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comfy of sitting positions. The hut’s thin-ribbed, lightweight aluminum wall dug into his back, and his air mattress was so flat that the bunk’s nut-and-bolt frame kept jabbing him in the behind through the rubberized fabric. But he didn’t change his position; somehow it suited the smoldering rancor building inside him.
    Neither Krull nor Massena seemed the least fazed by Aniel’s absence. For some reason Krull, who really was not much of a wit and never made any effort to be, had insisted from the start on the name “Angel,” even “Iron Angel,” and this, though trivial in itself, had rubbed Pirx the wrong way so many times as to be reason enough for disliking the man. Massena treated the robot in a purely professional sort of way and—like every intellectronics engineer who claims to know what responses are caused by what molecular processes and circuits—branded as sheer bull the faintest suggestion of any spiritual life. Still, he was as loyal and solicitous toward Aniel as any mechanic toward his diesel: he made sure he was never overloaded, respected him for his efficiency, and babied him.
    By six, Pirx, who couldn’t take it any more—his leg had finally gone to sleep—stood up, stretched till his joints cracked, wiggled his foot and flexed his knee to restore circulation, and began pacing the hut cornerwise, sure that nothing could rile Krull now that he was engrossed in his final tabulations.
    “A little consideration, fellas,” Krull said at last, seemingly unaware that the only one on his feet was Pirx, since Massena lay sprawled on his pneumatic couch, a pair of earphones on his head, listening to some broadcast with a look of bemused distraction. Pirx opened the door, felt the tug of a strong westerly wind, and, once the hut’s wind-rocked, sheet-metal wall was at his back and his eyes were accustomed to the dark, gazed in the direction of Aniel’s return route. A few vibrant stars were all he could see as a blustering, howling wind descended on him, engulfing his head like an icy stream, ruffling his hair, and swelling his nostrils and lungs—Pirx clocked it at around forty meters per second. He lingered for a while until a chill sent him back inside, where he found a yawning Massena taking off his headset and running his fingers through his hair, while Krull, frowning, businesslike, patiently went about filing papers in folders, shuffling each bunch to even the edges.
    “No sign of him!” said Pirx, startling even himself with his defiant tone. They must have noticed it, too, because Massena skewered him with a brief, cold stare and remarked:
    “So? He’ll make it back on infrared…”
    Pirx returned the glare but held his peace. He brushed past Krull, picked up the book he’d left lying on a chair, settled back into his corner, and pretended to be reading. The wind was picking up, at times cresting to a wail; something—a small branch?—thumped against the outer wall, and then came a lull lasting several minutes.
    Massena, who was obviously waiting for the ever-obliging Pirx to start supper, finally broke down and, after poring over the labels in hope of striking it rich with some hitherto undiscovered delicacy, set about opening one of the self-heating cans.
    Pirx wasn’t much in the mood for eating. Famished as he was, he stayed put. A cool and malevolent rage was taking hold of him, and it was directed, God only knew why, against his bunkmates, who, as roomies went, were not even all that bad. Had he assumed the worst? An accident, maybe? An ambush by the planet’s “secret inhabitants,” by those creatures in which no one but a few spoofers claimed to believe? But if there’d been a chance, even a thousand-to-one chance, of the planet’s being inhabited, they’d have dropped their piddling exercises long ago and swung into action, following procedures outlined by Articles 2, 5, and 6 of Paragraph XVIII, along with Sections 3 and 4 of the Special Contingency Code. But