use this whole
thing is out of focus. I'm not a full E, and maybe their lives are more
important than my ambition to do a solo job. Certainly more important.
Then, trivial as it is, we'd be playing right into Gunderson's hands if
we've sent out a boy to do a man's job."

"Dismiss the Gunderson side of it," McGinnis said drily. "It's
inconsequential to the main issue. As for that, I don't know any more
than you do. There's never been anything like this. Colonists have been
wiped out on other planets, sure; but what happened left traces. This
one is an oddball, and I'd say you're as well equipped to handle it as
anybody else."

"I don't--I don't understand this at all," Hayes said in a worried
voice.

"Who does?" Cal asked. "I'd say set up for continuous communication.
I'll leave it wide open here, so that everything we say will come
through. Then, if anything should happen to us, you'll have the record
up to that point."

"It's the only thing we can do," Hayes agreed.

"If you think I should come out there to stand by, I'll do it," McGinnis
said. But the tone of his voice said he hoped Cal would shoulder the
full responsibility, not weaken out of a chance at a real solo.

"I'm not crying uncle, yet," Cal said. "But I may have to take you up on
the offer. I hope not."

"But do you _know_ anything is wrong?" Hayes asked incredulously. He was
having the same trouble facing the reality as the ship's crew.

"If you were flying to Los Angeles and found only desert where the city
is supposed to be, you might assume something was wrong," Cal answered
drily. "But I don't know what it is. Do you have a recorder set up, so I
can begin trying to find out?"

"Yes, yes, E Gray," Hayes said hurriedly. He was suddenly conscious that
he had been interrupting an E conversation, not once but several times.
"Pardon the intrusions. It was just that ..."

"I understand," Cal reassured him.

When Cal stood up from the communicator, the eyes of the crew were on
him. Overhearing his conversation with Earth had sobered them, made
reality come closer.

"You think it might be a mirage?" Tom asked. "Some freak air current
reflecting from another island and superimposing over this one?" Then he
answered himself. "No. I guess it isn't. There aren't enough
discrepancies."

"Let's pan down to the ground with the scanner," Cal said. "Take it slow
over the area where the village is supposed to be."

Glad to be doing something with his h