One under-sized beastie was pawing the dirt, a red eye set on the fattest animal in sight. Then Shortie charged Fatso. But abruptly a large raw-boned critter was in Shortie's path, barring him from Fatso. Faced by Big Boy, Shortie trembled with rage and went into a terrible temper tantrum, rolling on the ground, pawing it in frenzy, squealing in maddened rage. Then Shortie was on his feet, desperate determination showing in every line of his body. With heedless, desperate, foolhardy courage he charged Big Boy. Big Boy took the headlong charge in his side with only a trifling grunt. Shortie bounced ten feet in the light gravity, and grimly wallowed to his feet. He leveled an eye at Big Boy, and his legs were pumping in frenzied fury again. Big Boy shifted his kilos of weight casually and met Shortie head on. The tremendous _ker-rack_ reverberated from the bluff behind Ekstrohm. Shortie lay on the ground. No, Ekstrohm thought, he isn't dead. His sides were pumping in and out. But he was knocked cold. Ekstrohm had to sympathize with him. He had never seen a more valiant try against insurmountable odds. Big Boy was ambling over towards Fatso, apparently to claim his prize. Fatso apparently was the sow. But Big Boy stalked on past Fatso. She squealed after him tentatively, but he turned and blasted her back with a bellowing snort. Ekstrohm watched the scene repeated with other actors several times before he was sure. The older males, the Big Boys, _never_ collected the favors of the harem for themselves. Instinctively, the pigs were practicing _birth control_. The older males abstained, and forced the younger males to do the same. On a world like this, Ekstrohm's first thought was of death. He thought, these pigs must be like lemmings, deliberately trying to destroy their own race, to commit geno-suicide. But that didn't answer any of the other questions, about the _pseudo_-death, the alien whales ... And then Ekstrohm thought not of death but of _life_. IV The traction-scooter was where he had left it, hanging upside down on the underside of the concave slope. It had stopped automatically when his weight had left the seat. He reached up, toggled the OVERRIDE switch and put it manually into reverse. Once straightened out, he was on his way back to the base. I feel good, he thought. I feel like I could lick my weight in spacemen. Only then did he realize why he felt so good. What had happened had been so strange for him, he couldn't realize what it had been until now. While he had been knocked out, he had been asleep. Asleep. For the first time in years. Sleep. He felt wonderful. He felt like he could lick all of his problems.... Ekstrohm roared back into the base. The motor was silent on the traction-scooter, of course, but the air he kicked up made its own racket. Ryan and Nogol came out to greet him sullenly. "Listen," he told them, "I've got the answer to all of this."