otch apart,
to talk to him. Peg-leg found food for Parker, but refused to talk. "Na,
na, my son, when the Jezbro passes over us as a great bird--when it goes
through the woods at night as a great howling beast--we do not talk
about it."

Parker pressed for more information, but the old man turned stubbornly
silent. Later he found Parker a place to sleep in his own hut. Parker
had the impression that, all during the night Peg-leg, sat on guard at
the entrance.

But nothing came in the night. In the morning Retch was there, saying,
with grim bitterness, that now it was time to go up the cliff to see
Rozeno and Ulnar. Mercedes, looking wan and bedraggled, with hate in her
hot black eyes, was with him. So was Gotch. Gotch did not look in the
least happy.

"What's biting you?" Parker said to Retch.

"Nothing."

"I get the impression something around here is just about scaring the
pants off of you."

"You're crazy!" Retch's voice was a snarl. "I'm not afraid of anything
around here--you--or anybody else." As he spoke, the man's face was a
mask and his eyes were wild.

"Sure, okay, I get it," the pilot answered.

They moved along the cliff until they came to a ledge that sloped
upward.

"We go up here," Gotch grunted.

* * * * *

As they went upward, they rose above the tops of the trees. Sparkling
thinly in the morning sunlight, the sea came into sight. Circling the
shoreline at a distance of about a mile, a curtain of mist was visible.
It seemed to close in above them too, shielding the island like a thin,
shining dome.

"That's a strange fog," Parker said.

"It's not a fog," Retch answered. "I don't know exactly what it is, but
when it is there, the island is invisible. If you are on the other side
of it, you see nothing at all."

"Um," Parker said. They continued upward. The ledge twisted, curved,
went around the rising cliff. Slowly Parker became aware that the rising
ledge was not a natural formation, it was a pathway cut into the face of
the cliff.

At the realization, the pilot felt a touch of awe rise in him. This
ledge was old. It must have been cut into this cliff long before
Columbus had sailed westward.

Off in the distance beyond the curtain of mist was the coast of
California, the beaches bright with bathers, the cities wrapped in warm
sunshine, the roads alive with traffic. Over there in the distance were
orange groves and millions of people.

Here on thi