rched the walls of the room. Gail had said microphones were
probable. He looked intently at Zani. He duplicated her position when
he'd entered and her actions, the quick movement of her hand to her
pocket and the opening of her eyes. She tensed, staring at him. He shook
his head warningly and put his finger to his lips.

She caught her breath and looked at him strangely. He settled down to
visit. Gail, with the air of someone doing something that did not
matter, had the children display their English. Their accent was good.
Their vocabularies were small. Soames guessed that Gail drilled them
unceasingly in pronunciation so they wouldn't acquire so many words that
they could be expected to answer involved questions. It was a way to
postpone pressure upon them.

But it was not a good idea for Soames to have too parental or too
solicitous an attitude. He said with inner irony:

"I'm disappointed in Fran. He shouldn't have run away. He made some
sketches for me, of things boys his age make, at home. I wanted to get
more such pictures from him. Hmmm.... Did he leave any sketches around
when he disappeared?"

Gail shook her head.

"No. Every scrap of paper the children use is gathered up every night,
for study. They don't like it. It disturbs them. Actually, I believe
language experts are trying to find out something about their language,
but they feel like it's enmity. They're jumpy."

"And with reason," said Soames. He stirred. "I'm disappointed. I'll go
talk to the people who're hunting Fran. Walk back with me to the store,
Gail?"

Gail rose. Zani stared at Soames. She was pale. He nodded to her again.

Gail and Soames went out into the now fully fallen night. Soames said
gruffly:

"We'd better walk closer together.

"When we're married," he said abruptly, "I doubt we'll hide many things
from each other. We'd better start being frank right now. The kids'
belts may have been taken away, but they've got sensory-transmission
gadgets just the same. Zani was using one when we went in the cottage."

Gail's footsteps faltered. "Wh-what are you going to do?"

"Give some good advice," said Soames. "Tell the kids you know about it.
Point out that the Security people have three of the four belts, and
they can wear them and pick up communications. Sooner or later they will
and the kids will be caught. If Fran talks aloud they can pick up and
identify his voice. If Zani writes, and looks at what she's written so
he can r