way they had come. Ross allowed his breath to expel in a sigh
of relief.

He worked his way farther north along the coast, watching other parties
of the furred workers and their guards. Lines of the former climbed the
cliff, hauling their spoil, their destination the castle. But Ross saw
no sign of Ashe, received no answer to the sonic code he had reset once
the strangers were out of distance. And the Terran began to realize that
his present search might well be fruitless, though he fought against
accepting it.

When he turned back to the slit cave Ross's fear was ready to be
expressed in anger, the anger of frustration over his own helplessness.
With no chance of trying to penetrate the castle, he could not learn
whether or not Ashe had been taken prisoner. And until the workers left
the beach he could not prowl there hunting the grimmer evidence his mind
flinched from considering.

Karara waited for him on the inner ledge. There was no sign of the
dolphins and as Ross pulled out of the water, pushing aside his mask,
her face in the thin light of the cave was deeply troubled.

"You did not find him," she made that a statement rather than a
question.

"No."

"And I did not find it--"

Ross used a length of weed from the nest as a towel. But now he stood
very still.

"The gate ... no sign of it?"

"Just this--" She reached behind her and brought up a sealed container.
Ross recognized one of the supply cans they had had in the cache by the
gate. "There are others ... scattered. Taua and Tino-rau seek them now.
It is as if all that was on the other side was sucked through with us."

"You are sure you found the right place?"

"Is--is this not part of it?" Again the girl sought for something on the
ledge. What she held out to him was a length of metal rod, twisted and
broken at one end as if a giant hand had wrenched it loose from the
installation.

Ross nodded dully. "Yes," his voice was harsh as if the words were
pulled out of him against his will and against all hope--"that's part of
a side bar. It--it must have been totally wrecked."

Yet, even though he held that broken length in his hands, Ross could not
really believe the gate was gone. He swam out once more, heading for the
reef where the dolphins joined him as guides. There was a second piece
of broken tube, the scattered containers of supplies, that was all. The
Terrans were wrecked in time as surely as those ships had been wrecked
on the sea reef