of fires afar off where the winged ones had made
a kill....

Qanya stumbled, and Dworn caught her round the waist as she swayed.

"Tired," she gasped in a little girl's voice, then stiffened her back
with a resolute effort.

"We'd better rest--"

"No," she said shakily; and then abruptly: "_Listen!_"

Not very far away, lost somewhere among the tricky moon-shadows, there
was a stealthy crunching. It was coming nearer.

With instinctive caution the two hugged the pool of shadow beside a
boulder.

"Spiders!" Qanya recognized them first.

They came prowling out of the shadows, crunching rhythmically across an
open moonlit space towards a hollow beyond. One, two, four of them,
moving with furtive caution through the perilous night.

They had to be intercepted, the warning given. But it was a critically
dangerous moment--suspicious and on edge, they might fire at the first
movement they saw.

"Stay here," said Dworn shortly. He thrust Qanya back into the shadows,
and walked steadfastly out into the clear moonlight, in the path of the
walking spider machines.

He raised one hand on high, palm outward in an immemorial gesture that
he could only hope would be seen. He shouted at the top of his voice,
"Stop! Don't shoot! I come in _peace_!"

His heart leaped. The leading spider ground to a halt, and the others
behind it. He saw a dim figure move atop the foremost towering machine;
and before he could speak again, heard the rasping voice of the Spider
Mother herself.

"You! The one who got away--and who seduced one of _us_ from the ways of
her ancestors--? What peace can there be between you and us?"

"I bring," cried Dworn clearly, "warning of the Drone."

There was stunned silence.

Dworn sensed the other spiders watching from the height of their
machines; and he guessed something of what must be going on in the mind
of the fierce old woman staring down at him. She would be wondering if
an alien, a mere beetle, would be so far without honor, so anxious to
save his own skin, as to lie in such a matter.

Then he felt Qanya's hand in his, and heard her cry out, her voice
vibrant and assured: "It is true, Mother! I have seen them too. The
night-fliers, the raiders--they are the evil things our legends tell
of!"

The great machine took two steps forward and knelt low to the ground.
"Come here!" rasped the Spider Mother, and when the two advanced till
she could look into their young faces--"You swear to this?