he must mean they are going to use Gordon for a
sacrifice."

Ross stiffened and then whirled to catch Loketh by the shoulders. The
inability to question the native directly was an added disaster now.

"Where are they taking him? Where?" He began that fiercely, and then
forced control on himself.

Karara's eyes were half closed, her head back; she was manifestly aiming
that inquiry at the dolphins, to be translated to Loketh.

Symbols burned on the analyzer screen.

"The Foanna have their own fortress. It can be entered best by sea.
There is a boat ... I can show you, for it is my own secret."

"Tell him--yes, as soon as we can!" Ross broke out. The old feeling that
time was all-important worried at him. Witches' meat ... witches' meat
... the words were sharp as a lash.

8

The Free Rovers

Twilight made a gray world where one could not trace the true meeting of
land and water, sea and sky. Surely the haze about them was more than
just the normal dusk of coming night.

Ross balanced in the middle of the skiff as it bobbed along the swell of
waves inside a barrier reef. To his mind the craft carrying the three of
them and their net of supplies was too frail, rode too high. But Karara
paddling in the bow, Loketh at the stern seemed to be content, and Ross
could not, for pride's sake, question their competency. He comforted
himself with the knowledge that no agent was able to absorb every
primitive skill, and Karara's people had explored the Pacific in
out-rigger canoes hardly more stable than their present vessel,
navigating by currents and stars.

Smothering his feeling of helplessness and the slow anger that roused in
him, the Terran busied himself with study of a sort. They had had the
longer part of the day in the cave before Loketh would agree to venture
out of hiding and paddle south. Ross, using the analyzer, had, with
Loketh's aid, set about learning what he could of the native tongue.

Now possessed of a working vocabulary of clicked words, he was able to
follow Loketh's speech so that translation through the dolphins was not
necessary except for complicated directions. Also, he had a more
detailed briefing of the present situation on Hawaika.

Enough to know that they might be embarking on a mad venture. The
citadel of the Foanna was distinctly forbidden ground, not only for
Loketh's people but also for the Foanna's Hawaikan followers who were
housed and labored in an outer ring of forti