In the forward cabin of the lander, the five volunteer crew members were sitting as comfortably as they were able in the cramped confines. Morrison, big and blond, an Iowa farmboy, had unwrapped an energy bar and was nibbling at it. Beside him, Skysky, fat and balding with a walrus mustache, decided to eat an energy bar of his own and fumbled it out of his pocket. Eka Nu, a flat-faced Burmese with skin a shade lighter than burned umber, was mumbling over the wooden beads of his Buddhist rosary. Styson, his long face as mournful as ever, was playing his harmonica, monotonously repeating one phrase over and over. And Larrimer, a city boy from New York's south Bronx, was doing nothing at all except licking his dry lips and brushing his long lank hair out of his eyes.

They had been excited when they volunteered. It was a chance for some action, after the confines of the ship. They'd heard stories about the aliens, of course, but none of them had seen one. They hadn't even been born at the time of the alien occupation of Earth. Aliens now seemed an exotic menace, a weird kind of big bug that would fall easily to their guns. Morrison was fiddling with his carbine. He decided to insert a new feed ramp. He stripped the receiver and replaced the ramp, then snapped the connector into place. The ramp toggled through a diagnostic code and then clicked into place. He shoved a magazine into the carbine, touched the bolt control, and cycled a round into the firing chamber. The magazine's counter showed an even one hundred antipersonnel rounds ready to go.

"Hey, farm boy," Skysky said, "you planning to shoot something?"

"If I get the chance," Morrison said, "I'm going to bag me one of them aliens and bring home his horns."

Eka Nu looked up from his rosary. "Aliens no got horns."

"Well, whatever they got, I want to bring a piece of it home. A piece of skull maybe. Wouldn't that look good mounted over the mantel?"

Styson said, "You better just hope one of them critters doesn't nail your hide up over the mantel."

"What're you talking about?" Morrison asked. "Them creatures ain't civilized. They ain't got mantels."

Just then Stan's voice came over the loudspeaker. "You men! Get ready to embark into a pod. Check your weapons."

"Okay," Morrison said, getting to his feet. "Time we had ourselves a little hunting."

The men were all on their feet, checking their weapons and talking excitedly. They were clumsy, some of them seeing modem weaponry for the first time. Morrison—who was their natural leader due to his size and self-confidence, though he was of the same rank as the rest of them—had to show Styson how to release the safeties. He was beginning to won-der if the guys would be all right, but he figured as long as they knew which end to point and what to pull, they'd be fine. What creature could stand up against military caseless ammunition?