They rode a two-place tractoscooter together, with Joanna driving the rugged, almost-springless vehicle recklessly out over the expanse of the growing station toward the scene of incipient disaster. Lynne hung onto her perch with both hands, her lips white as they rocketed over grassland that had looked level on the vidarscreen, but proved in reality to be savagely bumpy and uneven. Joanna, dominated as she was by a desperate concern for the safety of her cattle, did not realize her recklessness until she had braked the vehicle, almost in the midst of the zombie-driven beasts. She plucked a long bullwhip from a boot at her side, and a stunner from the dashboard pocket in front of her. She marched boldly toward the herd, which had ceased all movement and was regarding her with massed, owlish eyes. Then, suddenly, she stopped and turned to Lynne, a look of utter consternation on her face. “Lynne!” she exclaimed. “What a _ferkab marlet_ I am. I completely forgot about the baby! Are you all right?” “So far everything’s _purt_,” said Lynne, reassured by her own lack of distress. She was all right, she decided, and felt relief flood through her. “Get on with it, Joanna,” she urged. “I needn’t tell you how important it is.” Alarm rang like an old-fashioned radar _ping_ in her brain, and she swung about just in time to see a long-haired musk-ox rising from the tall grass in which he had been lying concealed, and advancing on the tractoscooter they had just abandoned. She experienced a chilling sense of triumphant malice as the shaggy beast reared and brought its forefeet viciously down on the dashboard and steering apparatus of the vehicle. Instantly the scooter was wrecked beyond immediate hope of repair. Fear became so much a part of Lynne she could feel its copper taste at the base of her tongue. “Joanna!” she cried, her voice strangely weak. “Look behind you.” The girl turned, her eyes narrowed in desperate rage. Raising the stunner she felled the zombie-ridden creature with a perfect shot between the eyes, and watched it collapse beside the vehicle it had wrecked. “That should put you to sleep for a while, you _czanworm_,” she said, furiously. Lynne had turned again. The massed herd was advancing remorselessly now, spear-headed by an even larger creature. She recognized it as the leader she had seen in the vidar screen in Joanna’s office. There was still blood on its horns, and tumultuously heaving flanks. Lynne could feel the triumphant malice pouring from the zombie in control, and an even greater horror came upon her. “Joanne,” she called desperately, wondering in an extremity of panic, what had possessed her to expose herself to so great a danger at such a time. She had no doubt at all concerning the deadliness of the danger. And it was increased immeasurably seconds later when the dark girl swung about and fired pointblank at the menacing ovebos. As the echoes of the blast died she hurled her weapon away with a Martian curse.