pattern eluded him. The Skirkhi, as they named themselves, used a typically developed humanoid language, and he had managed to learn enough for communication. It was the way they thought that baffled him.

"Last season was not as bad as some," continued Polf, staring over the flat plain from their trifling eminence on the hill. "Elders say living will be hard this storm. It is a time of heat."

Guthrie also stared off into the distance, toward the seacoast beyond the plain. He tried to show no expression, for he suspected that these people were cunning at reading faces.

His looks, to be sure, must be a handicap to them. He was long and lean of face where they tended to be round and pudgy. His reddish hair and blue eyes were certainly outside their experience, for they had aroused much frightened comment when he had first been discovered near his landing site.

He turned his head slowly to study Polf. The Skirkh crouched with bowed legs folded under him and his big head thrust forward. His profile was flat against the blue sky, for his nose was a wide-nostriled snout. The eyes that gazed moodily at the horizon were black glints between brow and cheek ridges.

The lower part of the native's face, though the chin receded, completed the design of blunt, durable strength. It symbolized, Guthrie reflected, Skirkhi life. The delicate had simply not survived on this world.

On the other hand, Polf was not very large compared to the Terran. Guthrie guessed him to be an inch or two over five feet, although his squat, straddling stance made the estimate a rough one.

I wouldn't have much trouble with him, Guthrie thought. Of course, the whole gang would be something else....

The village of two hundred was part of a tribe of six or seven times that number. There were other tribes in surrounding areas, but Guthrie had learned little about them. The Skirkhi said they were evil people. He assumed that that meant they treated prisoners with the same eager cruelty he had seen his captors display.

I should complain! he reproved himself. If not them, it might have been me. I wonder when the Service will check about the reports I'm not sending?

"Gaah!" exclaimed Polf, springing half erect and assuming a bare-toothed posture of defense.

His naturally tan face flushed to an 

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