and back-plates molded to their bodies. Ross thought that these
could not be solid metal since they adapted to the movements of the
wearers.

Feet and legs were covered with casing combinations of shoe and
leggings, colored dull red. They were armed with swords of an odd
pattern; their points curved up so that the blade resembled a fishhook.
Unsheathed, the blades were clipped to a waist belt by catches which
glittered in the weak morning light as if gem set.

Ross could see little of their faces, for the beak visors overhung their
features. But their skins were as dusky as those of the laborers, and
their arms and legs of the same unusual length ... men of the same race,
he deduced.

Under the orders of the armed overseers the laborers were reducing the
beach to order, sorting out the flotsam into two piles. Once they
gathered about a find, and the sound of excited speech reached Ross as
an agitated clicking. The armored men came up, surveyed the discovery.
One of them shrugged, and clicked an order.

Ross caught only a half glimpse of the thing two of the workers dragged
away. A body! Ashe.... The Terran was about to move closer when he saw
the green cloak dragging about the corpse. No, not Gordon, just another
victim from the wrecks.

The aliens were working their way toward Ross, and perhaps it was time
for him to go. He was pushing aside his well-arranged curtain of weed
when he was startled by a shout. For a second he thought he might have
been sighted, until resulting action on shore told him otherwise.

The furred workers shrank back against the mound to which they had just
dragged the body. While the two guards took up a position before them,
curved swords, snapped from their belt hooks, ready in their hands.
Again that shout. Was it a warning or a threat? With the language
barrier Ross could only wait to see.

Another party approached along the beach from the south. In the lead was
a cloaked and hooded figure, so muffled in its covering of silver-gray
that Ross had no idea of the form beneath. Silvery-gray--no, now that
hue was deepening with blue tones, darkening rapidly. By the time the
cloaked newcomer had passed the rock which sheltered the Terran the
covering was a rich blue which seemed to glow.

Behind the leader were a dozen armed men. They wore the same beaked
helmets, the supple encasing breast- and back-plates, but their leggings
were gray. They, too, carried curved swords, but the weapons