whispered, and made a coughing sound that might have been laughter. "And you're the best they could send to keep the race going."

He blinked angrily when Geddes tried to speak. "Don't argue—why else do you think you were sent here, with Earth an ash heap behind you? But there's one too many of you. You'll have to draw lots."

He flew into a senile rage when they stood silent, and they saw that he was wholly obsessed by the idea. "Would you argue with Fate, you fools? Or did they send me a crew of unnaturals, with no use for women?"

He went into a fit of coughing, choking on his own fury. When they went out again he had subsided into a querulous muttering, the vacant babble of his voice lost in his tangled beard.

The two women were waiting outside. Myrna Connors had put aside her rifle and her stare had taken on some of her sister's brazen speculation.

"Father's right," she said. "Glenna and I have talked it over, and there's something about the three of you that makes you too much alike for a choice. You'll have to draw lots."

"You'd settle it like that?" Hovic demanded incredulously. "You'd have us just toss a coin, or draw straws?"

She bent her head toward the hut to listen to the old man's ravings. "Father won't live longer than another month or two. After that, what else is there? What difference does it make?"

They stood there blankly while the prismatic solar halo slipped down to the vague, far skyline. A cool wind sprang up, heavy with the smell of the yellow turf-flowers, and somewhere on the plains below the piebald grazers hooted at each other with a sound like the muted lowing of doves.

"You're right, of course," Geddes said. "We've got the race to think of, as well as ourselves. We'll draw lots."

They moved away to the compound wall, leaving the women to stare after them with open impatience. Geddes took up a dead twig and broke it into three pieces, two long and one short.

"There's more to it than this," he said, keeping his voice down. "Regardless of our opinions. And our opinions aren't what they would be if we hadn't been so thoroughly conditioned to—"

"You forgot something, Ged," Hovic cut in. "What about Hanlon?"

"I haven't 

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