Cantrell chuckled drowsily, then sighed. "I wish I hadn't kicked that little guy. Feel like a heel. Wish I hadn't given that woman my spacewatch, too, in a loose moment! What time is it?" "88-zero, shiptime," the astrogator murmured. "Go to sleep, will ya?... I wish I was back on Tee with my baby tonight...." Silence fell. Outside, the refiners chugged rhythmically, melting away the solaranium from the crude ore wheeled in by the miners. At a little distance from the camp, the Geiger experts were moving their counters over the ground, seeking the highly-fissionable ore. The sola shortage had shut down the industries of Terra for five years now, and sent many a rocket-ship out into space, searching, searching ... until now, at last, the search was ended on a tiny planet Z-north of the System. Close! Near enough to organize a freight-lane! But in the forest, the pallid forest beyond the camp, a gargoyle-woman lay buried, clinging to her deformed half-idiot baby who had died with her. Cantrell's spacewatch glinted on her stumpy wrist; mute testimony that she must be _eliminated_, according to the ancient law that the Elders remembered. It was strangely unfair--for there were others, many others in the tribe, who were far more hideous than she! Mitka, who had only a hole for a nose, and Jura, whose ears were unformed knobs on either side of her head ... but that, of course, was for the Beautiful Ones to judge. Their word had always been the Law.... * * * * * Around noon the next day, Harris reported glumly to the central tent. Cantrell, hard at work on a sheaf of forms, glanced up, his eyes preoccupied. "Harris? Did you get those guides?" Harris spread his hands. "No can find! I've had men out combing the forest all day. Can't find a sign of those little pixies! They've just vanished!" Cantrell grinned. "Well, they're back again ... look; what do you think _that_ is? A mirage?" He jerked a nod at a dwarfish figure coming across the clearing, trailing a long train of lush tropical flowers that had been woven into a sort of cape. A garland of the same flowers perched askew atop the scabrous gargoyle-head. The man limped proudly, presenting himself before Cantrell with a little bow. "Well!" The pilot's eyebrows went up. "Who's he, the chief?" Then he saw the man's swollen lips. "Say ... this is the poor jerk I _kicked_!" His face softened, and he pointed to a folding chair beside his cluttered desk. "Sit down, buster. You're hired--if I can only explain your job to you!" Instead, quivering, the stunted S'zetnur covered his face and threw himself down on his face. Harris sighed. "Here we go again!" He knelt and pulled the malformed dwarf to his feet and shoved him into a chair. "Now," Cantrell groaned, "comes the tough part. How can I say in sign-lingo that we want him to locate sola veins for us? Well--here goes!"