Wallace hesitated, then spread his hands resignedly. "This is a strange game," he said. "We'll let him make the first moves." He and Saxton sat down together. Al-fin began speaking, without inflection and with few pauses. Some of the individual words sounded faintly familiar, but the two men could make no sense of what he said. "I'm afraid we can't understand you," Wallace told him. In an aside to Saxton he said, "He won't understand me either, but I don't think we'd better ignore him." Saxton nodded. "I guess you are right about his being human," he said. "Some of those words were definitely Earthian." Al-fin raised his voice in a shout, "Il-ma!" One of the women in the center of the clearing laughed and came toward them. She was stick-thin, as were Al-fin and most of the others, and very dirty. As she came near she smiled. Her teeth were discolored and rotting. She giggled. Al-fin indicated her with a sweep of his arm. "Mate?" he inquired. Wallace felt himself reddening. "Is he offering her to us?" he asked Saxton. "I think so." Saxton smiled uneasily. "It looks like it's our move now." "We'll have to risk offending them." Wallace looked at Al-fin and shook his head vigorously. "No mate," he said. The woman giggled again and walked away. Al-fin seemed to have lost interest. He pulled himself jerkily to his feet and went across the clearing to the fire that the two surveyors had noted earlier. A large clay kettle rested on a flat rock over the fire. "There's meat in that kettle," Saxton said, whimsically licking his lips. "I hope he passes some around." "I don't think we should eat any," Wallace cautioned. "Why not?" "You know the saying, one man's meat...." "But I'm starved for fresh meat," Saxton argued. "We'll see if we can get him to give us some," Wallace said. "We can take it back to the ship and test it before we eat any." They watched Al-fin as he dug in the kettle with a stick and placed the food he speared on a large leaf. He carried it to where an old man sat with his back resting against a tree trunk. The hoary veteran had a long scar on his right arm that ran from shoulder to elbow; evidently he had had a brush with one of the big cats sometime in the past. Oddly enough, he was the only native that was not thin and hungry-looking. "He must be the chief," Saxton said. "At least he's well fed." Wallace nodded. When Al-fin returned Saxton said, "Meat." At the same time he rubbed his stomach in a circular motion. Al-fin paused, thinking over what Saxton had said, then nodded several times. He made a gesture with his arm for them to follow and led them to the fat old man. "Meat," Al-fin intoned expressionlessly, and stood as though waiting for the old man's reply. "I hope he's in a generous mood," Saxton said. They had seen no sign from the old man, but Al-fin turned to them and nodded once more. "Meat," he said. He made no further move.