with them a sense of calm
amusement to reduce all his bold exploration to the level of a child's
first staggering steps. Shann fought his first answering flare of pure
irritation. To lose even a fraction of control was to open a door for
them. He remained where he was as if he had never "heard" that question,
surveying the room below with all the impassiveness he could summon.

Here the walls were no smooth barrier, but honeycombed with niches in a
regular pattern. And in each of the niches rested a polished skull, a
nonhuman skull. Only the outlines of those ranked bones were familiar;
for just so had looked the great purple-red rock where the wheeling
flyers issued from the eye sockets. A rock island had been fashioned
into a skull--by design or nature?

And upon closer observation the Terran could see that there was a
difference among these ranked skulls, a mutation of coloring from row to
row, a softening of outline, perhaps by the wearing of time.

There was also a table of dull black, rising from the flooring on legs
which were not more than a very few inches high, so that from his
present perch the board appeared to rest on the pavement itself. Behind
the table in a row, as shopkeepers might await a customer, three of the
Warlockians, seated cross-legged on mats, their hands folded primly
before them. And at the side a fourth, the one whom he had trapped on
the island.

Not one of those spiked heads rose to view him. But they knew that he
was there; perhaps they had known the very instant he had left the room
or cell in which they had shut him. And they were so very sure of
themselves.... Once again Shann subdued a spark of anger. That same
patience with its core of stubborn determination which had brought him
to Warlock backed his moves now. The Terran swung down, landing lightly
on his feet, facing the three behind the table, towering well over them
as he stood erect, yet gaining no sense of satisfaction from that merely
physical fact.

"You have come." The words sounded as if they might be a part of some
polite formula. So he replied in kind and aloud.

"I have come." Without waiting for their bidding, he dropped into the
same cross-legged pose, fronting them now on a more equal level across
their dead black table.

"And why have you come, star voyager?" That thought seemed to be a
concentrated effort from all three rather than any individual
questioning.

"And why did you bring me?" He hesitated, t