movements of
desperation, they had freed themselves of the grasping snare of the
jungle beneath them; were once more strong, liberated things in the
vast freedom of Space.

"And now Ihelos!" Kriijorl cried as they broke swiftly from the
ecliptic of the great spangled ring of Thrayx. "If we can but escape
their fleet. Any moment they should be on the scanner, forming to meet
the onslaught of Ihelian squadrons--"

"No!" Mason said, and his voice was like a solid thing clogging his
throat. "No, not Ihelos--not yet!" His eyes burned, and the red welts
that covered his body had begun to sting, to pain, and it was hard to
think.

He saw the frown forming on Kriijorl's face.

"Thrayx, and the Forest of Saarl," he bit from between teeth clenched
against the creeping agony in him. "The Book of the Saints, Kriijorl.
It is the key, don't you see. Key to all this, your feud."

For an instant the Ihelian said nothing, but groped in hidden pockets
of his battered space harness. His long fingers quickly produced a
tablet, thrust it into Mason's hand. The Earthman swallowed it and
almost at once energy coursed as though from some hidden well in his
body through his flagging muscles and nerves.

Then Kriijorl spoke. "I do not understand, Lieutenant. I know only
that it would be almost certain death. Intrusion near the vault would
bring a flight of guard ships within minutes."

"I know that," Mason said. "But perhaps not down upon us! And we must
have that Book. I've been thinking about it, comparing it with similar
writings in Earth's own past. Such books are not new, such motives,
such methods. Your Book is priceless in a way that even you don't
know, Kriijorl. I'm certain of it. For it must contain the reason that
you fight."

"And that reason?"

"A reason, if I'm right, that would end your feud once and for all. A
nasty bit of logic which the people of Ihelos and Thrayx were quite
deliberately kept from knowing from the beginning. I'd make book on it
that at one time both planets were very hungry places--"

"But if you are wrong, Lieutenant?"

Mason fastened his gaze straight before him on the diamond-studded
scanner, and saw that some of the smaller diamonds were moving in a
tiny echelon.

"Then I guess we die young," he answered the Ihelian. "Want to try?"

The Ihelian's face loosened into a wry smile. "Sometimes you ask
rather foolish questions, Lieutenant! I've been bred to such business,
and not given my life