"Bat wings," Sears Oliphant remarked. "Mammalian, I think--oh my, yes. Can't have furry birds, you know, with a taxonomist in the family, hey?" Spearman shrugged. "Must get organized. How much damage, Paul?" "The boat itself. Both wings off, radio dead. Couldn't lock the door...." It was like an Earth landscape. Tall grass carried oatlike ruddy seed clusters on green stems. The lake was bordered by white sand except close by, where jungle reached into water. There was casual buzzing traffic above the grass, reminiscent of bees, wasps, flies. Far up, something drifted on motionless wings, circling. And ten or fifteen miles to the west there was the calm of hills--rounded, old, more green than blue in a sleepy haze, but to paint them, Paul thought, you would shade off into the purple. Paul went on, absently: "We'll have the charlesite of the wrecked boat of course. That gives this one a theoretical twenty hours of jet. We have ammunition for long enough to learn how to use bow and arrow, I think." Ann muttered, "Paul, don't----" "What?" Spearman was disgusted. "Oh, you could be right at that, Paul. Hard to realize.... Well, we must make some kind of camp." Wright began: "Some knowledge of the life around us----" "Oh my, yes----" "We'll have to make a camp before we can do any exploring, Doc. Here, out in the open. See anything in the woods?" "Something followed. More or less human----" "So we know the camp has to be in the open." "Do we, Ed?" Wright watched the distant bat wings. Spearman stared. "Can't chance a forest we don't know." "Still, I mean to look things over a bit. Feel not so good, Ann?" "All right," she said, glancing from Wright to Spearman, silently begging to know: _Who is leader?_ "Slightly slap-happy, Doc." "Mm, sure." Wright hitched his rifle. "Going to look at that nearest smoke. You come, Paul--or you, Ed. One of you should stay here." Spearman leaned against the lifeboat, still-faced. "Paul can go if he wants to. I think it's a risk and a waste of time." Paul watched him a moment, frightened not by a man whom he had never quite been able to like, but by the withdrawal itself, the sense of a barrier to communication. _We start with a division on this first morning of the world...?_ Paul hugged his own rifle and followed Wright into the long whisper of the grass. 4 Moist heat pressed down, but the air of the meadow was sweet. There were marks of trampling as well as the swath the boat had cut--trails, places where something might have crouched. Under his breath Wright asked, "Feel all right, Paul?" Truth was more needed than a show of courage. "Not perfect, Doc. Am I flushed? You are, a little." "Yes. Trace of fever; may wear off. Here's something----"