nknown. Now his
clawed paw rested lightly on the bared chest and he turned to Varta
eagerly.

"There is life--"

Hardly daring to believe that, she dropped down beside Lur and touched
their prize. Lur was right, the flesh was warm and she had caught the
faint rhythm of shallow breath. Half remembering old tales, she put her
hands on the arch of the lower ribs and began to aid that rhythm. The
breaths were deeper--

Then the man half turned, his arm moved. Varta and Lur drew back. For
the first time the girl probed gently the sleeping mind before her--even
as she had read the minds of those few of Memphir who had ascended to
the temple precincts in the last days.

Much of what she read now was confused or so alien to Erb that it had no
meaning for her. But she saw a great city plunged into flaming death in
an instant and felt the horror and remorse of the man at her feet
because of his own part in that act, the horror and remorse which had
led him to open rebellion and so to his imprisonment. There was a last
dark and frightening memory of a door closing on light and hope--

The space man moaned softly and hunched his shoulders as if he struggled
vainly to tear loose from bonds.

"He thinks that he is still prisoner," observed Lur. "For him life
begins at the very point it ended--even as it did for the turbi flowers.
See--now he awakens."

The eyelids rose slowly, as if the man hated to see what he must look
upon. Then, as he sighted Varta and Lur, his eyes went wide. He pulled
himself up and looked dazedly around, striking out wildly with his
fists. Catching sight of the clumsy suit Lur had taken from him he
pulled at it, looking at the two before him as if he feared some attack.

Varta turned to Lur for help. She might read minds and use the wordless
speech of Lur. But his people knew the art of such communication long
before the first priest of Asti had stumbled upon their secret. Let Lur
now quiet this outlander.

Delicately Lur sought a way into the other's mind, twisting down paths
of thought strange to him. Even Varta could not follow the subtile waves
sent forth in the quick examination and reconnoitering, nor could she
understand all of the conversation which resulted. For the man from the
ancient ship answered in speech aloud, sharp harsh sounds of no meaning.
It was only after repeated instruction from Lur that he began to frame
his messages in his mind, clumsily and disconnectedly.

Pictures of a