However, the Mound remained quiet. With everything done, he gave Peer a last ride back to the _Asteroid_ on the tractor, ran it up the ramp into the storage section and closed the rear lock. Then they discovered they'd left their lunch containers lying among the rocks. If he'd been alone, Channok would have left them there. But Peer looked so matter-of-fact about it that he detached the tractor's headlight and started back with her on foot. It was only a couple of hundred yards, and they found the containers without any difficulty. The Mound seemed to have moved a little closer again, but not too much. He gave it only a casual glance this time. "Where are your friends, the ghouls?" he inquired, shining the light around the rocks as they started back. The grisly creatures had put in a few cautious appearances during the afternoon, but their nerves seemed to have suffered even more than his own from all that had happened. "The ghouls always hit their burrows at sundown," Peer explained. "They're not like the story ones." "What do they find to eat around here?" Channok inquired. "Some sorts of rocks. They've got no real teeth but their mouth is like a grinder inside. Most of the rest of their insides, too, Santis said. I had a tame one I used to pitch stones at and he'd snap 'em up. But all that weren't blue he'd spit out. The blue ones went right down--you could hear them crunching for about a foot." "What a diet!" Channok commented. Then he stopped short. "Say, Peer! If they bite like that, they could chew right into our cache!" "They won't," said Peer. "Come on." "How do you know?" Channok asked, following her. "They can't bite through a good grade of steel-alloy. And they don't like its taste anyhow. Santis said so." * * * * * Well, it had been Santis this and Santis that for quite a while now! Peer's father seemed to be on record with a definite opinion on just about everything. And what made him think he knew what a ghoul liked to chew on? Perhaps Channok couldn't be blamed too much. He was dog-tired and dirty and hungry. He'd killed his first two men that day, and not in fair fight either but with an assassin's sneak thrusts, from behind and by trickery; and he'd buried them, too. He'd seen the shining ISS disclose itself in action as something very tarnished and ugly, and a salvaged ship worth a fortune go up in a cloud of writhing grey smoke.... There had been a number of other things--close shaves that had felt too close, mostly. At any rate, Channok stated, in flat unequivocal terms, that he didn't wish to hear anything else that Santis had said. Not ever! "You're taking the wrong attitude," Peer informed him, frowning. "Santis is a very smart man. He could teach you a lot!" "What makes you think I want to learn anything from a space-rat?" Channok inquired, exasperated.