Surok, who had loved Lisson, who would have been her playmate in the next Red-Moon-before-the Rains. Paul tried to stop him--but if any sound came out of his own throat it would have been lost against Surok's mindless crying. The giant tore into the press around Lisson's body and fell almost at once, crushing a few as he rolled.... "_West!_ Stay behind my rifle, Nisana---" It had become a methodical insanity like Mijok's, a cutting of red hay that spouted blood. He noticed blood on his right hand too--nothing: front sights of the rifle gouging him. The Vestoians in this direction were thinning out and giving way. He caught up with a white-splashed back and bandaged thigh--Pakriaa, ploughing her way west. Abro Samiraa drove across his path in the wrong direction, chasing an isolated group of three; squat and heavy-faced, she looked happy and more than life-size in the moment of her death, as she took a spear thrust over her heart and lay down with the enemy to grin at the sky and cease hating. A rifle barked ahead of him. That could only be Sears Oliphant: Wright would surely follow orders and keep Mijok and the giant women with him to protect the wounded.... Abro Brodaa was fighting through to aid Pakriaa, not yelling, not excited, keeping somehow an air of dreamy contemplation, as if the arms driving her spear and dagger were not quite hers. Nisana cried out, "They are not following! They go back----" It was true. Partly true. Here in this patch of bloody meadow there was not much left to fight. The defenders had functioned like a single organism, forming a new semicircular line. Behind it was a quiet, where Pakriaa was gasping, pounding her foot into a body that felt nothing. And this dear monster, this fat naked grotesque, panting and smeared with red--this must be Sears Oliphant, late of John Hopkins University. The monster smiled in a black beard. "Few got by, oh my, yes. Tamisraa's girls fixed 'em--had to club m' rifle--dirty cave man--no fear, Paul--_no fear!_ Muscle man with an empty head. They had--couple bowmen with 'em--no harm done." No harm? Was he unaware of the broken arrow shaft below his ribs, deeply bedded, with dark blood oozing around the wood? "They quit, Paul?" "They haven't quit." He looked south, seeing why they wouldn't quit. "Tamisraa got a bad one--throat." Sears coughed painfully. "I sent her to Doc--he's just back of those trees. And my pets, Paul, my olifants, why, they're standing fast, boy. With Abara, bless him--'bout half mile north. You can't beat 'em. We must figure some way to ferry 'em over to the island--must--they're people, those olifants----" "You go to Doc yourself, Jocko, and fast. That----" "Oh, that, that. Mere prac'l dem'stration nobody loves fat man----"