“Oh, Bob, you didn’t trip over—”
He was groaning.
“Bob?” Which is not exactly what she said: it came out in two syllables, the second much higher than the first.
On her knees, she tugged him over. There was blood on his overalls, at the hip.
He was gasping, eyes closed, mouth opened, and was pawing at his pocket.
Confused, she stuck her hand into the swag-pocket pouch.
The nails! The threepenny brads from the supply inventory…
The blood was spreading down his overalls.
Red, not pale blue like the blood from the furry ugly things that should have been cute, dribbling off the parrot-beak of the things that lived in the crag caves above Polo, where he had planted his death-bringer, knowing…
Knowing…
And weighing it against her…
And not caring…
Turning away…
Blood…as Polo sank into the green sea.
Coffins, on Saquetta, are round. And the natives… small (and yes, round), are, as the life-forms on so many other worlds, organic. And, as on so many other worlds, there were other life-forms, not just molloks. There were cocci—staph, strep, diplo and mono—bacilli, sperilli, rickettsia, and viruses…
Three little Saquettes came out of the tall grass and stood aimed at the antenna, quivering, belonging for a time to the vibration of a thing unseen…
Peritonitus still takes only twenty-four hours to kill.
And on the morning of the seventh day…
