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“We’ll see how Dandy behaves himself first, Terilla,” said Varian, firmly believing in an old adage, “once bitten, twice shy.” The originator had not had the Galormis in mind, but the application was apt.

“How’s Mabel?” asked Lunzie, sparing Varian a glance.

Varian told her. “We’re scouting north today. Kai’s teams will have to set up secondary camps soon, but we don’t want them encountering fang-faces, like the ones that ate Mabel. Also, the geology teams are supposed to report in if they sight any wounded beasts, so give us a toot right away, will you, Lunzie?”

The physician nodded again.

“Couldn’t we come with you, Varian?” asked Bonnard. “If you’ve the big sled? Please, Varian?”

“Not today.”

“You’re on compound duty, and you know it, Bonnard,” said Lunzie. “And lessons.”

Bonnard looked so rebellious that Varian gave him a poke in the arm, and told him to shape up. Cleiti, more sensitive to adult disapproval, nudged him in the ribs.

“We got out yesterday, Bon. We’ll go again when it’s proper.” Cleiti smiled up at Varian, though her expression was wistful.

A nice child, Cleiti, Varian thought as she and the heavy-worlders continued on to the storage shed for their equipment. Varian checked the big sled, despite the fact that Portegin had serviced it that morning.

They were airborne in good time, just after the morning’s first downpour. As seemed to be the rule on Ireta, the clouds then reluctantly parted, allowing the yellow-white sunlight to beat down. Varian’s face mask darkened in response to the change of light and she stopped squinting. Sometimes she found the curious yellow light of cloudy daytime more piercing than the full sun’s rays.

They had to fly ten kilometers beyond the radius of the encampment before the telltale began to register life forms, most of them already tagged. The “dead” perimeter had been expanding ever since they landed as if knowledge of the intruders had been slowly disseminating among the indigenous animals. This was a slow-cop world, Varian thought, for on more . . . civilized, was that the word she needed? Advanced, yes, that was more accurate. On more advanced worlds, the news of strangers seemed to waft on the outgoing wind of their descent, and inhabitants made themselves scarce . . . Unless, of course, it was an intelligent, nonviolent world where everyone gathered around to see the new arrivals. Sometimes the welcome would be discreet, not defensive nor offensive, but distant. Varian thought of the defensive screen around the domes and snorted to herself. The thing wasn’t needed—except to keep insects out. At least not under present circumstances, when the animals stayed far away. Maybe the solution to Kai’s problem was simply to establish the physical secondary camp, complete with small force-screen, give the local wildlife a chance to drift away from the area and then let his teams move in.

Yet there was fang-face! The size of him! She recalled tree tops shivering at his passage in the tape Kai had made. The main force-screen would burn him, probably dissuade him . . . there hadn’t been much animal life around those active volcanoes so creatures great and small on Ireta knew about fire and burn. The problem was that the smaller screens weren’t powerful enough to stop a determined attempt by fang-face if he were hungry, or scared, and that was what she had to allow for—the appetite of such predators as fang-face.

Varian had taped a course for the northeast, the vast high plateau ringed by the tremendous “mountains of the moon,” as Gaber had called them. Two subcontinents had ground into each other, Gaber had told her pedantically, to force high those great stone peaks. The plateau beneath them had once been ocean bed. Anyone returning to that area had been enjoined by Gaber and Trizein to look for fossils on the rock faces. It was here, at the foot of the new fold mountains, that Kai hoped to start finding pay dirt. This was well beyond the ancient corings. For some reason,