Dirge

By Alan Dean Foster

Published by The Ballantine Publishing Group

THE BLACK HOLE

CACHALOT

DARK STAR

THE METROGNOME AND OTHER STORIES

MIDWORLD

NOR CRYSTAL TEARS

SENTENCED TO PRISM

SPLINTER OF THE MIND'S EYE

STAR TREK(r) LOGS ONE-TEN

VOYAGE TO THE CITY OF THE DEAD

.. WHO NEEDS ENEMIES?

WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE...

MAD AMOS

THE HOWLING STONES

PARALLELITIES

The Icerigger Trilogy: ICERIGGER

MISSION TO MOULOKIN THE DELUGE DRIVERS

The Adventures of Flinx of the Commonwealth:

FOR LOVE OF MOTHER-NOT

THE TAR-AIYM-KRANG

ORPHAN STAR

THE END OF THE MATTER

BLOODHYPE

FLINX IN FLUX

MID-FLINX

The Damned:

BOOK ONE: A CALL TO ARMS BOOK TWO: THE FALSE MIRROR BOOK THREE: THE SPOILS OF WAR

The Founding of the Commonwealth: PHYLOGENESIS

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DIRGE

BOOK TWO OF

The Founding of the Commonwealth

ALAN DEAN FOSTER

A Del Rey(r) Book THE BALLANTINE PUBLISHING GROUP * NEW YORK

To John Haynes Web-site designer par excellence

Chapter 1

Kairuna was kneeling beside a flattened blue-brown bush that rose no higher than his knee, watching half a dozen dull yellow slugs with legs combine their efforts to spin a mutual home out of what appeared to be cerise silk. The nature of the instinct that impelled them to effortlessly meld their minuscule exertions would have to be identified by the xenologists. Absolved by his work classification of the need to analyze or classify, he was free to marvel and wonder at the intricate beauty of the delicate alien phenomenon. He felt sorry for the techs who were required to stop, stand, and interpret. Sometimes it was a lot better just to be able to look.

Straightening, he let his gaze rove over the endless forest. Well, not literally endless. The Earthlike pseudo evergreens only occupied the broad temperate belt that followed the planet's equator. A traveler journeying to north or south would eventually run out of forest and into one of the great ice caps that dominated the surface of Argus V But since preliminary surveys from orbit had indicated that the forest belt varied between two and three thousand miles in width, there was plenty of room left between the brooding ice for trees.

And for ambulatory life, not all of which was as inconspicuous as silk-spinning slugs. In the two months they had been exploring the planet the surveyors had encountered a number of interesting and exotic larger life-forms. The local carnivores were efficient but not especially impressive -nothing the team couldn't deal with. Their presence added to the ambience of what was proving to be a chilly but otherwise hospitable world.