early and found the family in the
living room; they had dumped the wastebasket and were putting things back
into it. Another land-prawn seemed to have gotten into the house; its
picked shell was with the other rubbish in the basket. They had dinner
early, and he loaded the lot of them into the airjeep and took them for a
long ride to the south and west.

The following day, he located the flint vein on the other side of the
gorge and spent most of the morning blasting away the sandstone above it.
The next time he went into Mallorysport, he decided, he was going to shop
around for a good power-shovel. He had to blast a channel to keep the
little stream from damming up on him. He didn't get any flint cracked at
all that day. There was another harpy circling around the camp when he got
back; he chased it with the manipulator and shot it down with his pistol.
Harpies probably found Fuzzies as tasty as Fuzzies found land-prawns. The
family were all sitting under the gunrack when he entered the living room.

The next day he cracked flint, and found three more stones. It really
looked as though he had found the Dying Place of the Jellyfish at that. He
knocked off early that afternoon, and when he came in sight of the camp,
he saw an airjeep grounded on the lawn and a small man with a red beard in
a faded Khaki bush-jacket sitting on the bench by the kitchen door,
surrounded by Fuzzies. There was a camera and some other equipment laid up
where the Fuzzies couldn't get at it. Baby Fuzzy, of course, was sitting
on his head. He looked up and waved, and then handed Baby to his mother
and rose to his feet.

"Well, what do you think of them, Ben?" Jack called down, as he grounded
the manipulator.

"My God, don't start me on that now!" Ben Rainsford replied, and then
laughed. "I stopped at the constabulary post on the way home. I thought
George Lunt had turned into the biggest liar in the known galaxy. Then I
went home, and found your call on the recorder, so I came over here."

"Been waiting long?"

The Fuzzies had all abandoned Rainsford and come trooping over as soon as
the manipulator was off contragravity. He climbed down among them, and
they followed him across the grass, catching at his trouser legs and
yeeking happily.

"Not so long." Rainsford looked at his watch. "Good Lord, three and half
hours is all. Well, the time passed quickly. You know, your little fellows
have good ears. They heard you coming a long time before