THE STARS ARE OURS

Dard traced Carlee Skort to where she was busy fitting up the small dispensary, a niche in the wall of the second cave, and had his bite sterilized and bandaged with plasta-skin.

"Hoppers!" She shook her head. "I don't know what we're going to do to discourage them. They stole Trude's little paring knife yesterday and three spools of thread."

He could understand her dismay over these losses. Little things, yes-but articles which could not be replaced.

"Luckily they appear to be afraid to come into the caves. So far we haven't caught any of them inside. But they are the most persistent and accomplished thieves I have ever seen. Dard, when you go out, stop in the kitchen and pick up a lunch for your working crew. Trude should have the packets made up by now.

He obediently made his way past work gangs into the other small cave room where Trude Harmon with an assistant was setting out stacks of plastic containers. The rich scent which filled the air tickled Dard's nose and made him very aware of hunger. It had been hours and hours since breakfast!

"Oh, it's you," Trude greeted him. "How many in your gang?"

"Three."

Her lips moved, counting silently, as she apportioned the containers and set them in a carrier.

"Mind you bring those back. And don't, don't you dare leave them where any hoppers can put paw on them!"

"No, ma'am. Something sure smells good."

She smiled proudly. "Those golden apples. We stewed some up into a kind of pudding. Just you wait 'til you taste it, young man. Which reminds me-where is that queer leaf, Petra?"

The dark- haired girl who had been stirring the largest pot on the stove pulled a glossy green leaf from one of her pockets. It was an almost perfect triangle in shape-green, threaded by bright red and yellow veins.

"Ever see one like that before, Dard?" Trude asked.

He took it and examined it curiously before he answered with a shake of his head.

"Pinch it and give a sniff!" Trude suggested.

He did and the good odor of cooking was nullified by another aromatic, clean fragrance, a mixture of herb and flower-of all the pleasant scents he had ever known.

"You can rub it on skin or hair and the scent lingers," Petra told him eagerly.

"And you'll never guess where we got that one," Trude broke in. "Tell him."

"I saw a hopper carrying it out in the grain field when I was gleaning yesterday. I thought it had been stealing from our food and chased it. Then when it wriggled through a hole in the brush fence it dropped the leaf. I picked it up and at first we thought it might be good to eat because the hopper wanted it. But it is just nice perfume."

"Sure, and if you want to get on the good side of the kitchen detail," Trude twinkled at him "you just find out where you can get about a peck of those, Dard. We ain't got the smell of that ship off: us yet-nasty chemicals. And we'd admire a chance to get some perfume. You do a little looking around when you're off on this jaunt of yours and see what you can find us. Now-clear out. Take your lunch."

Dard gave the leaf back to Petra and picked up the carrier. But he went out of the kitchen puzzled. What had Trude meant by "this jaunt of yours?" As far as he knew he was not intending to leave the valley. Had some other plans been made?

He started back to Kimber, determined to have an explanation.

"Lunch, huh?" Cully crawled out from under the cylinder as Dard sat the carrier on the ground.

The engineer wiped his hands on the grass and then on a piece of waste. "What do they have for us this time?"

"Stew of apples for one thing," Dard returned impatiently. "Listen, Kimber, Mrs. Harmon said something about my going on an expedition."

Sim Kimber pried the lid off a container of stew and poked into the depths of the savory mixture before he replied.

"We have to earn our keep, kid. And not being specialists in anything but woodcraft and transportation, it's up to us to do what we can along those lines. You knew the woods and mountains back on earth, and you have a feeling for animals. So Kordov assigned you to the exploration department."

Dard sat very still, afraid to answer, afraid to burst out with the wild exultation which surged in him now. He had tried, tried so hard these past few days to follow Harmon's overpowering interest in the land, to be another, if unskilled, pair of hands in the work about the cave. But the machines they were assembling at top speed were totally unknown to him. The men who worked on them lapsed into a jargon of functions he knew nothing about, until it seemed that they jabbered a foreign tongue.

For so long he had been responsible for others-for Lars and Dessie, for their food, their shelter, even their safety. And now he was not even responsible for himself. He was beginning to feel useless, for here he knew so little that was of any account.

All his training had been slanted toward keeping alive, at a minimum level of existence, in a hostile world. With that pressure removed he believed he had nothing to offer the colonists.