you're the
first one ever to break the surface again. He gave you a break,
though. First time he ever gave anybody as much as a pocket
handkerchief to ease his fall. That lake is useful to Scar. It keeps
the bodies he gives it, and none ever turn up for evidence."

Murray was still struggling with nausea. "Want to thank you," he
managed. "I got it bad enough. Ow! I feel sick!"

The Martian bestirred himself. He scraped up the ancient shingle,
making a little pillow of sand for Murray's head. The Sun was already
nearing the western horizon, and its heat was no longer excessive.
Murray watched through half-closed lids as the big man descended a
short distance, returning with an armful of short, greasy shrubs. He
broke the shrub into bits, made a neat stack; stacked a larger ring of
fuel around this, until he had a flat conical pile about eight inches
high and two feet in diameter.

* * * * *

From a pocket safe he procured a tiny fire pellet. This he moistened
with saliva and quickly dropped into the center of his fuel stack. The
pellet began to glow fiercely, throwing off an intense heat. In a few
seconds the fuel caught, burning briskly and without smoke.

"Wouldn't dare do this in the open," the Martian explained, "if this
stuff gave off any smoke at all. The pulpwood mounds down in the
flats make a nice fire, but they smoke and leave black ashes, easy to
see from the sky. Now you just rest easy. You'll feel better soon as
you get some skitties under your belt."

The skitties proved to be a species of quasi-shellfish, possessing
hemispherical houses. In lieu of the other half of their shell they
attached themselves to sedimentary rocks. They were the only form of
life that had been able to adapt themselves to the chemicalization of
the ancient sea-remnant. The Martian had left them thin flakes of
rock. Now he placed the shells in the red-hot coals, and in a very
short time the skitties were turning out, crisp and appetizing.
Following his host's example, Murray speared one with the point of his
stiletto, blew on it to cool it. It proved to be delicious, although
just a trifle salty.

"Drink plenty water with it," the Martian advised him. "Plenty more
about five hundred feet down. Artesian spring there. Fact is, that's
all that keeps that lake from drying up. You ought to see the mist
rise at night."

Murray ate four of the skitties. Then, because the sun was getting
ready to p