ted, struggled
frantically, and toppled over into the edge of a fire splotch, legs
looped together by the coils of the curious weapon Thorvald had put
together on their first night of partnership. Three round stones of
comparable weight had each been fastened at the end of a vine cord, and
those cords united at a center point. Thorvald had demonstrated the
effectiveness of his creation by bringing down one of the small "deer"
of the grasslands, an animal normally fleet enough to feel safe from
both human and animal pursuit. And those weighted ropes now trapped the
Throg with the same efficiency.

Having shot his last fireball, Shann ran swiftly to take up a new
position, downgrade and to the east of the domes. Here he put into
action another of the primitive weapons Thorvald had devised, a spear
hurled with a throwing stick, giving it double range and twice as
forceful penetration power. The spears themselves were hardly more than
crudely shaped lengths of wood, their points charred in the fire.
Perhaps these missiles could neither kill nor seriously wound. But more
than one thudded home in a satisfactory fashion against the curving back
carapace or the softer front parts of a Throg in a manner which
certainly shook up and bruised the target. And one of Shann's victims
went to the ground, to lie kicking in a way which suggested he had been
more than just bruised.

Fireballs, spears.... Thorvald had moved too. And now down into the
somewhat frantic melee of the aroused camp fell a shower of slim
weighted reeds, each provided with a clay-ball head. The majority of
those balls broke on landing as the Terrans had intended. So, through
the beetle smell of the aliens, spread the acrid, throat-parching fumes
of the hot spring water. Whether those fumes had the same effect upon
Throg breathing apparatus as they did upon Terran, the attackers could
not tell, but they hoped such a bombardment would add to the general
confusion.

Shann began to space the hurling of his crude spears with more care,
trying to place them with all the precision of aim he could muster.
There was a limit to their amount of varied ammunition, although they
had dedicated every waking moment of the past few days to manufacture
and testing. Luckily the enemy had had none of their energy beams at the
domes. And so far they had made no move to lift their flyers for
retaliation blasts.

But the Throgs were pulling themselves into order. Blaster fire cut t