certain that
they ran on their two hind feet instead of on an animal's four pads.

From the under part of the globe ship licked a tongue of fire. With
the force of a whiplash it coursed across the rock and in its passing
embrace, the creatures below writhed and withered to charred heaps.
They had no chance under that methodical blasting. The alien beside
Raf signaled again for a drop. He patted the weapon that he held and
motioned for Raf to release the covering of the windshield. But the
pilot shook his head firmly.

This might be war. The aliens could have a very good reason for their
deadly attack on the creatures surprised below. But he wanted no part
of it, nor did he want to get any closer to the scene of slaughter.
And he made an emphatic gesture that the windshield could not be
opened while the flitter was air-borne.

But as he did so they glided down, and he caught a single good look at
what was going on on the rock--a look which remained to haunt his
dreams for long years to come. For now he saw clearly the creatures
who ran fruitlessly for safety. Some reached the edge of the cliff and
leaped to what was an easier death in the sea. But too many others
could not make it and died in flaming agony. And they were not all of
one size!

Children! There was no mistaking the infant in its mother's arms, the
two small ones who fled hand in hand until one stumbled and the
burning lash caught them both as the other strove to pull the fallen
to its feet. Raf gagged. He triggered the controls and soared up and
away, fighting the heaving in his middle, shaking off with one savage
jerk the insistent pawing hand of the alien who wanted to join in the
fun.

"Did you see that?" he demanded of Soriki.

For once the com-tech sounded subdued. "Yes," he replied shortly.

"Those were children," Raf hammered home the point.

"Young ones anyway," the com-tech conceded. "Maybe they aren't people.
They had fur all over them--"

Raf grinned mirthlessly. Should he now accuse Soriki of prejudice?
What did it matter if a thinking creature was clothed in a space suit,
silken bandages, or natural fur--it was still a thinking creature. And
he was sure that those had been intelligent creatures he had just seen
blasted without a chance to fight back. If these were the enemy the
aliens feared, he could understand the vicious cruelty of the attack
which had killed the man he had been shown back in the city. Fire
against primitive spea