the Navy?"

"No, I'm going back in," I said calmly.

He waved one gloved hand at me. "It's your funeral," he said. "Or what amounts to the same thing, anyway."

I stood up, dusted off the snow where some of it had stuck to me, and settled my kilt into as fashionable a manner as was possible. I crossed the line and started down the trail again, just as I had before, but this time I didn't follow my eyes. Soon after losing sight of Mr. Jones, I cut sharply off the clearly visible trail to the right and started to weave my way through a thicket of the ice trees.

Gradually a sensation of fear entirely foreign to my usual nature built up within me, but I ignored it and kept going. As the sensation increased to a nearly uncontrollable level, one of the automatic mechanisms I had had the foresight to have implanted in my body operated, and a few drops of a drug were shot into my veins and almost instantly took effect. I still felt the fear sensation, but it no longer had the power to bother me much. With that drug in my blood stream, no emotion could affect me strongly.

As I worked my way through the tinkling jungle of ice trees, there was an amazing change. Before my eyes, the trees suddenly seemed to clothe themselves in leaves and bark, and the sounds became those of birds and insects. I was working my way through a jungle of Earth. The heavy gravity of Sunder's Pride had not disturbed me before, but now it was replaced by the almost buoyant feeling resulting from the far lighter gravity of Earth. The harsh yellow glow of the sunlight striking on eternal ice was replaced by the vibrant blues and greens of tropical Earth.

My fear sensation, which had been generalized, suddenly sharpened. I was reminded of a time, on Earth, when I had nearly died in a tropical river teeming with piranha fish. I still have a couple of scars from that episode. Before me I could see the river flowing. Even under the calming influence of the drug, I could feel my heart pounding in my throat.

I must confess that it took a distinct effort of will for me to wade into the water. It was boiling with the flashing forms of angry fish. As I stepped forward I could feel their greedy jaws snapping into my flesh, feel the pointed rows of teeth on the bones of my ankles, then my legs, then my thighs.

Despite the agony I continued on, and the water level gradually rose until it closed over my head and my sight 

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