he'll keep away from Nodren's village and out of sight
for the time being. Lal's not too bright in some ways, but he's a good
hunter. If he has reason for hiding out, it'll take a better hunter to
track him. At least we know now that the Reds are afraid they did not
make a clean sweep here. What happened, McNeil?"

While he was telling his story in more detail both Ashe and Ross worked
on his burns, making him comfortable. Then Ashe sat back as Ross
prepared food.

"How did they spot the post?" Ashe rubbed his chin and frowned at the
fire.

"Only way I can guess is that they picked up our post signal and
pinpointed the source. That means they must have been hunting us for
some time."

"No strangers about lately?"

McNeil shook his head. "Our cover wasn't broken that way. Sanford was a
wonder. If I hadn't known better, I would have sworn he was born one of
the Beaker folk. He had a network of informants running all the way from
here into Brittany. Amazing how he was able to work without arousing any
suspicions. I suppose his being a member of the smiths' guild was a big
help. He could pick up a lot of news from any village where there was
one at work. And I tell you," McNeil propped himself up on his elbow to
exclaim more vehemently--"there wasn't a whisper of trouble from here
clear across the channel and pretty far to the north. We were already
sure the south was clean before we ever took cover as Beakers,
especially since their clans are thick in Spain."

Ashe chewed a broiled wing reflectively. "Their permanent base with the
transport _has_ to be somewhere within the bounds of the territory they
hold in our own time."

"They could plant it in Siberia and laugh at us," McNeil exploded. "No
hope of our getting in there----"

"No." Ashe threw the stripped bone into the fire and licked grease from
his fingers. "Then they would be faced with the old problem of distance.
If what they are exploiting lay within their modern boundaries, we would
never have tumbled to the thing in the first place. What the Reds want
must lie outside their twentieth century holdings, a slender point in
our favor. Therefore they will plant their shift point as close to it as
they can. Our transportation problem is more difficult than theirs will
ever be.

"You know why we chose the arctic for our base; it lies in a section of
the world never populated by other than roving hunters. But I'll wager
anything you want to name that their