The raider had swung up out of Thirty’s atmosphere and was turning its nose outward but it had launched a life boat which was circling down for a landing. Those cat-faced devils never miss a trick. That landing force was to make sure that no one had survived to send a possible warning. If those catmen thought someone had survived that crash, maybe I thought so too. My orders were very specific about not leaving my bunker and about not taking any chances of my whereabouts being discovered but something within me was just as specific about not leaving an injured human being to the Rumi’s none too tender mercies. In a matter of minutes I was into my outer clothing and hurrying up the ramp from my bunker. The cold on Thirty was unlike the cold anyplace else. It seemed to have the ability to seep its way through the thickest clothing or the stoutest walls. Even hurrying as I was through the gathering hoar frost, I could feel it creeping into my flesh. I hoped fervently that I would be back in the warmth of the bunker by the time the sun set because then it really got cold. To travel a mile on Thirty you have to climb twenty up and down. It was hard going all the way and my breath was coming in heavy, gasping pants by the time I reached a ledge over the dry river bed in which the wrecked spacer lay. It took me only one look to see that I was too late. Beside the twisted mass of the ship sat a small gleaming object, the spaceboat from the Rumi cruiser. Six of the raiders were gathered about the space-suited figure of a human being. In a few minutes they would either have loaded the injured person into their ship and taken off or they would have done away with him. My first thought was to try to get to their ship but since it lay only a few hundred feet away from where they stood that was impossible. If I only had some sort of weapon, I thought, I would be in an ideal spot to pick them off one by one. The closest I could come to a weapon was a small pocket magnesium flare for signalling purposes. If I was to do anything before it was too late I realized that I would have to get closer. Dropping down on my stomach, I began to crawl inch by inch down among the rocks and scrub growth toward where the Rumi were busying themselves over the supine human figure. After ten minutes of crawling and slithering through underbrush that ripped my clothing and scratched me badly about the face, I had worked my way to within twenty feet of the Rumi. I had been careful to keep downwind of them for I wasn’t sure how strong their animal sense of smell was. Certainly the musty odor of them floated down on the wind so strongly that I could make my way around them without having to risk looking until I reached what I took to be a safe spot in a clump of brush on the bank of the river almost above their heads.