es time to climb twenty flights of
stairs--if they have stairs--"

Soriki's attention fell from the flyer hovering over their heads to
the surface of the roof. Raf had already looked that over without
seeing any opening. But he did not doubt the truth of Lablet's
surmise. Sooner or later the aliens were going to reappear. And it did
not greatly matter to the marooned Terrans whether they would drop
from the sky or rise from below.

5

BANDED DEVIL

Familiar only with the wave-riding outriggers, Dalgard took his seat
in the alien craft with misgivings. And oddly enough it also bothered
him to occupy a post which earlier had served not a nonhuman such as
Sssuri, whom he admired, but a humanoid whom he had been taught from
childhood to avoid--if not fear. The skiff was rounded at bow and
stern with very shallow sides and displayed a tendency to whirl about
in the current, until Sssuri, with his instinctive knowledge of
watercraft, used one of the queerly shaped paddles tucked away in the
bottom to both steer and propel them. They did not strike directly
across the river but allowed the current to carry them in a diagonal
path so that they came out on the opposite bank some distance to the
west.

Sssuri brought them ashore with masterly skill where a strip of sod
angled down to the edge of the water, marking, Dalgard decided, what
had once been a garden. The buildings on this side of the river were
not set so closely together. Each, standing some two or three stories
high, was encircled by green, as if this had been a section of private
dwellings.

They pulled the light boat out of the water and Sssuri pointed at the
open door of the nearest house. "In there--"

Dalgard agreed that it might be well to hide the craft against the
return. Although as yet they had found no physical evidence, other
than the dead hoppers, that they might not be alone in the city, he
wanted a means of escape ready if such a flight would be necessary. In
the meantime there was the snake-devil to track, and that wily
creature, if it had swum the river, might be lurking at present in the
next silent street--or miles away.

Sssuri, spear ready, was trotting along the paved lane, his head up as
he thought-quested for any hint of life about them. Dalgard tried to
follow that lead. But he knew that it would be Sssuri's stronger power
which would warn them first.

They cast east from where they had landed, studying the soil of each
g