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took you for a decent woman.”
    The tourist party on the embankment had heard the scuffle. Some of them were already hurrying down to help. Dulcifer stood back and let them. He retained his hold on the mole-creature which Sygiek had shot; it was now dead. He followed as the others tenderly carried Morits up to the road and into the shade of the overturned bus. A trail of blood dripped from the wounded bureaucrat.
    Kordan and the grey-haired hydraulics technician, Lao Fererer, had established themselves as provisional co-directors of the party. They cleared a space for the bodies and called for bandages.
    The guide, Rubyna Constanza, climbed into the bus, reappearing with bandages and medicaments. She set to work in a business-like way to tend Morits, kneeling by him and turning him gently over on his face. Then she cried aloud. Morits’s clothing, the small of his back, his buttocks, thighs, calves, part of one arm, had been eaten away as if by rats, exposing bone. Blood was seeping over the road. Mercifully, Morits was unconscious.
    Constanza looked up into the tense faces round her.
    â€œWhat can we do about his wounds here? He will surely die. In the Unity, at Peace City, the accident units could grow replacement arteries and flesh but here … Death’s certain.”
    Nobody spoke. It was the obscene word “death” which shocked them. At home, there was only a fulfilled Passing On, as the citizen moved into an all-embracing pallor which was in harmony with the system. Here on Lysenka II, you went out in crimson, the hue of rage and passion.
    Kordan spoke, mastering his voice. “Do what you can for him, Rubyna Constanza. Now we see why we are inevitably screened before we can visit an Extra-solar Planet. Instead of Eternal Security, we are faced with Eternal Anarchy. In the System, before the days of Biocom and the establishment of World Unity—”
    â€œWe already have the speeches by heart,” Sygiek cut in. “It is not an hour since this vehicle crashed and already one of us is severely wounded. Danger surrounds us, and our first duty to the state is to triumph over that danger and survive. All of you make sure you now understand exactly the situation in which we find ourselves. Ecologically and ideologically, these creatures are our enemies.” Her arm swept round to cover the wilderness about them. “We are Number One Target for every living monster out there.”
    Dragging the dead mole-creature by its mane of hair, Dulcifer pushed his way into the center of the group. He dumped it beside the bleeding body of Georg Morits.
    â€œSygiek is right. We don’t want speeches, we want action. We don’t want propaganda, we want information. We aren’t in Utopia now. You know what permits Utopia to flourish? I’ll tell you—protein. A plentiful supply of protein, eh? The one prime fact about Lysenka you’d better remember is that from the word go it suffered from protein-deficiency on a grand scale. Know what that means, comrades? We can be eaten . To the things that exist here, we are protein on the hoof, and we have to fight. Otherwise, we’ll be more thoroughly chewed up and gulped down something’s digestive tract than even poor Comrade Morits.”

V
    A murmur of shock and protest rose from the stranded tourists, but Dulcifer pushed on through it.
    â€œWe may be efficient in the System, but we have had no external enemies for countless centuries. Here, we are inefficient. On this dud, murderous world, we are just bait. Food, nothing more. We need knowledge and leadership to survive for even a few hours.”
    â€œCollective leadership,” said Lao Fererer, to a murmur of agreement. “We have lived by our principles—we are certainly not going to abandon them in a crisis.”
    â€œWe adapt,” Dulcifer said firmly. “Lysenka II is just entering what corresponds with the start of Earth’s Carboniferous Age,