childhood, his lost boyhood, anyone who aroused in
him hero worship. And he could not have put a name to the new emotion
that added so suddenly to his burning desire to make good, not only to
hold the small niche in Survey which he had already so painfully
achieved, but to climb, until he could stand so in such a group talking
easily to that tall man, his uncovered head bronze-yellow in the
sunlight, his cool gray eyes pale in his brown face.

Not that any of those wild dreams born in that minute or two had been
realized in the ensuing months. Probably those dreams had always been as
wild as the ones reported by the first scout on Warlock. Shann grinned
wryly now at the short period of childish hope and half-confidence that
he could do big things. Only one Thorvald had ever noticed Shann's
existence in the Survey camp, and that had been Garth.

Garth Thorvald, a far less impressive--one could say "smudged"--copy of
his brother. Swaggering with an arrogance Ragnar never showed, Garth was
a cadet on his first mission, intent upon making Shann realize the
unbridgeable gulf between a labor hand and an officer-to-be. He had
appeared to know right from their first meeting just how to make Shann's
life a misery.

Now, in this slit of valley well away from the domes, Shann's fists
balled. He pounded them against the earth in a way he had so often hoped
to plant them on Garth's smoothly handsome face, his well-muscled body.
One didn't survive the Dumps of Tyr without learning how to use fists,
and boots, and a list of tricks they didn't teach in any academy. He had
always been sure that he could take Garth if they mixed it up. But if he
had loosed the tight rein he had kept on his temper and offered that
challenge, he would have lost his chance with Survey. Garth had proved
himself able to talk his way out of any scrape, even minor derelictions
of duty, and he far out-ranked Shann. The laborer from Tyr had had to
swallow all that the other could dish out and hope that on his next
assignment he would not be a member of young Thorvald's team. Though,
because of Garth Thorvald, Shann's toll of black record marks had
mounted dangerously high and each day the chance for any more duty tours
had grown dimmer.

Shann laughed, and the sound was ugly. That was one thing he didn't have
to worry about any longer. There would be no other assignments for him,
the Throgs had seen to that. And Garth ... well, there would never be a
showdown