elt down by the young man, and turned him over on his
face.

The commander's own face was grim.

By this time, some of the nearby men, attracted by the yell, had come
running. They came to a stop as they saw the tableau before them.

The commander, kneeling beside the corpse, looked up at them. With one
hand, he gestured at the body. "Let this be a lesson to all of you," he
said in a tight voice. "This man died because he took off his armor.
That"--he pointed at the butchered reptile--"thing is full of as deadly
a poison as you'll ever see, and it can move like lightning. _But it
can't bite through steel!_

"Look well at this man and tell the others what you saw. I don't want to
lose another man in this idiotic fashion."

He stood up and gestured.

"Bury him."

VII

They found, as they penetrated deeper into the savage-infested
hinterlands of the Empire of the Great Nobles, that the armor fended off
more than just snakes. Hardly a day passed but one or more of the men
would hear the sharp _spang!_ of a blowgun-driven dart as it slammed
ineffectually against his armored back or chest. At first, some of the
men wanted to charge into the surrounding forest, whence the darts came,
and punish the sniping aliens, but the commander would have none of it.

"Stick together," he ordered. "They'll do worse to us if we're split up
in this jungle. Those blowgun darts aren't going to hurt you as long as
they're hitting steel. Ignore them and keep moving."

They kept moving.

Around them, the jungle chattered and muttered, and, occasionally,
screamed. Clouds of insects, great and small, hummed and buzzed through
the air. They subsided only when the drizzling rains came, and then
lifted again from their resting places when the sun came out to raise
steamy vapors from the moist ground.

It was not an easy march. Before many days had passed, the men's feet
were cracked and blistered from the effects of fungus, dampness, and
constant marching. The compact military marching order which had
characterized the first few days of march had long since deteriorated
into a straggling column, where the weaker were supported by the
stronger.

Three more men died. One simply dropped in his tracks. He was dead
before anyone could touch him. Insect bite? Disease? No one knew.

Another had been even less fortunate. A lionlike carnivore had leaped on
him during the night and clawed him badly before one of his companions
blasted