A week or so later, Hale finally traced his errant accomplice to the small hotel where he was hiding. The next day, the accomplice was found mysteriously dead. On that same day, the wealthy collector, having pleaded with Hale to be given another chance, was forgiven, and he gratefully parted with another half million stellors for Hale's bogus tidbit. Hale was never seen again on Viyellan. Leland Hale, therefore, was not the kind of man to let a little thing like a runny nose or a slight cough stop him. He put on his clothes when they had dried, adjusted his pack and headed on southwards. CHAPTER II Human beings are notoriously rapid breeders. Give a group of men and women a chance, and, with plenty of room to spread, they will nearly triple their population in each generation. Many will die, if the circumstances are adverse, but many more will live. Thus, in spite of the depredations of the Plague, the population of Cardigan's Green when Hale landed was well over thirty thousand souls, scattered thinly across the rich farmland near the coast of the channel. On the coast itself, near the edge of a rocky outcropping which sheltered a tiny harbor, was the fishing village of Taun. The colonists of Cardigan's Green had learned quickly enough which of the local fauna and flora were edible and which were not; it was a case of learn or die. Those sea denizens which could be eaten were in great demand, and commanded a fairly large price; those who were successful in catching them were affluent men of position in Taun. Such a one was Yon the Fisher. The Fisher was well thought of in Taun; he was a hard worker and a hard dealer in business, but one had to be in order to live on Cardigan's Green. Yon the Fisher had lived in Taun all his life; his father and his father's father had been Fishers before him. He possessed great wealth, as was attested by his ownership of a great many Crystals, which had, in twelve short years, become the medium of exchange on Cardigan's Green. He was the owner of five magnificent twenty-foot fishing smacks and a large, two-story house. The house was of stone, but this, in itself was not a sign of affluence; large trees were rare on Cardigan's Green, and had to be used to build ships, not houses. But, in spite of his wealth, Yon the Fisher did not have enough. He wanted more. He dreamed of the stars. Twelve years before, an interstellar ship--the _Morris_--had cracked up near the farm of Dornis the Fat. It had not been a bad accident; the crewmen had been able to repair it, and were almost ready to leave before the Plague had killed them all. Now, no one would go near the ship, in fear of the Plague. It was a shunned and taboo place--to all except Yon the Fisher. Yon simply didn't believe the Plague stayed around places where people had died of it--and, in a manner of speaking, he was perfectly right.