Here and there huddled little crowded knots of people, dancing from one foot to another on the hot sand and yet apparently afraid to go in the water. Dan looked to the Milbuns for some clue and saw them darting intense calculating glances at the beach and the water. Then Mr. Milbun yelled, "_Run for it!_" A slavering sound reached Dan's ear. He sprinted after the Milbuns, burst through the crowd in a headlong bolt for the cove, then swam as fast as he could to keep up with them as they raced for the opposite shore. They crawled out, strangling and gasping, and dragged themselves up on the sand. Dan lay, heaving in deep breaths, then rolled over and sat up. The air around them was split by screams, laced through with sobs, curses and groans. On the shore opposite, a mad dog darted across the crowded beach and emptied people into the cove. In the cove, a glistening black sweep of hide separated the water for an instant, then sank below. People thrashed, fought and went under. Dan looked up. On the wooden building beyond the cove and the beach was a broad sign: PORCYS PLANET REJUVENATION CENTER Dan read the sign three times. If this was rejuvenation, the Porcyns could have it. Beside Dan, Milbun stood up, still struggling for breath, and pulled his wife and Mavis to their feet. "Come on," he said. "We've _got_ to get through the swamp ahead of the grayboas!" * * * * * The rest of the day, they pushed through slimy muck up to their knees and sometimes up to their necks. Behind them, the crowd screamingly thinned out. That night, they washed in icy spring water, tore chunks of meat from a huge broiled creature turning on a spit and went to sleep in tents to the buzz and drone of creatures that shot their long needle noses through the walls like drillers hunting for oil. The following day, they spent carefully easing from crevice to narrow toehold up the sheer face of a mountain. Food and shelter were at the top. Jagged rocks and hungry creatures were at the bottom. That night, Dan slept right through an urgent buzz from Kielgaard. The next night, he woke enough to hear it, but he didn't have the strength to answer. Where, he thought, is the rejuvenation in this? Then he had a sudden glimmering. It was the Porcyn _race_ that was rejuvenated. The unfit of the Porcyns died violently. It took stamina just to live from one day to the next. Even the Milbuns were saying that this was the worst vacation ever. Trails slid out from under them. Trees fell toward them. Boulders bounded down steep slopes at them. At first, the Milbuns tried to remember forgotten sins for which all this might be repayment. But when there was the dull _boom_ of an explosion and they narrowly escaped a landslide, Milbun looked at the rocks across the trail with sunken red eyes. He sniffed the air and growled, "Undevised."