Sears Oliphant, the only other with some medical knowledge, had taken charge immediately after their collapse. "He is--scared, Paul," Dorothy murmured. "Of Lucifer, I mean. I could feel it when I was just a pair of eyes and ears. More physical shrinking in him than in the rest of us, and he's fighting it back with all he's got. He's a very big man, Paul...." Sears looked peaceful enough now, in the dark sleep of the sickness, his moon face bristling with black beard growth but relaxed and bland. On another couch of moss, Spearman was more restless, powerful arms twitching as if he needed to fight the disaster even in sleep. Ann Bryan was deeply flushed and moaned a little now and then. "Ed was all right too. Considerate. Took all Sears' orders without any fuss or question; I don't think he's much scared. He feels he can bull his way through anything, and maybe he's right." Dorothy's helpless eyes had also seen Mijok bringing moss in great armfuls. This, she thought, had helped Ed Spearman to accept the giant as a man and perhaps as a friend. She remembered Mijok raising Paul and herself in one careful swing of his arms to set them down beside each other on the moss. Later she had watched him turning the lifeboat under direction of Spearman's blunt gestures. Its length was thirty-four feet, its weight over three tons Earth gravity--more here. One gray-white arm had lifted the tail and swung the boat on its landing gear as a man might push a light automobile. "I wasn't afraid. After dark, when I knew the sickness had got the others, I still wasn't afraid. Believe me? I could see Mijok moving around. Once I heard him growl--I think he was driving something off. And then while the red moon was coming up, he sat by us--his eyes are red in the dark, Paul, not green. He smells musky at close range, but clean. I wasn't afraid. Now and then he'd look us over and smile with his funny black lips and touch the furry back of his finger to our foreheads.... I could see the blue fireflies, Paul. Someday you'll make up stories about them for the baby.... I heard that crying again--much nearer than when we heard it that first night by the other lifeboat. Like a group of children crying, if you can imagine that synchronized, almost musical. Mijok growled and fretted when it began, but it came no nearer. It had stopped when I woke." "Some of Earth's critters sounded human--panthers, owls, frogs--" "Ye-es. Just possibly something like tree frogs...." Wright said, "Mijok brought us raw meat this morning before he went to sleep, something like a deer haunch. The fire bothers him--he evidently didn't go near it last night after the others collapsed." "Ed tried to show him about fire," Dorothy said. "I remember. Mijok was scared, and Sears told Ed to let it wait." "Meat was good too." Wright smirked. "We got the fire going, and Mijok did try some cooked and liked it. You and Dorothy can have some tomorrow if I don't turn purple."