Beyond the Hansquarter, just where the flat plain began to rise, were the Engineers. Not many of them any more. You could see the dusty lumps where the huts had been, the tumbled heaps of metal that might have meant something once, a longer time ago than anyone could remember. But there were still plenty of huts standing. Two hands and one hand and a thumb of them, full of Engineers who said how the furrows should be laid for the planting but did nothing about the tilling of them. And beyond the Engineers--the Officers. The baby cried. Ma Kirk shrilled at her son, and two of the younger ones fought over a bone with no meat on it, rolling and snapping on the dirt floor. Kirk shifted his head forward to shut out the sound of them and followed the line of the plain upward with sullen, glowing eyes. The huts of the Engineers were larger than those in the Hansquarter. The huts of the Officers were not much larger than the Engineers', but there were more of them and they climbed higher up the grey slope. Five, nearly six hands of them, with the Captain's metal-roofed place highest of all. Highest and nearest, right under the titanic shape lifting jagged against the icy stars from the crest of the ridge. The Ship. Kirk's voice was soft in his thick throat. "I would like to kill them," he said. "I would like to kill them all." "Yah!" cried a shrill voice over his shoulder. "All but the Captain's yellow daughter!" * * * * * Kirk spun angrily around. Lil, next below himself, danced back out of reach, her kilt of little skins flying around her thin hips. "Yah!" she said again, and wrinkled her flat nose. "I've seen you looking at her. All yellow from head to foot and beautiful pink lids to her eyes. You wouldn't kill _her_, I bet!" "I bet I'll half kill you if you don't shut up!" Lil stuck out her tongue. Kirk aimed a cuff at her. She danced behind his arm and jerked the curtain down and shot away again, making two jumps over the brawling young ones and the box of heat-stones. She squatted demurely beside Ma Kirk and said, as though nothing had happened, "Ma says will you please not let so much heat out." Kirk didn't say anything. He started to walk around the heat box. Lil yelled, "Ma!" The young ones stopped fighting, scuttling out of reach and watching with bright moist eyes, grinning. The baby had reached the hiccoughing stage. Ma Kirk said, "Sit down, or go pick on somebody your own size." Kirk stopped. "Aw, I wasn't going to hurt her. She has to be so smart!" He leaned forward to glare at Lil. "And I would so kill the Captain's daughter!" The baby was quiet. Ma Kirk laid it down in a nest of skins put close to the heat and said wearily: "You men, always talking about killing! Haven't we enough trouble without that?" Kirk looked at the little box of heat-stones, his pupils shrinking. "Maybe there'd be less trouble for us."