Skagarach sent the mental order, and the crew thinned and left us. "You stick with Vance," my cousin said to me. "Just do as you're told. He'll keep you near me, but out of my hair." He bent toward me. "No funny stuff," he said malignantly. "No whooping and hollering to wake 'em up, Ray, boy. No last-minute regrets." "No, Bill, no regrets." The falsehood of the century, I thought. Vance carried a big .45 Colt. He was the squat young lug I'd met in the car. He prodded me with the barrel of his weapon and waved me off to the right. Now we were in a line, barely visible to one another, and we began to move slowly over the level ground, crouching, being as silent as so many shadows. I stepped on a stick and broke it and Vance dug his revolver painfully into my ribs. _I had to warn the humans!_ My fate and--yes, even Nessa's, didn't matter worth a tinker's dam. All the important personal conceits and fears and longings were flushed out of me now. If I'd been a coward, I was now not a strong man, but simply a _man_, and I'd been absorbed into my race and made its representative. If I was torn apart by these throwbacks it wouldn't even hurt. But I didn't have an idea in my head. * * * * * We neared the field, and its diffused lighting, so like that in the blue cavern, showed me and my fellow attackers the shapes of monstrous unknown creations of metal, of square housings and low machine shops and sheds and barracks. Vance drew a little ahead of me. I heard him cock his Colt. And the idea I had determined to have came to me. It wasn't much of an idea. But the instant it struck me I put it into action, because I was facing great brute force and had no time for complex plots or civilized reasoning. I took one swift step forward and smacked Vance behind the shoulder as hard as I could, an overhand blow with every ounce of muscle I could summon. At the same time I drew my automatic from beneath my jacket. The reflex I'd hoped for was Vance's instinctive yank on the trigger of that .45. Instead he moved to the side, swung his upper torso around, and fired point-blank at me. His slug scorched along my ribs under the left arm, a leaden chunk of fire; I fell sideways and snapped a shot back at him. It was luck; I blew in his eye and tore out the back of his head. He fell on top of me, and I squirmed around and shoved his body away. At the sound of the shots every Old Companion leaped forward. That saved my skin. I hurled Vance off me, leaped up, and ran on to catch the Neanderthals, my torn side shrieking in pain. A form cut across before me and a hand clamped on my arm while our forward charge continued. Skagarach's fox-face dipped sidelong toward me and he said, "What was it? Who did it?" "I think it was Cuff," I panted. "_What?_" "Looked like him. Whoever it was, he scored on me." "Bad?" "Not very." "It couldn't have been Cuff," he growled, half to himself. "Primal rage isn't primal idiocy!"