They lapsed into silence, and Art Johnson considered the improbable
amount of circumstances that had brought him to the base of this
numbered but nameless hill half across the world from home. There was
nothing of home here, and he felt the lack mightily. There was a very
good chance that before another few hours had passed, he would be dead.
And then he would never see home again.
He shivered. The thought frightened him. He didn't want to die. Not
that he supposed any of the other men wanted to die either. But they
were remote, other beings, alien in Art Johnson's world. What they felt
he could not guess; what he felt he knew.
_And he did not want to die!_
"Hey, Art!"
"Uh, what is it, Tooey?"
"Chinks, I think. Up there in the trees. God, they're sneaking down!"
"Where? Dammit, where?" He thumbed the safety of his grease gun, and
brought it up to bear on the trees. His fingers tightened around the
stock; the trigger started to depress--