Luck had been with them, of a sort. Game animals had appeared in more abundance than one would have thought the region could support, deer-like things which they shot for meat to supplement their iron rations. They had stumbled on the old highway and followed its arrow-straight course southward. Many days and many tumbled hollow ruins of great cities lay behind them, and still they trudged on. _Luck?_ wondered Donovan. _I think it was intentional. I think the Arzunians want us to reach Drogobych._ He heard the scrape of boots on the slanting hillside behind him, and turned around to face Helena. He stopped and smiled. There had been a slow unspoken intimacy growing between them as they worked and struggled together. Not many words, but the eyes of each would often stray to the other, and a hand would brush over a hand as if by accident. Tired and hungry and road-stained, cap set askew on tangled hair, skin reddened by wind and blued with cold, she was still good to look on. "Why are you walking so far from the road?" she asked. "Oh serving as outrider, maybe," he said, resuming his stride. She fell into step beside him. "Up here you get a wider view." "Do you think we have much further to go, Basil?" He shrugged. "We'd never have come this far without you," she said, looking down at her scuffed boots. "You and Wocha and Takahashi." "Maybe the Empire will send a rescue mission when we don't come back," he suggested. "No doubt they will. But they can't find one little star in this immensity. Even thermocouples won't help, the Nebula diffuses radiation too much. And they'd be blundering into the same trap as we." Helena looked up. "No, Basil, we've got to fight our way clear alone." There was a long stretch of thicket growing on the hillside. Donovan went along the right of it, cutting off view of the army. "You know," he said, "you and those boys down there make me feel a lot kinder toward the Empire." "Thank you. Thank you. We--" She took his arm. "It's a question of unifying the human race, ultimately this whole region of stars, and--_Oh!_" The beasts were suddenly there in front of them, lean black things which snarled with mouths of hunger. One of them circled toward the humans' flank, the other crouched. Donovan yanked his sword clear. "Get behind me," he snapped, turning to face the approaching hunter. "No--back to back--" Helena's own blade rasped from its sheath. She lifted a shout for help. The nearest animal sprang for her throat. She hacked wildly, the blade twisted in her hand and scraped the muzzled face. Jaws clamped on the edged steel and let go with a bloody howl. Donovan swung at the other beast, the blow shuddered home and it screamed and writhed and snapped at his ankles. Whirling, he turned on the thing which had launched itself at Helena. He hewed, and the animal wasn't there, his blade rang on naked stone. A weight crashed against his back, he went down and the teeth clamped on his shoulder.