The traction-scooter was going up a slope that had been eroded concave. It was at the very top of the half-moon angle, upside down, standing Ekstrohm on his head. Since he was not strapped into his seat, he fell. As he fell he thought ruefully that he had contrived to have an accident in the only way possible with a traction-scooter. Ekstrohm's cranium collided with the ground, and he stopped thinking.... * * * * * Ekstrohm blinked open his eyes, wondering. He saw light, then sky, then pigs. Live pigs. But--the pigs shouldn't be alive. When he was this close they should be dead. Only they weren't. Why ... why ... He moved slightly and the nearest pig fell dead. The others went on with their business, roaming the plain. Ekstrohm expected the dropping of the pig to stampede the rest into dropping dead, but they didn't seem to pay any attention to their fallen member. I've been lying here for hours, he realized. I didn't move in on them. The pigs moved in on me while I was lying still. If I keep still I can get a close look at them in action. So far, even with video, it had been difficult to get much of an idea of the way these creatures lived--when they weren't dead. Observe, observe, he told himself. There might be some relationship between the flying whale and the pigs. Could it be the whales were intelligent alien masters of these herds of pigs? Ekstrohm lay still and observed. Item: the pigs ate the soft, mosslike grass. Item: the pigs eliminated almost constantly. Item: the pigs fought regularly. Fought? _Fought?_ Here was something, Ekstrohm realized. Why did animals fight? Rationalizations of nature-lovers aside, some fought because they had plain mean nasty dispositions--like some people. That didn't fit the pigs. They were indolent grazers. They hadn't the energy left over for sheer-cussedness. There had to be a definite goal to their battles. It wasn't food. That was abundant. The grassy veldt reached to all horizons. Sex. They had to be fighting for mates! He became so excited he twitched a foot slightly. Two more pigs dropped dead, but the others paid no heed. He watched the lazily milling herd intently, at the same time keeping an eye out for the flying whales. Back on Earth porpoises had been taught to herd schools of fish and of whales. It was not impossible an intelligent species of whale had learned to herd masses of land animals. But Ekstrohm knew he needed proof. He had to have something to link the pseudo-death of the wart-hogs to the inexplicable presence of the whales. Perhaps, he thought, the "death" of the pigs was the whales' way of putting them into cold storage--a method of making the meat seem unattractive to other animals, on a world perhaps without carrion scavengers.... Something was stirring among the pigs. * * * * *