evered artery and splashing dark in the starlight on the blue-white
snow. The air was filled with the cracking of gunfire and the deep,
savage snarling of the prowlers. Half of the prowlers broke through,
leaving seven dead guards behind them. The others lay in the snow where
they had fallen and the surviving emergency guards turned to hurry back
to their stations, reloading as they went.

The wounded woman had crumpled down in the snow and a first aid man
knelt over her. He straightened, shaking his head, and joined the others
as they searched for injured among the prowlers' victims.

They found no injured; only the dead. The prowlers killed with grim
efficiency.

* * * * *

"John----"

John Chiara, the young doctor, hurried toward him. His dark eyes were
worried behind his frosted glasses and his eyebrows were coated with
ice.

"The wood is soaked," he said. "It's going to be some time before we can
get fires going. There are babies that will freeze to death before
then."

Prentiss looked at the prowlers lying in the snow and motioned toward
them. "They're warm. Have their guts and lungs taken out."

"What----"

Then Chiara's eyes lighted with comprehension and he hurried away
without further questions.

Prentiss went on, to make the rounds of the guards. When he returned he
saw that his order had been obeyed.

The prowlers lay in the snow as before, their savage faces still twisted
in their dying snarls, but snug and warm inside them babies slept.

* * * * *

The prowlers attacked again and again and when the wan sun lifted to
shine down on the white, frozen land there were five hundred dead in
Prentiss's camp: three hundred by Hell Fever and two hundred by prowler
attacks.

Five hundred--and that had been only one night on Ragnarok.

Lake reported over six hundred dead. "I hope," he said with bitter
hatred, "that the Gerns slept comfortably last night."

"We'll have to build a wall around the camp to hold out the prowlers,"
Prentiss said. "We don't dare keep using up what little ammunition we
have at the rate we've used it the last two nights."

"That will be a big job in this gravity," Lake said. "We'll have to
crowd both groups in together to let its circumference be as small as
possible."

It was the way Prentiss had planned to do it. One thing would have to be
settled with Lake: there could not be two independent leaders over t