He crossed the near-darkness of the needle-strewn glade to his own tent. How bright were these stars and how sweet and cold was this raw air. In York Dome, with its thirty million citizens and its mild, conditioned atmosphere, one saw the stars only through telescreens or viewing ports. Somewhere in the darkness a mournful wail, an aching ghost of a howl, sounded, and faded into the unfamiliar chirps, and hums of the night prowlers of the Sullan uplands.... There was a choked scream from nearby and Brink heard the crashing progress of Rea Smyt toward her tent. The zippered entrance brightened and then dimmed as she shut it behind her. Brink shrugged. Stooping he entered his own savory-smelling tent. Tzal had covered the sleeping cots with the gay scarlet-and-blue blankets provided them, and their sliced and steaming rations were ready on the extended table shelf of the cart. Tzal smiled at him from the cot that doubled as a chair. "Better eat before it gets cold," she invited, and helped herself to a serving of salmon-hued promine. "Tomorrow," Brink said as he seated himself beside her, "we will dine on real meat--meat that I kill." "Of course," Tzal agreed placidly. * * * * * Brink was remembering that easy promise, a month later, as he bound the last raggedly split shake atop the cabin roof. The cabin was but ten feet wide and twice as long, and built of smallish logs, but its cost in blistered flesh and exhaustion had been terrific.... Six days had passed after their arrival here in Middle Park before his unfamiliar, lead-propelling rifle finally had brought down a small deerlike creature ... the hunting wasn't easy--nothing here on Sulle II was easy. He slid off the roof and down the trunk of a small tree that he had left here atop this grassy knoll. He straightened his hunched shoulders and heard the muscles grate and snap across the cartilage. He looked down over the grassy parkland, where a meandering stream watered the soil, and counted, for the hundredth time, the five young spotted ruminants that Carby, Tzal, and he had captured from a herd of wild creatures. "Cows," Carby, and Tzal, his partner, called these giant cattle-like creatures, and he followed suit. It was easier to apply the familiar names to creatures that resembled those of Earth than to use the names supplied them at the Reception Center. "Dorav!" He heard the voice and then the pressure of two rounded soft arms were around him. "Rea!" he grunted, facing her. He pushed her arms aside, all too conscious of the shielded breast that brushed the back of his hand. "Why are you here?" he demanded. "You have work at your cabin. The walls are only half finished." The girl smiled at him. She was very attractive in a slim boyish sort of way. The palm of her sun-tanned hand, as she laid it upon his wrist, was not calloused as were Tzal's and his own.