"What kind of a sound?" Ashe asked quietly.

"Nodren said it was a hum and there was the dark shadow of Lurgha's bird
between him and the stars. Then came the smiting of the hill with
thunder and lightning, and Nodren fled, for the Wrath of Lurgha is a
fearsome thing. Now do the people come to the Great Mother's Place with
many fine offerings that she may stand between them and that Wrath."

"Assha thanks Cassca, who is the handmaiden of the Great Mother. May the
sowing prosper and the reaping be good this year!" Ashe said finally,
ignoring Lal, who still groveled on the road.

"You go from this place, Assha?" she asked. "For though I stand under
the protecting hand of the Mother and so do not fear, yet there are
others who will raise their spears against you for the honor of Lurgha."

"We go, and again thanks be to you, Cassca."

He turned back the way they had come, and Ross fell in beside him as the
woman watched them out of sight.

CHAPTER 6

"That bird of Lurgha's--" said Ross, once they were out of sight of
Cassca and Lal, "could it have been a plane?"

"Sounds like it," snapped his companion. "If the Reds have done their
work efficiently, and there's no reason to suppose otherwise, then there
is no use in contacting either Dorhta's town or Munga's. The same
announcement concerning the Wrath of Lurgha was probably made there--to
their good purpose, not ours."

"Cassca didn't seem to be overly impressed with Lurgha's curse, not as
much as the man was."

"She is the closest thing to a priestess that this tribe knows, and she
serves a goddess older and more powerful than Lurgha--the Mother Earth,
the Great Mother, goddess of fertility and growth. Nodren's people
believe that unless Cassca performs her mysteries and sows part of the
first field in the spring there won't be any harvest. Consequently, she
is secure in her office and doesn't fear the Wrath of Lurgha too much.
These people are now changing from one type of worship to another, but
some of Cassca's beliefs will persist clear down to our day, taking on
the coating of 'magic' and a lot of other enameling along the way."

Ashe had been talking as a man talks to cover up furious thinking. Now
he paused again and turned toward the sea. "We have to stick it out
somewhere until the sub comes to pick us up. We'll need shelter."

"Will the tribesmen be after us?"

"They may well be. Let the right men get to talking up a holy
extermination of