Before they had gone ten yards Dor spoke to his wife. They followed Burl, with their three children. Five yards more, and Jak agitatedly began to bustle his family into movement. Old Jon, wheezing, frantically scuttled after Burl, and Cori competently set out with the youngest of her children in her arms and the others marching before her. Within seconds more, all the tribe was in motion. Burl moved on, aware of his following, but ignoring it. The procession continued in his wake simply because it had begun to do so. Dik, his adolescent brashness beaten down by terror, nevertheless regarded Burl's stained weapon with the inevitable envy of the half-grown for achievement. He saw something half-buried in the soil and--after a fearful glance behind--he moved aside to tug at it. It was part of the armor of a former rhinoceros beetle. Tet joined him. They made an act of great daring of lingering to find themselves weapons as near as possible to Burl's. A quarter-mile on, the fugitives passed a struggling milkweed plant, no more than twenty feet high and already scabrous with scale and rusts upon its lower parts. Ants marched up and down its stalk in a steady single file, placing aphids from their nearby ant-city on suitable spots to feed,--and to multiply as only parthenogenic aphids can do. But already, on the far side of the milkweed, an ant-lion climbed up to do murder among them. The ant-lion, of course, was the larval form of a lace-wing fly. The aphids were its predestined prey. Burl continued to march, holding Saya's hand. The reek of formic acid came to his nostrils. He ignored it. Ants were as much prey to his tribesmen, now, as crabs and crayfish to other, shore-dwelling tribesmen on long-forgotten Earth. But Burl was not concerned with food, now. He stalked on toward the mountain-slopes. Dik and Tet brandished their new weapons. They looked fearfully behind them. The monster from whom they fled was lost in its gruesome feasting,--and they were a long way from it, now. There was a steady, single-file procession of ants, with occasional gaps in the line. The procession passed the line through one of those gaps. Beyond it, Tet and Dik conferred. They dared each other. They went scrambling back to the line of ants. Their weapons smote. The slaughtered ants died instantly and were quickly dragged from the formic-acid-scented path. The remaining ants went placidly on their way. The weapons struck again. The two adolescents had to outdo each other. But they had as much food as they could carry. Gloating--each claiming to have been most daring and to have the largest bag of game--they ran panting after the tribe. They grandly distributed their take of game. It was a form of boasting. But the tribesfolk accepted the gifts automatically. It was, after all, food.