d itself without flinching.

Now he flinched from children.... Still, the schooling had worked, he
acknowledged--so well that when their ship crashed into this planet
Hedlot's salty sea, his first reaction had been indignation at the
elements.

His second thought had been for his comrades. But they went down with
the ship; he alone had been hurled clear. Learning that, he'd swum
resolutely in the direction he knew the shore to be, and made it.

Exhausted, all right--shocked, naked, half-dead really. But quite ready
to point out his rank and identity to the first passer-by.

Lucky for him, Chet mused, that he'd had no chance to express his callow
arrogance. Shock saved his life--sank him into a stupor, so when the
Agvars found him, he was helpless. He knew it was only because it had
seemed perfectly safe that they'd tied him up and brought him to the
village, instead of killing him then and there.

By the time he'd recovered somewhat from the initial shock and
exhaustion, they were used to him, convinced he was harmless if well
chained-up. And they played it safe by giving him nothing but a little
water--no clothing, no shelter, no food....

They let him live, amused by the thirst that drove him to lap up each
morning's drenching dew, fascinated by his ravenous appetite for the
garbage they flung at him.

The Agvars--furry, savage half-men, with something of the dog and
something of the ape and little of the man about them--the Agvars let
him live, Chet realized, for exactly one reason: he made them feel
superior.

They'd learn now! Even though the children had stopped shrieking and
gone away, disgusted at his passivity, no villager's insensitive ears
could yet hear the ship.

In their boastfulness, the Agvars had invited other tribes to come and
look at him and poke at him and laugh at him. His presence was known
over the whole planet. He'd be found, no matter where on Hedlot the
spaceship landed.

And then would come the showdown!

* * * * *

But the showdown came earlier than he expected, speeded because the ship
landed close by. Chet told himself he should have counted on that kind
of accuracy, but he'd underestimated his fellow pilots.

He had himself signalled Earthside, just before the crash, that his ship
was about to land. He'd given his position--described sea and shoreline.
They'd find him, if he stayed chained to the post.

But he didn't. Taken unaware by the A