For a while, it looked as if it were going to turn out a pretty good day. The sun rose in a cloudless sky, and the thermometer tacked to the enclave flagstaff registered 93 degrees. When Markin got hot, it got _hot_. By noon, Devall knew by now, they could expect something like 110 in the shade--and then, a slow, steady decline into the low eighties by midnight. The botanical crew departed on time, rumbling out of camp in its two jeeps, and Devall stood for a moment on the mess hall steps watching them go, watching the other men head for their assigned posts. Stubble-faced Sergeant Jolli saluted him as he trotted across the compound to the zoo, where he would tend the little menagerie of Markin wildlife the expedition would bring back to Earth at termination. Wiry little Matsuoko passed by, dragging a carpenter's kit. The linguistic team climbed into its jeep and drove off toward town, where they would continue their studies in the Markin tongue. They were all busy. The expedition had been on Markin just four months; eight months was left of their time. Unless an extension of stay came through, they'd pack up and return to Earth for six months of furlough-cum-report-session, and then it would be on to some other world for another year of residence. Devall was not looking forward to leaving Markin. It was a pleasant world, if a little on the hot side, and there was no way of knowing what the _next_ world would be like. A frigid ball of frozen methane, perhaps, where they would spend their year bundled into Valdez breathing-suits and trying to make contact with some species of intelligent ammonia-breathing molluscs. Better the devil we know, Devall felt. But he had to keep moving on. This was his eleventh world, and there would be more to come. Earth had barely enough qualified survey teams to cover ten thousand worlds half-adequately, and life abounded on ten _million_. He would retain whichever members of the current team satisfied him by their performance, replace those who didn't fit in, and go off to his next job eight months from now. He turned on the office fan and took down the logbook; unfastening the binder, he slipped the first blank sheet into the autotype. For once he avoided his standard blunder; he cleared his throat _before_ switching on the autotype, thereby sparing the machine its customary difficulties in finding a verbal equivalent for his _Br-ghhumph_! The guidelight glowed a soft red. Devall said, "Fourth April, two-seven-zero-five. Colonel John F. Devall recording. One hundred nineteenth day of our stay on Markin, World 7 of System 1106-sub-a. "Temperature, 93 at 0900; wind gentle, southerly--"