his hands, with a few quick movements which Raf
followed, fascinated, pantomimed a flyer in the air. With those
talking fingers, he was able to make plain a question: was Raf the
pilot of the flitter?

The pilot nodded. Then he pointed to the officer and forced as
inquiring an expression as he could command.

The answer was sketched quickly and readably: the alien, too, was
either a pilot or had some authority over flyers. For the first time
since he had entered this building, Raf knew a slight degree of
relaxation.

The wrinkleless, too smooth skin of the alien was a darkish yellow.
His painted face was a mask to frighten any sensible Terran child; his
general appearance was not attractive. But he was a flyer, and he
wanted to talk shop, as well as they could with no common speech.
Since the scarlet-wound nobleman on Raf's right was completely
engrossed in the feast, pursuing a few scraps avidly about the dish,
the Terran gave all his attention to the officer.

Twittering words poured in a stream from the warrior's lips. Raf shook
his head regretfully, and the other jerked his shoulders in almost
human impatience. Somehow that heartened Raf.

With many guesses to cover gaps, probably more than half of which were
wrong, Raf gathered that the officer was one of a very few who still
retained the almost forgotten knowledge of how to pilot the remaining
airworthy craft in this crumbling city. On their way to the building
with the curved roof, Raf had noted the evidences that the inhabitants
of this metropolis could not be reckoned as more than a handful and
that most of these now lived either within the central building or
close to it. A pitiful collection of survivors lingering on in the
ruins of their past greatness.

Yet he was impressed now by no feeling that the officer, eagerly
trying to make contact, was a degenerate member of a dying race. In
fact, as Raf glanced at the aliens about the room, he was conscious of
an alertness, of a suppressed energy which suggested a young and
vigorous people.

The officer was now urging him to go some place, and Raf, his dislike
for being in the heart of the strangers' territory once more aroused,
was about to shake his head in a firm negative when a second idea
stopped him. He had resisted separation from the flitter. Perhaps he
could persuade the alien, under the excuse of inspecting a strange
machine, to take him back to the flyer. Once there he would stay. He
did not