The shots of the Dardick-rifles echoed down the plateau to the smoldering village below. The Regimental Bugler, standing between the heads of the graves, flicked on his instrument. As the last volley spat from the muzzles of the rifles, the bugler played _Taps_. Four men stepped forward to recover and fold the green-silk Pioneer colors, and the caskets were lowered to corruption in alien earth. The banner crept down the flagstaff, and the funeral was over. Bone-weary, Hartford went from the Syphon to the refresher-room, where he checked his safety-suit and hung it. Another officer was there, still in his blue safety-suit. Hartford wondered sleepily why he'd so long postponed unsuiting. Even the fellow's helmet was sealed. "Our first deaths on Kansas," Hartford remarked, wanting to coax the man into conversation and learn who he was. "I'd never realized till now that we're really soldiers, subject to violent death and formal burying." The man must be a replacement, come in on the supply ship a month ago, Hartford thought. Black hair, crewcut. Tanned. Must be from one of the M'Bwene Worlds, where an Axenite's naked skin can bear unfiltered sunlight. "Both the Piacentellis were my friends," Hartford said, determined to coax speech from the stranger. The man's bitcher boomed, evidently set on full volume. "_Mattaku shirazu_," he said. "Excuse. Pia not teach entire use of Standard tongue." Hartford's right hand tore through the plastic pellicle over his Dardick-pistol and brought the weapon to bear on the figure before him. "You're a Stinker!" he said. "Pia's safety-suit--that's the suit you're wearing." "_Tonshu_," the Indigenous Hominid said, bowing his head. He indicated the empty holster at his side: he was unarmed. "I come on _taku_, here to your honored precincts, to speak of things done and of future things. You are Hartford?" Hartford thought quickly. His responsibility was to the Garrison. This stranger was above all else a possible source of contamination, a carrier of the micro-bugs that could kill every Axenite on Kansas. Shooting him would rupture the safety-suit he wore. As it was, his exterior surface was clean; he could have entered the Barracks only by marching in from Retreat with the rest of the regiment, through the sterilizing Syphon. "I am Hartford. Lee Hartford." * * * * * "Pia said you are a good man," the stranger said, bowing. "What is your name?" "Renkei. As you say, I take Pia's _uwa-zutsumi_, this smooth garment." Renkei indicated the safety-suit by slicking his hands over it. "I must enter here to talk with Hartford. To enter, I must have garment. Pia, my brother, is dead. I borrowed his garment. Can I, with you, stop the ugly thing that began last night in Kansannamura? _Kuwashiku wa zonzezu_; I do not know. I can but try."