They greeted each other listlessly. They had not yet discovered those of their number who had been murdered. The gaunt young man summoned his strength and moved toward the shelter where Calhoun had covered an unseemly sight with branches. Murgatroyd whimpered. There came another rustling sound. But this had nothing of feebleness in it. Someone pushed branches forthrightly out of his way. He came striding confidently into the small open space. He was well-fleshed, and his color was excellent. Calhoun automatically judged him to be in superlative good health, slightly over-fleshed, and of that physical type which suffers very few psychosomatic troubles because it lives strictly and enjoyably in the present. Calhoun stood up. He stepped out into the fading light just as the sturdy last-comer grinned at the group of plague-stricken semi-skeletons. "Back, eh?" he said amiably. "Saved me a lot of trouble. I'll make one job of it." With leisurely confidence he reached to the blaster at his hip. "Drop it!" snapped Calhoun, from quartering behind him. "Drop it!" The sturdy man whirled. He saw Calhoun with a crossbow raised to cover him. There was light enough to show that it was not a blast-rifle--in fact, that it was no weapon of any kind modern men would ordinarily know. But much more significant to the sturdy man was the fact that Calhoun wore a uniform and was in good health. He snatched out his blast-pistol with professional alertness. And Calhoun shot him with the crossbow. It happened that he shot him dead. IV "Statistically, it must be recognized that no human action is without consequences to the man who acts. Again statistically, it must be recognized that the consequences of an action tend with strong probability to follow the general pattern of the action. A violent action, for example, has a strong probability of violent consequences, and since some at least of the consequences of an act must affect the person acting, a man who acts violently exposes himself to the probability that chance consequences which affect him, if unfavorable, will be violently so." _Probability and Human Conduct_ Fitzgerald