Peer blew her nose and considered in turn. "Just the same," she concluded, "when Santis says something like that, it's a lot better if people do it. Is 'Holy Aynstyn knows where' a swear-word?"
"No," said Channok. "Not exactly."
He'd finished his lunch and was just going to suggest they run the tractor out of the cache and back the few hundred yards to the Asteroid for the first load of Santis' cargo, when he noticed that all the ghouls had vanished.
He called Peer's attention to the fact.
"Uh-huh," she said in an absent-minded tone. "They do that sometimes...."
Channok looked at her. She was staring at a high boulder a short distance away, with a queer, intent expression, as if she were deep in thought about something. He hoped she wasn't still brooding about their little argument—
Then she glanced at him, gave him a sudden grin, swung herself around and slid nimbly off the rock.
"Come on down quick!" she said. "I want to show you something before you get back to work. A ghoul-burrow!"
"A ghoul-burrow?" Channok repeated unenthusiastically.