text: [Themes: sci-fi]
  
  "Now walk spread apart," Hun-Spruk says. "Far enough that you can only see one person ahead of you."
  
  "Now hold on," Dansmith says. "Won't that increase the chances of the guy in back getting picked off?"
  
  "It eliminates the possibility that we'd all get surrounded at once," Hun-Spruk says. "This is how Dr. Munro makes her prairie crossings."
  
  "But we've already established there are inconsistencies in her reports," Dr. Wildon cautions.
  
  Hun-Spruk seems to be getting impatient with all of this doubtfulness. "You're all thinking like you're still back on Earth," she says. "There, you have safety in numbers. When the predators attack, they pick off the stragglers. But that's not the way it works on Folvan. Here, the predators try and corral their prey all in one spot. If we're strung out along the trail, with lots of space between us, we all stand a better chance."
  
  "I think I see the logic in that," you say. "Basically, we need to remember we're not home, and the rules are a little different here."
  
  "Just so you know," Dansmith says, "suppressing 100,000 years of human instinct may be easier said than done."
  
  Lieutenant Hun-Spruk shakes her head, realizing she's being baited. Dansmith smiles. "But of course a key aspect of being human is the ability to reason. Therefore I have applied the cio oil as you have suggested, and I will remind myself to keep far enough back that Dr. Wildon will be the only person I see ahead of me. Those garda beasts won't stand a chance."
  
  "Shall we continue?" you say.
  
  Hun-Spruk assumes the lead as your expeditionary party proceeds out into the prairie. After such a long trek pounding your way down the mountain trail, it is discouraging to be walking on the level again, struggling against the 2.3-G gravity as the air grows humid. There is no sunshine now, and dark clouds have taken over the sky.
  
  "I think rain is coming," Starman Quabiss says. "Back home my Grandma would say these clouds mean trouble."
  
  "If all goes well we should be at the research post in just an hour," Hun-Spruk says, loudly enough to be heard. Because of the prescribed distance between the members of your group, it is sometimes hard to hear what another person is saying. It also doesn't help that the lieutenant, who is twelve centimeters shorter than you, is virtually lost in the tall grass.
  
  For that matter, wading through the tall, stiff grass is not easy for anyone, with or without a faint track to follow. This isn't the soft, lacey plant imported from Old Earth and habitually planted around every home on every world ever settled by humans. This stuff is coarse and abrasive, making your hike seem like a walk through a kitchen drawer filled with knives wrapped in sandpaper. Fortunately your field uniform covers most of your skin, but after just a few minutes your hands are already starting to turn red from all the contact with the vegetation.
  
  Therefore it almost seems like a godsend when you reach the open expanse of a dry streambed. It seems to cut straight through the grassland, from the foot of the mountains out toward the distant lake, like a road unevenly paved with rough stone. The trail continues on the far bank, but didn't Hun-Spruk say earlier that this stream also leads to the research post?
  
  "Hey, Ceta, hold up for a second," you call out. When Lieutenant Hun-Spruk reappears on the far bank, you ask, "Would it be better if we followed this stream?"
  
  "Maybe," she says. "It meanders a little bit according to my map, but I do know that it comes within half a kilometer of the research post. From what I can tell this trail is a little more direct, but of course we'll probably have to put up with all this thick grass the entire way."
  
  > If you'd rather follow the streambed, turn to page 124.
  "All things being equal, I'd rather follow this streambed," you say.
  
  "OK," Hun-Spruk says, and she scoots back down the steep bank.
  
  A moment later Wildon, Quabiss, and Dansmith catch up to your position. "We're not keeping spaced out anymore?" Dr. Wildon says, and you explain your choice to follow the streambed instead of the trail.
  
  "These rocks might make for some awkward walking," Dansmith says, "but I've had enough of wading through all this goddamned grass."
  
  "I guess you'll get no complaints from me, either," Dr. Wildon says.
  
  And so the five of you abandon the narrow path and turn to follow the dry streambed downstream. Immediately the mood of your group seems to lift; filing through the tall grass felt confining, but on the streambed there is space--sort of. The banks on each side of you are steep, and with the tall vegetation crowning each side you feel a bit like you're hiking down the middle of a green canyon. But at least you can see each of your companions.
  
  Hun-Spruk doesn't seem as pleased, however. "We're getting too bunched together," she chastises.
  
  "As I was teasing you before, we're human," Dansmith says. "It's in our nature to stick together, not to let ourselves get all strung out."
  
  "And I'm aware of that, Chief," the lieutenant says. "But by doing what you're doing, you're putting every single one of us at risk."
  
  "Perhaps if you explained more about this theory of Dr. Munro's," Dr. Wildon says. Like you, he probably senses the developing tension between your senior advisor and your science officer, and he is trying to be diplomatic.
  
  "It's more a matter of observation than a theory," Hun-Spruk says. "It's how the wildlife on this planet think, how they operate."
  
  "Well OK," Dansmith says. "A while ago you pointed out those garda beasts from the trail, but they were too far away to get a good look at them. Tell us more about them. What kind of a threat do they pose?"
  
  "Garda beasts are the top predator of this part of Folvan," she says. "They're about the size of our shuttle, and they have these powerful hind legs that allow them to leap great distances at a time--as much as a hundred meters in a single bound."
  
  "Which I admit is pretty impressive in this gravity," Dansmith says.
  
  "Right," Hun-Spruk says."They're basically like mammoth grasshoppers, raining death upon the mumpaq herds that pass through this crater valley. But garda beasts don't think in the same way as predators on other planets, who like to pick off stragglers. These things don't like being outflanked, so they only attack when all of their prey is gathered together."
  
  "So they won't pounce on me if they think Starman Quabiss has a chance of sneaking up behind them, huh?" Chief Dansmith says.
  
  "Something like that," the lieutenant says.
  
  Before you know it, the space between each of you starts to increase, from maybe five meters to twenty or thirty. Often, as you continue to walk along the streambed, you can't see the person ahead or behind you in line, just as Hun-Spruk advised. You do your best to stifle your human instincts, which were honed by the many millennia spent evading predators back on Old Earth. Those rules for survival don't apply on many other worlds, including Folvan.
  
  > Page 139
  A rolling peal of thunder causes you to look backward. Dark clouds are now enshrouding the mountain range, as if night has returned to the high ground where you first landed a few hours ago. A great cleft in the escarpment marks the place where the stream flows out of the highlands, but you can no longer see the highest summits that surround that valley. However, you can hear a distant roar that you're certain wasn't there before--the sound of a torrential rainfall.
  
  You want to remark on the oddness and darkness of that cloud, but by this point the stream has curved and you can no longer see Lieutenant Hun-Spruk ahead of you or Starman Quabiss behind you in line. Everyone has finally taken the lieutenant's "rule of separation" to heart, you see. So you turn back around and resume walking, keeping your thoughts about the weather to yourself.
  
  Looking up to the sky directly above you, you're pleased to see that the rain seems to be passing you by down here on the plain. Hopefully you will reach the next research post before those dark clouds come your way.
  
  The thunder continues, but still at the same distance behind you. Better back there than ahead of you.
  
  Before long you realize you are walking through a trickle of water. Rather than a dry streambed, there is now a brown, sediment-laden stream rushing past your feet, further ahead into the prairie. You keep walking, but within minutes you notice that the water is rising--first up to your calves, then up to your knees in a matter of moments.
  
  "Flash flood!" you hear Dansmith shouting from some distance behind you. Then it dawns on you: all the rain inundating the rocky mountains you recently left behind, where there is no soil to absorb the water, is funneling straight down this streambed--meaning you are now standing in the worst possible place. You have to get out of this stream before it turns into a raging torrent.
  
  You can't see any of your companions, but you know you have to climb one of the steep banks on either side of you. Right or left, both look equally steep, and the tall Folvan grass looks equally thick. Which bank did your companions pick? You have no way of telling, so you might as well pick one and deal with the consequences.
  
  It really is a fifty-fifty choice.
  
  > If you climb up the left bank, turn to page 23.
  There is no time to coordinate with the others--this stream is rising swiftly, and you have an immediate need to climb to higher ground. The left bank is steep and tall, but it is also closer to you. If the others aren't making this same choice, you'll just have to sort it out later.
  
  It is difficult to gain traction in the clayey soil, and of course you weigh more than twice as much as normal, but thankfully the prairie vegetation is tough. You grab hold to the base of some thick, stalky plant and hoist yourself upward, with the muddy water flowing ever more swiftly below you.
  
  "Hay-ho!" someone shouts.
  
  "Dansmith, is that you?"
  
  "Last I checked, yes. Is that you, Lieutenant?"
  
  "You know it," you say.
  
  No one else has joined in, so you try and raise everyone on the comm. One by one, all four of your people are accounted for--but you and Dansmith are the only two people who climbed the left bank.
  
  "I don't know about anyone else," Dr. Wildon says, "but I'm soaked."
  
  "I lost my pack in the flood," Quabiss says. "All of my NutriRations are gone."
  
  Dansmith has joined you on the bank of what has now become a raging little river. He confides to you without speaking on the comm link: "I think we're done for today. Let's get back to the ship, dry out, and plan the next step in our search over a hot cup of coffee."
  
  At this point, you couldn't agree more. You call Hinju and ask him to pilot the shuttle down and pick you up. But he has to make two landings--one for each side of the stream.