Verrill shrugged. "He's old, so old he hasn't much time left. He'd rather die a little sooner than admit that there is anything I could possibly do for him. Letting me treat him would be casting serious reflections on the fire god. How was the raid--did it pay?" "Pretty well, all around." "A few more sheep, and some more work for me!" "More than that," Ardelan corrected. "There's a nice looking valley, but it's always been deadly. Poisonous from the beginning. We've never used it. That stranger, that Dawson, must have found out that the curse is no longer on the soil. They've been using it for their flocks. Well, it's ours, it always has been, so we ran them out." "They'll come back?" "Of course they will; but with enough raids, we'll discourage them, and then we can send some of our own people to hold it permanently. Build a settlement." Verrill had heard talk of all this, but not in such clear terms; now, having got it from the chief, he could take notice, and he was prepared. "Your oldest son will live there," Verrill surmised, "to represent you?" Ardelan nodded. "Good experience for him against the day of my death, when he will rule the tribe." "That's been worrying you." Ardelan's brows bristled and his eyes went fierce. "Worrying about the day of my death--what do you mean?" "I meant, worrying about your son's taking an exposed outpost." "It's good experience for him." "It's worrying you. The next son is six years younger." The chief grimaced. "He's a reckless young fool and a show-off. Like I was at his age. And I don't think he has my luck." "Next time there's a raid," Verrill promised, "I'll go. It will be good for all your men, not just for him in case he is wounded. It won't look as though you're favoring your son." Ardelan grumbled something midway between throat and beard, and gave Verrill a gesture of dismissal. Verrill knew when to stop pressing a point; and he knew also that further words had not been needed. In this he was right. He rode out with others who went to reconnoiter the dangerous valley, and there was no objection. He rode well. His presence was good for the morale of the raiders. And while he caught no sight of Dawson, he won prestige from supposedly having come to the frontier camps to get a shot at his enemy. Actually, he rather hoped that he would not have any such chance to settle the feud ... it would be much more satisfactory to have Dawson witness his return to Venus with the Fire of Skanderbek. And of an evening, when he was at home with Falana, she would sit with him as he watched Venus hanging low over the rimrock, white and splendid; she was finishing her term as evening star. And the sight of that far-off globe made him more than homesick. It accentuated his feeling of remoteness and of exile, and at the same time made him uneasy and uncomfortable, as though he and his Terrestrian redhead were somehow under Linda's eyes.