* * * *

"_He sleeps again, Andruul._"

"_Yes, but the damage is probably done._"

"_No, or he would not sleep again so easily. His kind do not have such
emotional control._"

_The two turned away from the fading transparency of the sleeping-room
wall, and their short, thin bodies were in incongruous contrast to the
spaciousness of the metal-sheathed corridor down which they walked._

"_Psychoanalysis showed up the difference in his brain structure--that
apparently accounts for the poor efficiency our screens are showing.
What does Kaarn say?_"

"_He says we should never have allowed the theft._"

_Andruul cursed. "Allowed it! Those nomadic scum are like flies! No
matter how many you exterminate, they never fail to come back in double
their number. And they strike at the precise moment you are certain the
bones of the last one are sinking beneath the sand. Somehow Central
Patrol has got to get that unit back._"

"_You're certain it was a theft, then?_"

"_Don't be an idiot. Since when can those gypsies build anything more
complex than a crude electrical generator? Let alone a psibeam unit?
They've forgotten what little their civilization ever knew._"

"_They are clever enough at evading directed over-surface missiles._"

_Andruul muttered something, and lapsed into silence._

"_Well there is one thing for certain at any rate.... A psibeam unit is
unaccounted for, and despite our protective screening, the Earthman was
visibly disturbed in his sleep. His encephalotapes show that clearly.
They know about him, Andruul, and they're making their bid. Central
Patrol had better be quick and certain this time._"

_Andruul kept his silence. But he thought. He thought Central Patrol was
getting less efficient and more stupid every day._

* * * * *

It was a strange feeling; a feeling with which no human was emotionally
equipped to deal.

Johnny looked at his flawlessly renovated ship, poised like a snub-nosed
bullet against the blue-black brittleness of the Martian sky, and then
looked behind him at the crescent-shaped formation of tracked vehicles
that had escorted him back across the sucking red sand to this place.
With each heavy-booted step away from them he closed the short distance
between them and his ship, and there was not enough time to think about
the feeling. Or about the heavy sealed tube they had given him to take
back to his people.

Usually,