kneeling beside it. He tried for a long time before he
was able to detach the bearskin bundle from the dead man's pack. Then
he got the pack open, and found dried venison. He started to divide
it, and realized that there was no Brave with whom to share it. He had
just sent Brave to his death.

Well, and so? Brave had been the Keeper's dog. He had died for the
Crown, and that had been his duty. If he could have saved the Crown by
giving his own life, Raud would have died too. But he could not--if
Raud died the Crown was lost.

The sky was darkening rapidly, and the snow was whitening the body in
green. Moving slowly, he started to make camp for the night.

It was still snowing when he woke. He started to rise, wondering, at
first, where Brave was, and then he huddled back among the robes--his
own and the dead men's--and tried to go to sleep again. Finally, he
got up and ate some of his pemmican, gathered his gear and broke camp.
For a moment, and only a moment, he stood looking to the east, in the
direction he had come from. Then he turned west and started across the
snow toward the edge of the Ice-Father.

* * * * *

The snow stopped before he reached the edge, and the sun was shining
when he found a slanting way down into the valley. Then, out of the
north, a black dot appeared in the sky and grew larger, until he saw
that it was a Government airboat--one of the kind used by the men who
measured the growth of the Ice-Father. It came curving in and down
toward him, and a window slid open and a man put his head out.

"Want us to lift you down?" he asked. "We're going to Long Valley
Town. If that's where you're going, we can take you the whole way."

"Yes. That's where I'm going." He said it as though he were revealing,
for the first time, some discovery he had just made. "For your
kindness and help, I thank you."

In less time than a man could walk two miles with a pack, they were
letting down in front of the Government House in Long Valley Town.

He had never been in the Government House before. The walls were clear
glass. The floors were plastic, clean and white. Strips of bright new
lumicon ran around every room at the tops of all the walls. There were
no fires, but the great rooms were as warm as though it were a
midsummer afternoon.

Still carrying his pack and his rifle, Raud went to a desk where a
Southron in a white shirt sat.

"Has Yorn Nazvik's ship, the _Issa_, been