"Is the boy going to live?" Sid asked. "For a while. I've done all that first aid can do. The bleeding's stopped. The antibiotics will take care of any possibility of infection. But he's lost blood. If he doesn't get a transfusion soon, I'm afraid he won't pull through." "Then tell the chief." Jane nodded, and found the chief near the shaman's hillock, gazing on his medicine man with a troubled expression as if he couldn't decide between the old way and the new. "Your boy," Jane said. "The boy lives?" "For now he lives. He needs the kind of medical care I can't give him. The kind of care he can get aboard the exodus ships. Let him go, chief. Let us take him back. We can save his life." * * * * * The shaman leaped from the hillock and--for all his bag-of-bones appearance--alighted athletically beside them. "I heard!" he cackled, showing a toothless black hole of a mouth. "I heard! A trick to leave our island. A trick to leave our planet! A trick...." "Just the boy then," Jane said. "If you want him to live. But you'll never know about it. Because if you stay here you'll all be killed." "You see, a trick!" protested the shaman. The chief shook his head slowly. "Life blood flow from boy. Boy would have died. She save boy. If she wish, let the boy go with them." "But they stay here!" the shaman shrieked. "They must stay. Sacrifice all to Lord Sun, Lord Sun shrink again. Otherwise--" He showed the palms of his hands in a hopeless gesture. "Bring small boat," the chief said, making up his mind. "The girl goes, with princeling, to her people." But Jane shook her head. "Not alone, I don't. I go with this man here and with the three soldiers, or I don't go at all. And neither does your son. We can save his life, chief--but we don't intend to if you--" "Tricks! Deceit!" screamed the shaman, jumping up and down. "Kill them! Kill them all!" An uncertain line of spearmen appeared, but the chief lifted his hand and they remained perfectly still as if with the small motion of his arm he had somehow frozen them in their tracks. The spearmen seemed content: they had come forward at the shaman's summons without great resolution. All at once the shaman leaped at Jane. He came so suddenly that she had time only for a quick look. Still, she had not missed the gleam of something in his hand and she threw herself sideways as the hand came down. She heard the chief shout, heard Sid Masters' startled oath as she fell to the sand with the old medicine man. Something burned against her shoulder and she knew it was his knife, knew it had pierced her flesh there. She felt a wave of giddiness, but after that the pain wasn't so bad. She could see Sid lifting the shaman bodily and flinging him away across the sand like an empty sack, could see Sid's face, grave with concern, swim close to her through the suddenly shimmering range of vision before her eyes.