Ringg's eyes were bright with sympathy. "While you were off on the drift? Bad luck," he said gently. He was silent, and when he spoke again it was in a very different tone. "But some of the older generation--I had a professor in training school, funny old chap, bald as the hull of the _Swiftwing_. Taught us cosmic-ray analysis, and what he didn't know about spiral nebulae could be engraved on my fifth toe-claw, and he'd never been off the face of the planet. Not even to one of the moons! He was the supervisor of my student lodge, and oh, was he a--" The phrase Ringg used meant, literally, _a soft piece of cake_. "His feet may have been buried in mud, but his head was off in the Great Nebula. We had some wild times," Ringg reminisced. "We'd slip away to the city--strictly against rules, it was an old-style school--and draw lots for one of us to stay home and sign in for all twelve. You see, he'd sit there reading, and when one of us came in, just shove the wax at us, with his nose in a text on cosmic dust, never looking up. So the one who stayed home would scrawl a name on it, walk out the back door, come around and sign in again. When there were twelve signed in, of course, the old chap would go up to bed, and late that night the one who stayed in would sneak down and let us in." Ringg sat up suddenly, touching his cheek. "Was that a drop of rain? And the sun's gone. I suppose we ought to start back, though I hate to leave those caves unexplored." Bart bent to gather up the debris of their meal. He flinched as something hard struck his arm. "Ouch! What was that?" Ringg cried out in pain. "It's hail!" Sharp pieces of ice were suddenly pelting, raining down all around them, splattering the ground with a harsh, bouncing clatter. Ringg yelled, "Come on--it's big enough to _flatten_ you!" It looked to Bart as if it were at least golf-ball size, and seemed to be getting bigger by the moment. Lightning flashed around them in sudden glare. They ducked their heads and ran. "Get in under the lee of the cliffs. We couldn't possibly make it back to the _Swift_--" Ringg's voice broke off in a cry of pain; he slumped forward, pitched to his knees, then slid down and lay still. "What's the matter?" Bart, arm curved to protect his skull, bent over the fallen Lhari, but Ringg, his forehead bleeding, lay insensible. Bart felt sharp pain in his arm, felt the hail hard as thrown stones raining on his head. Ringg was out cold. _If they stayed in this_, Bart thought despairingly, _they'd both be dead!_ Crouching, trying to duck his head between his shoulders, Bart got his arms under Ringg's armpits and half-carried, half-dragged him under the lee of the cliffs. He slipped and slid on the thickening layer of ice underfoot, lost his footing, and came down, hard, one arm twisted between himself and the cliff. He cried out in pain, uncontrollably, and let Ringg slip from his grasp. The Lhari boy lay like the dead.