A faint hope flickered in the medical officer’s eyes. “When that planet Umung really gets to producing—”

“Yes, yes. But we’ll probably be dead then, you and I.” The commandant shivered. “I feel cold.” His voice was suddenly high and thin.

“Sir—” The doctor took a nervous step forward. “Sir, let me look at you—”

The commandant stood up. For a moment he leaned on the table, then something buckled within him and he went toppling to the floor.

* * *

There was forest, endless forest, and beyond it the plains and mountains and sea, and all of it was full of death.

The Patrol wound slowly through the woods. Every detector they had was straining itself—metal, mental pulses, the thermal radiation of living bodies. But still eyes were restless, shifting under the big square helmets, and hands strayed nervously toward guns.

In an armored car near the middle of the column, the Ulugani Patrol chief was sounding off to his aide. “It’s no good,” he said. “These Hwari are just too tough for us.”

“They can’t stand up to us, sir,” said the aide. “Not in open battle.”

“And they don’t try. What can you do with a people who’re willing to scorch their earth and evacuate their own dwellings before we get there? What’s the point of silly little actions like this one—going out, burning a city in reprisal, what does the enemy care? It’s just a chance for him to harass us some more.”

“We’ll teach them manners, sir,” said the aide.

“Oh, in time, of course. In time. When we get enough troops and supplies here. But curse it, I can’t get enough!”

An explosion cracked before them. The chief saw three men fall screaming from the grenade. A heavy machine gun began to clatter.

“Guerrillas!” he roared.

He glimpsed the big green forms dashing in out of the brush. They could gallop like the wind, those devils, and they could carry as much armament on their backs as a small truck. The war whoop sent a brief tingle of fear along his nerves.

The tanks began to speak, throwing flame and thunder at the enemy. One of the machines was suddenly wrapped in red smoke—a fire bomb. The Ulugani infantry had thrown themselves to the ground and were shooting up at the trampling, yelling centauroids.

“Drive ’em back!” screamed the chief. “Drive ’em back!”

The Patrol did, after a short interval of utter ferocity. But not before a bomb had struck the command car and incinerated its contents.

* * *

The colonel looked out of the thick plastic port and shivered. Beyond it, the landscape was one vast gloom. Poisonous mists curled between him and the unseen horizon, like a wall. He thought he could see the sudden red spouting of a volcano, somewhere in the fog. A moment later, the floor quivered under his feet.

“You fool!” he raged. “You utter imbecile!”

The base geologist stood his ground. “‘We did our best, sir,” he answered. “As far as we could tell, the terrain here was stable.”