“Now, let’s see,” he began.  “We have two heavy rifles, six carbines, and eight pistols, and these two bags of bombs.  How much ammunition, counting what’s in our belts, do we have?”

They took stock of their slender resources, even Varnis joining in the task, as he had hoped she would.  There were over two thousand rounds for the pistols, better than fifteen hundred for the carbines, and four hundred for the two big-game guns.  They had some spare clothing, mostly space-suit undergarments, enough bed-robes, one hand-axe, two flashlights, a first-aid kit, and three atomic lighters.  Each one had a combat-dagger.  There was enough tinned food for about a week.

“We’ll have to begin looking for game and edible plants, right away,” Glav considered.  “I suppose there is game, of some sort; but our ammunition won’t last forever.”

“We’ll have to make it last as long as we can; and we’ll have to begin improvising weapons,” Dard told him.  “Throwing-spears, and throwing-axes.  If we can find metal, or any recognizable ore that we can smelt, we’ll use that; if not, we’ll use chipped stone.  Also, we can learn to make snares and traps, after we learn the habits of the animals on this planet.  By the time the ammunition’s gone, we ought to have learned to do without firearms.”

“Think we ought to camp here?”

Kalvar Dard shook his head.  “No wood here for fuel, and the blast will have scared away all the game.  We’d better go upstream; if we go down, we’ll find the water roiled with mud and unfit to drink.  And if the game on this planet behave like the game-herds on the wastelands of Doorsha, they’ll run for high ground when frightened.”

Varnis rose from where she had been sitting.  Having mastered her emotions, she was making a deliberate effort to show it.

“Let’s make up packs out of this stuff,” she suggested.  “We can use the bedding and spare clothing to bundle up the food and ammunition.”

They made up packs and slung them, then climbed out of the gully.  Off to the left, the grass was burning in a wide circle around the crater left by the explosion of the rocket-boat.  Kalvar Dard, carrying one of the heavy rifles, took the lead.  Beside and a little behind him, Analea walked, her carbine ready.  Glav, with the other heavy rifle, brought up in the rear, with Olva covering for him, and between, the other girls walked, two and two.

Ahead, on the far horizon, was a distance-blue line of mountains.  The little company turned their faces toward them and moved slowly away, across the empty sea of grass.

3

They had been walking, now, for five years.  Kalvar Dard still led, the heavy rifle cradled in the crook of his left arm and a sack of bombs slung from his shoulder, his eyes forever shifting to right and left searching for hidden danger.  The clothes in which he had jumped from the rocket-boat were patched and ragged; his shoes had been replaced by high laced buskins of smoke-tanned hide.  He was bearded, now, and his hair had been roughly trimmed with the edge of his dagger.