter. At the same moment, the creature charged Chiang. Chiang fell over backward, firing wildly. Hutch and Kellie burned it simultaneously. The thing let go a high keening sound, changed direction, and went for Hutch. They caught it again, and the scorpion crashed into a rock, rolled over, and lay on its back with its legs moving weakly.

"That's the biggest bug I've ever seen," Chiang said, getting to his feet.

MacAllister examined his cutter. "It's a good weapon," he said. "Will it run down? How much energy does it have?"

"It'll recharge on its own," said Hutch. "Just like your suit. But yes, there are limits. Don't play with it."

It wasn't a scorpion, of course. There were major differences, other than size and the tail, which mounted no stinger. The narrowing between cephalothorax and abdomen wasn't correct. The eyes were wrong. The segmenting was unique. Its chelae were smaller. The head was more heavily armored. Not for the first time, Nightingale mourned the lost opportunity to examine this world's biology.

There had been some thought of stopping there for the night, but they now agreed unanimously that it would be a good idea to move on.

Nightingale had not been able to get used to the shortened days. When they finally made camp, an hour later, he was bone weary and half-starved. They were in light forest, on the crest of a long, gently curving ridge. It had gotten dark. Overhead the superluminals moved serenely among the constellations, and he would have given much to be aboard one of them. Nevertheless, he was, by God, keeping up.

They broke out the reddimeals.

Nobody was dressed for this kind of weather. The heaviest garment anyone wore was probably MacAllister's black sweater. The two women were in jumpsuits. Chiang had only a light pullover shirt and a pair of shorts. And Nightingale's slacks and casual shirt were designed for a far more balmy climate. None of this would have mattered much were it not that they had to shut off the e-suits to eat.

They collected some wood and built a fire. When it was up and burning steadily, they keyed the reddimeal containers, which cooked the food. Then, at a kind of prearranged signal, they got as close to the fire as they could, shut off the suits, and gobbled chicken, beef, and whatever else showed up in the dinners. Everything tasted good that night.

Kellie made coffee. Nightingale swallowed everything down and, as quickly as he could, buttoned up again. He hated having to gulp his food when he was so hungry. But it was just too cold to linger over it.

They held a council of war, and agreed it was time to think about testing some of the local food supply, in order to conserve the reddimeals. If they discovered the native stuff was inedible, they would have to resort to rationing. There should be some game in the woods, and Kellie suggested to everyone's horror that the scorpions might make a food source. If any more showed up.

No one wanted to discuss it further.

They asked Nightingale, the resident expert. Did he know what they could expect to find? Was the local food edible?

"No idea," he said. "Nobody knows. We terminated the mission too quickly, and what we learned was inconclusive. Deepsix biology uses levo sugars and not dextro. So that's okay. They use DNA to make proteins, which is good. You might get some nutrition, but I doubt it. You have at least an equal chance of being poisoned. The fact is we have a supply of reddimeals, and we're only talking about a few days.

"What I mean is…" He paused, then plunged ahead: "We don't have to worry about subsisting indefinitely. What we're really interested in is satisfying our appetites. We could ration, go on half meals. But that's not going to help old guys trying to walk long distances. There's no real way we can be sure about toxins or allergens. If there's, say, a poison, our immune system may not even recognize it, or if it did, it might have no defense against it. I think we're reasonably safe, but I can't guarantee it."

Hutch nodded, called Embry on Wildside, and asked for advice.

"Best would be not to go near anything local," she said.

"That'll give us some very hungry people."

Embry wasted no time becoming irritated. "Better hungry than dead."

There was a long silence. "If you really have to do this," she continued, "have someone sample the stuff first. A very small sample. Very small. Give it some time. A half hour, at least. If he doesn't throw up, or get diarrhea-"

"Or fall over," said MacAllister.

"— or fall over, you're in business." Embry took a deep breath. "Hutch," she said, "I feel guilty about the way things turned out."

"It's okay. You didn't cause the quake."

"Still… Well, anyhow, I wanted to wish you luck. Anything I can do, I'm here."

"I know."

They'd covered eleven kilometers that first day. Not bad, considering they'd gotten a late start, had to detour around the crevice, and were walking through snow.

They had, of course, no bedding. Nightingale made himself as comfortable as he could, lay back in the firelight, and wondered if his body would ever feel right again.

They decided to forget trying to divide the nineteen-hour days into standard temporal terminology, because nobody was ever quite sure what nine o'clock actually meant. Instead they thought in terms of dusk and dawn, noon and midnight. There were roughly nine hours of darkness, which they divided into four watches. Midnight came when Morgan's World rose.

Nightingale unstrapped his oxygen converter and laid it beside him, where it would continue to work, without pressing into his shoulders. He slept for a while, woke, noticed that the fire had burned down, heard someone throw a fresh branch onto it, slept some more, and eventually found himself gazing up at the stars.

Morgan had moved over into the west. It was framed within a stellar rectangle. A couple of stars lined up under the rectangle, providing it with a stand or stem. To primitive people, he thought, it would have become a constellation. A flower, perhaps. Or a tree. Or a cup.

Morgan. It was a commonplace name for a world-killer.

It glittered through the branches, the brightest star in the sky.

Clouds were approaching from the west. By the time Chiang knelt beside him and told him the watch was his, the only visible light was the fire.