“Well, all those young featherleaf trees,” Jimenez said, “they’d been doing fine up to a couple of years ago, holding moisture, stopping erosion, water table going up all over the western half of the cattle country. Then the damned goofers got in among them, and half the young trees are chewed to death now.”

That figured. They’d shot all the harpies out of the southern half of the continent long ago; first chased them out of the cattle country to protect the calves, and then followed them into the upland forests where they’d been feasting on goofers. Now the surplus goofers were being crowded out of the uplands and down into the Squiggle. Up in the north, Fuzzies killed a lot of goofers, but there were no Fuzzies that far south.

But why shouldn’t there be?

“Juan, I have an idea. We have a lot of Fuzzies here who are real sharp with bows and arrows. I was out running an archery class when you called me; you should see them. Say we airlift about fifty of them down to where the goofers are worst, and see what they do.”

“Send them to Chesterville; the chief forester there’ll know where to spot them. How about arrows?”

“Well, how about arrows? How soon do you think you can produce a lot, say a couple of thousand? I’ll send specs when I know where to send them. You can make the shafts out of duralloy, the feathers out of plastic, and the heads out of light steel. They won’t have to shoot through armor-plate, just through goofers.”

“Well, I wouldn’t know about that; that’s purely a production problem…”

“Then, talk to a production man about it. Is Grego in town? Talk to him; he’ll get your production problems unproblemed.”

“Well, Gerd, thanks a million. That may just be the answer. Airlift them around from place to place and just let them hunt. I’ll bet they’ll get more goofers in a day than five times as many men would get with rifles.”

“Oh, hell, don’t thank me. The Company’s done a lot of things for us. Hokfusine, to put it in one word. Of course, we’ll expect the Company to issue the same rations they’re getting here…”

“Oh, sure. Look, I’ll call Victor. He’ll probably call you back…”

WISE ONE WAS happy. For the first time since Old One had made dead, he did not have to think all the time of what to do next and what would happen to the others if anything happened to him. Big Ones’ Friend would think about all that now; he was leading the band. Of course, he insisted that Wise One was the leader, but that was foolishness.

Or maybe it wasn’t; maybe it was wisdom so wise that he thought it was foolishness because he was foolish himself. That was a thought he had never had before. Maybe he was getting wiser just by being with Big Ones’ Friend. Big Ones’ Friend didn’t want to make trouble in the band; that was why he said Wise One should lead and had given the — the w’eesle — to show it. His fingers went to his throat to reassure himself that he really had it.

Then he squirmed comfortably among the dry soft grass and ferns under the brush shelter Big Ones’ Friend had shown them how to make, with the warmth and glow of the fire on him, listening to the wind among the trees and the splashing of the little moving-water and the sound of the lake behind him. Fire was wonderful when one learned how to make it and how to keep it safe. He had been afraid of it; all the People, all the Fuzzies — he must remember that word — but when one knew about it, it was good. It frightened all the big animals away. It made warmth when one was cold. It made meat many-many times better.

But best of all, it made light in the dark. Look, here were Other She and Carries-Bright-Things and Fruitfinder, beside the fire, twisting longleaf-tree roots to make… to make rope — that was a Big One word. The People, Fuzzies, had no word for it because they had never known of it. It was long after dark. Without fire they would all have been asleep long ago. And Stonebreaker was working too, making the chopping-stones to put on sticks. It was strange that nobody had thought of doing that before, or of putting pointed stones on longer sticks to stab with. That made killing hatta-zosa — goofers — much easier; Stabber and Lame One had killed four today, after sun-highest time, noon, and it would have taken the whole band to kill that many with stones and clubs. Big Ones’ Friend was sitting with Stonebreaker now, fitting one of the cutting-stones onto a stick.

This was the fourth night since they had come to this place. They had slept around a fire at the place where they had first met Big Ones’ Friend. The next morning Big Ones’ Friend had given them the Wonderful Food of the Big Ones, all he had, a little for each of them. He had told them that at Wonderful Place the Big Ones gave it all the time to all Fuzzies, as much as they wanted. After that, all of them had wanted to go to Wonderful Place and make friends with the Big Ones, even Big She. They had wanted to start at once, but Big Ones’ Friend had said that they should build a floating-thing, a raft, and go down the river and over to the other side. He had said that all the time and work they put into this would be saved, that it would be far-far to go up to where this river was little enough to cross without a raft.

Big Ones’ Friend had made a little show-like out of sticks to show the big raft he meant that they should make. He said the Big Ones often did this, first making something little before making it big to use. Then they had come to this place, and he had said it was a good place to make the raft. So they had made camp, and he had showed them how to make this shelter, and had made a place for their fire, and dug a long hole for the barba-koo fire. Then they had begun digging roots and making rope, and Big Ones’ Friend had built fires at the roots of the trees he had wanted for the raft, and burned them till they fell. They cut off the branches with the chopping-stones — axes — he and Stonebreaker made out of hard-stone they had found up the little stream, but the trees themselves were too big to cut in that way, so Big Ones’ Friend made fires to burn them into logs. This was dangerous; even Big Ones’ Friend was afraid about this. These fires might get loose and burn everything. That was why he and Big Ones’ Friend would sit up and watch while the others slept, and then they would wake Stabber and Big She and Lame One, who were sleeping now, and after a while they would wake Fruitfinder and Other She and Carries-Bright-Things, and they would watch till daylight.

After a while, Fruitfinder and Carries-Bright-Things and Other She finished the rope they were making and coiled it, and then came into the shelter and lay down to sleep. Stonebreaker worked on at the axehead, and Big Ones’ Friend finished putting the one Stonebreaker had made onto a stick. He took it over to the woodpile and tried it while Stonebreaker watched. They both laughed at how good it was. Then he and Stonebreaker came over under the shelter.

“Show shining-stone,” Stonebreaker begged.

Big Ones’ Friend took it out of his shoulder bag and rubbed it for a while between his hands. Then the three of them leaned together, out of the light of the fire, to look at it. None of them had ever seen a thing like that, but Big Ones’ Friend said they were known among Big Ones, and one of his friends, Pappy Vic, dug many of them out of rock. He had found this one while he was breaking a piece of hard black rock he had found up the little stream. It was inside the rock, a stone the shape of a zarabunny’s kidney. It looked just like any other stone until it was rubbed; then it shone like a hot coal in the fire. But it was not hot. This was a not-understand thing; even Big Ones’ Friend did not know how it could be.

“Pappy Jack used to dig for these stones,” Big Ones’ Friend said. “Then all the other Big Ones found out about the Fuzzies, and they said Pappy Jack should do nothing but take care of the Fuzzies and teach them.”