sun. The landscape seemed covered with diamonds, save where Boles
had marched. The jungle-trees he'd touched in passing were no longer
jewel-studded. Their movements as he pushed them aside had made the
dew coalesce and run down. His trail was clear. He had gone on to the
Lamphian hills.
The restored space-radio muttered curtly: CHECK FOR ORYX TRADING-POST. COURSE AND SPEED HELD. WE WILL LAND
AT YOUR POST IN THIRTY-TWO HOURS FIFTEEN MINUTES, EARTH MEASURE.
It was a repeat-notification from the supply-ship on the way.
That was the last thing Fahnes needed to be sure of. He buckled the
pistol-belt about him. He went into the store-room and opened a
soldered case in which a flame-rifle had remained in store since the
post was opened. He cleaned it carefully. He loaded it from ammunition
packed with it. He went to the store-room door and aimed at the jungle.
He pulled trigger.
There was a ten-yard circle of pure devastation. Smoke poured up.
Then it stopped. Smoke-particles do not remain smoke in air which is
super-saturated with moisture. Water condenses upon them. They become
droplets of mist. The mist becomes rain. An appreciable shower fell
upon the smoldering jungle-spot. The smoldering embers went out.
Fahnes grinned. He had not anticipated that, but it was amusing.
Everything was amusing today. The sun rose higher and the glittering
dew evaporated. It did not form a mist, but made the air actually thick
to breathe. Fahnes remembered an authoritative lecture from Boles. Each
dew-drop, said Boles, was a tiny burning-glass as long as it remained.
Until it dried up it focused morning sunlight on the leaf under it,
scorching its own support. So the roaring of the dew-god every morning,
so loud that leaves vibrated near it, shook the dew-drops into flowing
fluid which ran off. The Honkie crops, then, weren't scorched.
Fahnes slung the flame-rifle over his shoulder, made sure the
bolt-pistol was ready for action, and marched off toward the Honkie
village. There were four or five hundred Honkies in the soapstone
huts of the settlement. They were greenish in tint, and while their
skin was not in actual plates like insects, it was thick and stiff
and really flexible only at the joints. They were solemn-faced and
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