Watching them from the white-leafed forest, the little people of S'zetnur turned away sadly, in shame and patient resignation. In a small clearing beyond sight of the bustling rocket-camp, they held council, communicating with sharp whistles and facial expressions. Then--according to the ancient law which the Elders still recalled--they dragged forth the woman who wore The Mark on her wrist, the gleaming Band of Rejection which the Tall Leader of the beautiful ones had placed there with his own hand. The woman did not cry out when they bound her, and buried her, still breathing, beside a huge flowering tree--tossing the baby in with her, according to custom. The man Rob Cantrell had kicked in the mouth, likewise, was made ready for the honor bestowed on him ... and allowed to touch the _Icon_, as was his right.... * * * * * The blue-green sun sank slowly, and the night-shift of the Earthmen's work-camp took over, mining and refining solaranium ore, working swiftly and efficiently against time. Cantrell and Harris slept on identical cots in a central tent, waking now and then to listen to the night-noises of this strange new planet. S'zetnu?... It was only a designation, not a name; a term in inter-stellar Esperanto, meaning "Seventh-from-the-Sun." Tomorrow, Cantrell thought sleepily, they would find out what the dwarfish inhabitants called their little world. It must have a name for they must once have had some sort of language. There were signs, the ethnologists reported, that they had once been a civilized people. The pilot blew a smoke-ring at the damp ceiling of the tent, thinking and making plans. "Harris?" he called softly. "You awake?" "Uh-huh. Too damned hot to sleep! Worse than Venus. It isn't the--" "--heat; it's the humidity!" Cantrell grinned in the darkness. "Yeah, yeah. Well, you can stand it for forty days. Say!" He sat up abruptly, snapping his fingers on sudden thought. "If we could hire a couple of those little S'zetnurs to locate sola veins for us, we could cut down the time ... put the Geiger crew on one of the spare refiners! Hire me one tomorrow, will you? A couple, I mean--two of the _older_ ones, with rudimentary fingers and toes. They should know their way around better.... Cripes! You can see how their race has deteriorated, each generation a little bit worse than the one before ... the poor devils!" "Yeah." Harris plucked Cantrell's cigarette-glow from the darkness to take a drag. "But we're going to fix all that for them! Vital food, in return for vital solaranium.... Why, it's a natural for trade-relations between S'zetnu and Terra!" He blew out smoke, returned the cigarette. "El Presidente's sure to give each of us a citation--with bonus! I can just see my old lady spending it now. On a Martian vurna-fur coat! She's been whining for one ever since...."