between them now. He stood up. The Throg ship had disappeared;
they could push on.

He found a break in the cliff wall which was climbable, and he coaxed
the wolverines after him. When they stood on the heights from which the
falls tumbled, Taggi and Togi rubbed against him, cried for his
attention. They, too, appeared to need the reassurance they got from
contact with him, for they were also fugitives on this alien world, the
only representatives of their kind.

Since he did not have any definite goal in view, Shann continued to be
guided by the stream, following its wanderings across a plateau. The sun
was warm, so he carried his jacket slung across one shoulder. Taggi and
Togi ranged ahead, twice catching skitterers, which they devoured
voraciously. A shadow on a sun-baked rock sent the Terran skidding for
cover until he saw that it was cast by one of the questing falcons from
the upper peaks. But that shook his confidence, so he again sought
cover, ashamed at his own carelessness.

In the late afternoon he reached the far end of the plateau, faced a
climb to peaks which still bore cones of snow, now tinted a soft peach
by the sun. Shann studied that possible path and distrusted his own
powers to take it without proper equipment or supplies. He must turn
either north or south, though he would then have to abandon a sure water
supply in the stream. Tonight he would camp where he was. He had not
realized how tired he was until he found a likely half-cave in the
mountain wall and crawled in. There was too much danger in fire here; he
would have to do without that first comfort of his kind.

Luckily, the wolverines squeezed in beside him to fill the hole. With
their warm furred bodies sandwiching him, Shann dozed, awoke, and dozed
again, listening to night sounds--the screams, cries, hunting calls, of
the Warlock wilds. Now and again one of the wolverines whined and moved
uneasily.

Fingers of sun picked at Shann through a shaft among the rocks, striking
his eyes. He moved, blinked blearily awake, unable for the first few
seconds to understand why the smooth plasta wall of his bunk had become
rough red stone. Then he remembered. He was alone and he threw himself
frantically out of the cave, afraid the wolverines had wandered off.
Only both animals were busy clawing under a boulder with a steady
persistence which argued there was a purpose behind that effort.

A sharp sting on the back of one hand made that purpose