All this Chandler thought as he climbed the high rock rampart. He'd send a subspace letter back to the folks tonight, sure enough, he told himself. Not only had he been chosen for the preliminary exploration party, he'd made the first trip out of sight of the spaceship. It certainly was something to write home about, and Mom would be very proud ...
He was on top of the rock now. The vast tortuous landscape spread out below him like a relief map in a mapmaker's nightmare. Far to his left, beyond Glaudot's spacesuited figure, he could see the projectile-shaped spaceship resting on its tail fins. And to his right—
He stared. He gawked.
At the last moment he tried to get down from the rock, but his spaceboot caught on an outcropping and his fatal mistake was standing upright in an attempt to free it.
Then all at once in a blinding burst of pain he was clutching at something in his chest but knew as his life ebbed rapidly from his young body that it would not matter if he was able to pull the cruel shaft out....
Glaudot went rushing up the side of the rock. He still couldn't believe his eyes. Ensign Chandler had been impaled by two long feathered shafts, two arrows. The force of the first one had spun Chandler around and he lay now with his back arched across the topmost ramparts of the rock, two arrows protruding from his chest and his life blood, starkly crimson against the white of the spacesuit, pouring out.
Reaching the top of the rock in an attempt to drag the dying boy down, Glaudot saw the Indians rushing up the other side of the crater wall. Indians, he thought incredulously. Indians, as in the American West hundreds of years ago. Indians ... But just what the hell were they doing here?
A muscular brave notched an arrow, his right hand drawing the feathered shaft back to his ear. Quickly Glaudot flung his arms skyward, hoping that the universal gesture of surrender would be understood. The brave stood statue-still. His lips opened. He was speaking to another of the half-dozen Indians in the raiding band, but Glaudot could not hear the words through his space helmet. He knew his life hung in the balance.
He watched, fascinated and helpless, as the Indian who had slain Ensign Chandler came toward him.