Ekstrohm sank
his fist into the thick, solid belly.

Slowly, Ryan's knees gave way and he sank towards the ground.

When his chin was at the right level of convenience, Ekstrohm put his
weight behind his right.

Ryan swayed dreamily backward.

But he threw himself forward and one ham of a fist connected high on
Ekstrohm's cheek. He was shaken to his toes, and the several hours' old
pain in the back of his head throbbed sickeningly. One more like that
would do for him.

Ekstrohm stood and drove in a lot of short punches to Ryan's body,
punches without much power behind them because he didn't have it. But he
knew better than to try a massive attack on a massive target.

When he couldn't lift his arms any more, Ekstrohm stopped punching. He
realized Ryan had fallen on his face a few seconds before.

Then he remembered, and whirled. He had left his back exposed to Nogol.

Nogol smiled. "I'm not drawing Hazard Pay."

After a while, Ekstrohm stopped panting and faced Nogol and the captain
who was now sitting, rubbing his jaw. "Okay," he said, "now you'll
listen or I'll beat your skulls in. I know what's behind all of this on
this planet."

"Yeah? What do you think it is, Stormy?" Ryan asked.

"First of all, I think there's a basic difference between this world and
any other the ExPe has investigated."

"Now what could that be?" Nogol wanted to know with a tiny smile.

"These worlds are _close_. The gravity is low. You wouldn't need much
more than a jet plane to get from one of these planetoids to another.
Some animals have developed with the power to travel from one of these
planetoids to another--like a squid jetting out water. They harnessed
some natural power system."

"What does that prove?" Ryan wanted to know.

"It proves that this world and others in this belt are _prepared_ for
interplanetary travel. It's probably a part of their basic evolutional
structure, unlike that of heavy, independent planets. This false 'dying'
is part of their preparation for interplanetary visitors."

"Why would these aliens want others to think that they were dead?" Ryan
asked.

"Correction, captain. They want visitors to believe that they _can_
die."

* * * * *

Ryan blinked. "Meaning that they _can't_ die?"

"That's right. I think everything on this planet has immortality,"
Ekstrohm said. "I'm not exactly sure how. Maybe it has to do with the
low radiation. Every individual cell ha