The man had not yet been in any fighting, he was simply curious about what was going on, and this was part of it. "Sure, John," he said. "Be glad to." They helped Tallant into the truck. George backed it out into the street on manual. "What's the dispensary coordinates?" he asked. "Three-two-three, oh-one-five, local," Tallant told him. George pushed the keys and they started off toward town. McCullough turned to see what he could make out of the excitement at the other end of the street. There were two columns of smoke billowing up now, and scattered shots. Two men came back up the street helping another with his trouser leg split away and a bloody bandage about his thigh. "What's it all about, John?" A man called across the street to him. "Don't know. Fighting with the natives, I guess. Henry Watts and some other fellows chased a couple of them down there. Looks like they mean to clean the whole bunch out." "Dammit, that's not right," the man across the street said. "The natives got a right to live too, they had a village here before we came. Somebody ought to do something about it." "Pete Tallant just went into town to tell the marshal." "Yeah, well, I wouldn't holler copper on my neighbors myself, but I won't have anything to do with killing those poor natives either. They can get along without me." The man went back in his house and closed the door. McCullough walked a few steps out into the street to get a better view. The riot was none of his business, and he had no intention of getting mixed up in it, but the idea of the fighting excited him and made him nervous. He could not see much, except that there was a lot of activity. He shook his head helplessly. My God, he thought, all this from two men with nothing to do on a Sunday afternoon but get half-drunk and start arguing.... * * * * * Someone screamed--Mary's scream, suddenly choked off! McCullough ran back across the yard and up the steps, raging at himself for having left Mary and the children alone in the house. There was no one in the front room, but through the kitchen door he could see a native with his back turned, peering out the kitchen window. McCullough's gun was hanging over the door, on pegs set into the logs, a gun made from the first steel smelted on Centaurus II. He reached down the gun as he stepped in the door. There were two natives in the kitchen; one with a roughed-up look who might have been the one Watts had kicked, watching Mary as she huddled in a corner by the stove with her arms about the two children; the other still looking out the window. Both spun around to face him as McCullough burst into the room. For a moment they eyed each other in silence, the two Centaurans and the Earthman. "You hurt, Mary?" McCullough asked. She was frightened almost speechless, but she managed a squeak and a negative shake of her head.