re-footed as under broad sunlight. But to guide a
blundering Dalgard through unknown country was not practical. However,
they could take to cover and that they did as speedily as possible,
using a zigzag tactic which delayed their advance but took them from
one bit of protecting brush or grove of trees to the next, keeping to
the fields well away from the road.

They camped that night without fire in a pocket near a spring. And
while Dalgard was alert to all about them, he knew that Sssuri was
mind questing in a far wider circle, trying to contact a hopper, a
runner, any animal that could answer in part the inquiries they had.
When Dalgard could no longer hold open weary eyes, his last waking
memory was that of his companion sitting statue-still, his spear
across his knees, his head leaning a trifle forward as if what he
listened to was as vocal as the hum of night insects.

When the colony scout roused in the morning, his companion was
stretched full length on the other side of the spring, but his head
came up as Dalgard moved.

"We may go forward without fear," he shaped the assurance. "What has
troubled this land has gone."

"A long time ago?"

Dalgard was not surprised at Sssuri's negative answer. "Within days
_they_ have been here. But they have gone once more. It will be wise
for us to learn what they wanted here."

"Have they come to establish a base here once more?" Dalgard brought
into the open the one threat which had hung over his own clan since
they first learned that a few of Those Others still lived--even if
overseas.

"If that is their plan, they have not yet done it." Sssuri rolled over
on his back and stretched. He had lost that tenseness of a hound in
leash which had marked him the night before. "This was one of their
secret places, holding much of their knowledge. They may return here
on quest for that learning."

All at once Dalgard was conscious of a sense of urgency. Suppose that
what Sssuri suggested was the truth, that Those Others were attempting
to recover the skills which had brought on the devastating war that
had turned this whole eastern continent into a wilderness? Equipped
with even the crumbs of such discoveries, they would be enemies
against which the Terran colonists could not hope to stand. The few
weapons their outlaw ancestors had brought with them on their
desperate flight to the stars were long since useless, and they had
had no way of duplicating them. Since childhood