At the top, they looked around the deserted site. Von Billmann used his movie camera. Gribardsun looked cautiously through the tents and found an old man and woman cowering in one and a sick five-year-old child in the other. He got the child to swallow a panacea and then ran the diagnoser over his body and took a sample of blood.

The old couple were almost toothless, and the woman was blind. Both shook so violently that they could not answer when Thammash spoke to them. Finally, the woman replied, and Thammash raised his eyebrows, shrugged his shoulders, and turned his palms upward. It was evident that he did not understand the woman's language.

Von Billmann made signs that Thammash should continue to elicit speech from the couple. But Thammash was more interested in loot. He and the others were busy prowling around, inspecting and appropriating flint and bone spearheads, atlatls, bone fishhooks, and needles and bone and ivory figurines.

Gribardsun watched them carefully, and when he saw Gullshab enter the tent of the sick child, he went after him. He was just in time to stop him from plunging his spear into the boy's solar plexus. Gullshab was somewhat resentful, but he understood that the child was not to be harmed, and he passed the message along to the others.

However, Angrogrim did not think that the restriction applied to the old couple. He picked up a club and started toward the oldsters' tent but stopped when Gribardsun shouted at him. He threw the club down angrily and walked off.

Gribardsun made signs that each should pick up a piece of bear and start back. It would be dusk within half an hour. It was evident that they would have to leave at least half of the bear meat behind, so several of the men started to foul it. Gribardsun ordered them to stop, and when they pretended they did not understand him, he made threatening signs. Reluctantly, they turned away and hoisted the meat they had chosen onto their shoulders.

'I just wanted to scare the strangers away so we could recover some of the meat and thus impress both parties,' Gribardsun said. 'I see no reason why we can't contact these people later and perhaps conduct studies of them, too.'

Gribardsun hoisted a hind leg of cave bear upon his shoulder and led his band back down the hill. The refugees had halted their mad flight and the two groups were now standing near the bottom of the hill and watching the strangers. The six men proceeded slowly and carefully under their burdens, unhindered by the two groups. After they had crossed the river, they did hear threatening shouts but these were mere bravado. None of the shouters ran after them to throw spears.

Darkness fell swiftly. The wind died down, but the air got even colder. A lion roared about half a mile to the west. A mammoth trumpeted shrilly. Something snorted deeply behind a hillock.

The four natives talked to each other in low but happy voices and occasionally said something to Gribardsun or von Billmann. They did not expect to be understood, but they just wanted the two to know that they were not being excluded from the geniality.

Gribardsun turned on his flashlight, causing the men to moan with awe. They dropped behind for a while as if they were afraid of the light. But when a lion coughed about a hundred yards in their rear, they crowded upon the Englishman's heels.

Their entrance to the campsite was a victorious one. The Silversteins turned their flashlights on them as they came up the hillside, and then torches flared as the people streamed down to shout with joy at the sight of the meat. Once on the ledge under the overhang, the four men recounted their adventures. The others looked with awe at Gribardsun. Gribardsun took advantage of his increased prestige to enter the tent where Abinal lay and give him another panacea. Abinal was sicker, and Gribardsun was not sure that the pill would do him much good. In fact, he would not have been surprised if the boy were dead by morning. He hoped not. Aside from his human concern, he didn't want to be blamed for the boy's death. He did not like the looks which Glamug, the shaman, gave him when he came out of the tent. If the boy lived, Glamug would try to take the credit. If the boy died, Glamug would put the responsibility on the stranger.

The shaman had put on a headband of grouse feathers and, with a bag full of medicine-magic objects and a reindeer's bladder filled with pebbles tied to the end of a stick, was dancing slowly around the tent. He chanted in a shrill voice while he danced. Amaga, the mother, stood by the flap of the tent with a pine torch and waved it around in circles. The father, Dubhab, had painted his forehead with a mixture of wood ash and some dark clay, but he took no part in the ceremony. He sat by a hearth and ate roast bear and seemed to be cracking jokes with some of his hearthmates.

After a while Glamug, tired by the day's hunting and the trek after the stolen meat, flopped down by the hearth. Rachel quit taking films of the ceremony. Drummond squatted by a hearth and chewed on a piece of bear meat while his black eyes moved from side to side. He looked tired and had already mentioned that he would like to go home. Robert von Billmann was recording a speech by Dubhab, who seemed to be telling of the raid.

The villagers (Gribardsun was thinking of the place as a village) were occupied in having a good time, though some were busy with chores that could not be put off. Some young mothers were suckling their babies, which were wrapped up in furs. A middle-aged woman had stuffed herself with meat and now was chewing on a piece of skin to make it soft. An hour and a half passed, and most had crawled into their tents and tied down the flaps to keep out the wind. The fires in the hearths were covered with ashes; the coals would be revivified in the morning.

Dubhab and Amaga and the girl, Laminak, had retired into the tent with the sick boy. Glamug danced again around the tent, chanting in a low voice, shaking his rattle, and occasionally making a sign at the four major points of the compass. He folded his thumb and two middle fingers together and extended his little finger and index finger. All four of the scientists noted the sign; it was indeed an ancient one.

Glamug soon tired again. But he did not enter his tent, even though his wife had stuck her head out from time to time and looked at him as if she wished he would come home. Glamug got a huge bison fur and wrapped himself in it while he sat in front of the sick boy's tent. His head was hidden in a great fold of the fur, but one hand was out in the cold, holding the reindeer bladder. Evidently he was on duty all night, guarding against the spirit of sickness and death.

The scientists decided to call it a day. They started out on the cold and weary walk to the vessel. The village was quiet; there were no guards; even Glamug was snoring in the depths of his robe.

The next morning they ate a good breakfast and rehashed the previous day's events. Rachel and Gribardsun fed the bear cubs and played with them a little. Rachel seemed happier than the day before. Gribardsun wondered if it was because she was with him. She smiled much at him, laughed at almost everything he said, and reached out and put her hand on his arm or shoulder and once moved her fingertip along his jaw. He was aware that yesterday's events had raised him even further in her esteem. Whatever was driving the Silversteins apart was carrying her toward him. He did not believe that he was the original force that had split them. But he might get blamed before they settled their troubles.

He decided that he would have to talk seriously to her, perhaps to both of them, apart or together, and straighten them out. But he did not think that now was the time for it. He would put it off for a while. If he did so, then her interest in him might die away, or she might find means to sublimate it, or she and her husband might come to terms with their differences. He believed much in allowing time to effect cures.