We started off up the muddy street, more as though we'd been wound up to go somewhere and couldn't stop than like men with a purpose. The _cansins_ were close. Awful close. You could hear them sucking and slopping in the muck. The rain fell straight down, almost solid, and the air was thick and hot. We did a lot of shouting. Some men came out of the shacks to join us, but nobody had seen Quern since the trouble started. We had trouble with the animals in the streets. The vapor snakes got one man, and an Ionian _hru_ poisoned one guy so bad he died the next day. We had to kill a couple of big babies that wouldn't scare off. And we found the ginmill. Gow was right. It was wrecked, and there were things scattered around amongst the splinters. I was glad it was dark. "Well," I said, "that's that. We'll just have to do what we can with the blasters." It wouldn't be much. We didn't carry any heavy artillery, and a _cansin_ is awfully hard to stop. "Any you guys wanta scram, do it now. The rest of you come on." I took a step. Something squirmed under my foot, squeaked, and began to curse in a voice like a katydid's. "My God," I said. "It's Quern." I picked him up. His rubbery little body was slick with mud. He spat and hiccoughed, and snarled, "Of course it's Quern. Fine thing, leaving me in the mud like that. I might ha' drowned." He started cursing again in Low Martian, which is his native tongue. He's a Diran from the sea-bottom pits of Shun. Somebody laughed. It sounded hysterical. "The little lush! He don't even know what's happened!" And he didn't. The _cansins_ hadn't even seen him. He'd just been tromped into the mud and left there, unharmed. Gow caught his breath suddenly, and somebody whimpered. I looked up. I couldn't see much, in the rain and the indigo dark, but I didn't have to see. I knew what was coming. A little vicious splotch of living green against the darkness, and underneath it four huge shadows, trampling knee-deep in mud, making toward a plastic hut filled with human beings. I said softly, "Quern, I never thought you were such a hell of a wonderful hypnotist." He twinged in my hands. His anger almost burned me. He started to speak, but I stopped him. "Here's your chance to prove it, chum. See that little green light floating there? Well, go to it, Quern. And it had better be good, or it's curtains--for Nahru and all of us." I walked over toward the _cansins_, holding Quern in my hands. * * * * * The brutes must have sensed us. They stopped and wheeled around. Quern shivered. He was beginning to understand things. He snarled, "How do you expect me to do my act? No platform--nothing! You're crazy, Jig! Let's get out of here!" I shook him. "Put that baby to sleep. Make him and his harem go out of town, north. There's quicksand there. Go on, damn you!"