to aid
him. He was struck by the incongruity of a civilized being descended
from simian ancestors and a civilized being descended from feline
ancestors fighting fang and claw while a bunch of misplaced amphibians
danced about them.

Making his weight count he suddenly twisted and hurled the Rumi under
him but something hit him a terrific blow on the back of the head and
blackness closed in.

V

O'Mara awoke with a head that felt like all the hangovers of a
misspent life.

"Have a nice rest?" Bill Fielding asked.

Terrence reached a weak hand to the back of his head and felt
bandages. "Did I catch a spring bolt?" he asked.

Bill grinned, "Well, no. Not exactly. It was more on the order of
Private O'Hara's rifle butt. He was trying to hit the Rumi you were
necking with."

"I might have known," Terrence groaned.

"We lost six men but recovered all the bodies except for one. We've
got four wounded ... litter cases. Thought you were going to make it
five for a while."

"Well, they won't slow us down too much. We still have about a hundred
and fifty miles to go. We'll camp here for the night and move out at
dawn."

Marching in the early morning and resting in the heat of the day
before another afternoon march, the Narakan Rifles covered another
fifty miles of the distance to Fort Craven without incident but not
without signs of Rumi. Twice they came on recently occupied camps and
once they caught sight of a Rumi patrol moving parallel to their own
line of march.

The next morning, which was blistering and cloudless, they were only
seventy miles from the Fort.

"Maybe we ought to give the radio another try." Terrence decided.
"We're close enough to have a chance of getting through now."

Polasky set up the field radio.

"Hello, Balliwick. Hello, Balliwick. This is Apple Three Three. Can
you read me? Come in, please."

O'Mara and Fielding sat and listened while he repeated the call a
dozen or more times. His only answer was the heavy static that Beta
produced in most electronic instruments. The same static that made
radar and space scanners all but useless, that limited aircraft to the
big dirigibles and weapons to old fashioned rifles and machine guns.

"I guess we'll know what's going on when we get there!" Terrence said.
He wiped his forehead with his arm, noticing that the heavily caked
mud was beginning to crack off. He would be in for a bad case of sun
poisoning probably.

A rare breeze had sp