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earlier, something extraordinary took place today. It happened this afternoon, and, I suppose, it's still happening. As before, this strange event involves the old man who appeared in the clearing over a week ago. It also involves the huri, his blind reptilian companion.
    Until today I'd never seen two Asadi eat together. As an Earthman from a Western background, I find the practice of eating alone a disturbing one. After all, I've been eating alone for over three weeks now, and I long to sit down in the communal mess with Benedict and Eisen, Morrell and Yoshiba, and everyone else at base camp. My training in strange folkways and alien cultural patterns hasn't weaned me away from this longing. As a result, I've watched with interest, and a complete lack of comprehension, the Asadi sitting apart from their fellows and privately feeding—as if, again, they were merely an alien variety of chimpanzee or baboon.
    Today this changed. An hour before the fall of dusk, the old man staggered into the clearing under the burden of something damnably heavy. I was aware of the commotion at once. Like last time, every one of the Asadi fled to the edge of the jungle. I observed from my lean-to. My heart, dear Ben, thumped like a toad in a jar. The huri on the old man's shoulder scarcely moved;

    it appeared bloated and insentient, a rubber doll. During the whole of the old man's visit it remained in this virtually comatose state, upright but unmoving. Meanwhile, the aged Asadi—whom I've begun to regard as some sort of aloof and mysterious chieftain—paused in the center of the clearing, looked about, and then struggled to remove the burden from his back. It was slung over his shoulders by means of two narrow straps.
    Straps, Eisen: S-T-R-A-P-S. Made of vines.
    Can you understand how I felt? Nor did the nature of the old man's burden cause my wonder to fade. He was lowering to the ground the rich, brownish-red carcass of an animal. The meat glistened with the failing light of Denebola and its own internal vibrancy. The meat had been dressed, Eisen, and the old man was bringing it to the Asadi clearing as an offering to his people.
    He set the carcass on the dusty assembly floor and withdrew the straps from the incisions he'd made in the meat. Then, his hands and shoulders bloodstained, he stepped back five or six steps.
    Slowly, a few of the adult males began to stalk into the clearing. They approached the old man's offering with diffident steps, like thieves in darkened rooms. Their eyes were furiously changing colors. All but those of the old man himself. I could see him standing away from the meat, and his eyes—like unpainted china saucers—were the color of dull clay. They didn't alter even when several of the Asadi males fell upon the meat and began ripping away beautifully veined hunks. Then more and more of the Asadi males descended upon the carcass, and all about the fringes of the clearing the females and the young made tentative movements to claim their shares. I had to leave my lean-to to see what was going on. Ultimately, I couldn't see anything but bodies and manes and animated discord.
    Before most of the Asadi were aware, Denebola set.
    Awareness grew, beginning with the females and the young on the edges of the clearing and then burning inward like a grass fire. A few individuals flashed into the Wild. Others followed. Eventually, in a matter of only seconds, even the males contesting

    for the meat raised their bloody snouts and scented their predicament. In response, they bounded toward the trees, disappearing in innumerable directions, glimmering away like the dying light itself.
    And here is the strange part, the truly stranger part. The old man didn't follow his people back into the Synesthesia Wild, //e'5 sitting out there in the clearing right now!
    When all of the Asadi had fled, he found the precise spot where he'd placed his offering, hunkered down, lowered his buttocks, crossed his legs, and assumed sole