He had a good reason for it. Leland Hale never did anything without a good, logical reason. He could never say to himself: "I'm bored; I'll just go out and look over the countryside to have something to do." He could not say it, even to himself, because it would be admitting to himself that he actually did not like his own company. And Hale was convinced that he was, in all respects, a thoroughly likable fellow. His reason for exploration was a need for food. He had plenty in the ship, of course, and the synthesizer could use almost any organic material to make food as long as it had an energy source. But Hale didn't like synthetics, and he didn't want to draw on his power reserves, so he decided to see what kind of menu the local countryside had to offer. The plant life he found in the mountains wasn't much. There were a few dry, hard bristly bushes, and a tough, gray-green growth that clung to the rocks--a mosslike lichen or a lichenlike moss, take your pick. Neither looked in the least edible. So Hale headed down the mountains toward the south. * * * * * Some days later, as he approached the foothills, he found queer-looking bushes that bore purple berrylike things on their branches. He opened one, and, to his disgust, a white, wormlike thing writhed and squirmed in his hand until he crushed it and wiped his palms on a rock. Every berry he opened behaved the same way. He decided they were none too savory a fare. He came at last to a warm sea near the foothills of the mountain range. The crags almost seemed to rise out of the water. Hale couldn't see across the body of water, but he knew what its shape was, having seen it from high altitude when he came in for a landing. It was actually a wide channel that cut off a large island from the mainland on which he stood. He narrowed his eyes at the horizon and fancied he could see a shadow of the island, but common sense told him it was an illusion; the island was at least forty miles away. The water of the channel was quite warm--Hale estimated it at about seventy degrees--and filled with life. Each wave that surged up to the shore left wriggling things behind it as it retreated, and ugly, many-legged things scuttled across the pale blue sand. It was the blue sand that decided Hale against trying any of the larger sea animals as a meal. The sand was coral sand, and the color indicated a possibility of copper or cobalt. If the animals themselves had an excess of either element in their metabolic processes, they might not be too good for Hale's system. He shrugged, shouldered his pack, and headed south along the beach. He was in no hurry to find food. He had plenty of concentrate on his back; when exactly half of it was gone, he would head back towards his ship.