-we advance here, they there. We have to keep up the race or
lose it. They must be combing their stellar colonies for a few answers
just as furiously as we are."

"So, we go into the past to hunt if we have to. Well, I think I could do
without answers such as the Baldies would know. But I will admit that I
would like to know what did happen here--two, five, ten thousand years
ago."

Ashe stood up and stretched. For the first time he smiled. "Do you know,
I rather like the idea of fishing off Karara's beckoning finger. Maybe
she's right about that changing our luck."

Ross kept his face carefully expressionless as he got up to prepare
their evening meal.

2

Lair of Mano-Nui

Just under the surface of the water the sea was warm, weird life showed
colors Ross could name, shades he could not. The corals, the animals
masquerading as plants, the plants disguised as animals which inhabited
the oceans of Terra, had their counterparts here. And the settlers had
given them the familiar names, though the crabs, the fish, the anemones,
and weeds of the shallow lagoons and reefs were not identical with
Terran creatures. The trouble was that there was too much, such a wealth
of life to attract the eyes, hold attention, that it was difficult to
keep to the job at hand--the search for what was not natural, for what
had no normal place here.

As the land seduced the senses and bewitched the off-worlder, so did the
sea have its enchantment to pull one from duty. Ross resolutely skimmed
by a forest of weaving, waving lace which varied from a green which was
almost black to a pale tint he could not truly identify. Among those
waving fans lurked ghost-fish, finned swimmers transparent enough so
that one could sight, through their pallid sides, the evidences of
recently ingested meals.

The Terrans had begun their sweep-search a half hour ago, slipping
overboard from a ferry canoe, heading in toward the checkpoint of the
finger isle, forming an arc of expert divers, men and girls so at home
in the ocean that they should be able to make the discovery Ashe
needed--if such did exist.

Mystery built upon mystery on Hawaika, Ross thought as he used his
spear-gun to push aside a floating banner of weed in order to peer below
its curtain. The native life of this world must always have been largely
aquatic. The settlers had discovered only a few small animals on the
islands. The largest of which was the burrower, a creature not