The men got up from the rough table that had been set up outside the ship. They got up and went away, slinking, like a sex maniac leaving the scene of his crime when his reason returns and he knows his insanity. They went away by themselves--those not too sick to walk--and hid from one another. But a man can't hide from himself. That was the Hell. This was not a life-raft on the open sea, every man told himself. This was a green, smiling world with the smell of flowers on the air, with plenty of glistening, tempting fruit growing wild and enough game to make an Indian hunter call it the Happy Hunting Ground. Like a camping trip back on Earth. Like a picnic where you get drunk and start eating and then sober up with the smell of blood in your nostrils to find yourself chewing the hair off the detached leg or arm of your best friend. What did every man tell himself? That it wouldn't happen again, ever, this terrible thing. When they found the strength and courage to go back and clean up the remains of a meal, knowing it to be the remains of a meal, when they had put what was left of Heinie in a hole and covered it with dirt and set up a stone marker, they promised one another it would never ever happen again. The next day they put it on paper, in black and white. An agreement. On the third day they thought about it, and on the fourth day they began wondering why they had done it. And on the fifth day-- On the fifth day they found Thompson, the chemist, hanging from a tree a short distance from the ship. Quite dead, of course, and no one had to ask why he had done it. Hunger madness walked among the men. They took Thompson down from the tree. Hunger madness whispered in their ears. They listened. McBride took out the agreement and looked at it, having heard the tempter's whisper. He didn't think much. It hurt him to think. But something that had been done once-- He looked at the men and saw an inescapable vise tightening. He looked at himself and saw the same. At his feet fell the small fragments of the agreement. * * * * * The creeping hell closed in. The real Hell that had started with a gun. Could these any longer think of themselves as men? After the second time the change starts. It gets a little easier. All you have to do is keep from looking at anyone. It's nice to live. With life there's hope. Don't get cheated. What happened one day surprised no one. Eight of the ten remained, two gone. Thompson had been gone for days. The hunger returned. The pendulum swung back. The beast man shoved out any remaining noble thought and screamed for food. The addict returns to his drug, the pervert to his revolting deed.... As mad as these, the starving. Nor was McBride surprised when he found himself holding a little stick. He wasn't greatly disturbed when it turned out to be the short one. Sympathy from the others? Not a bit. Only a sort of brooding resignation. And hunger. Always hunger.