epaid."

"Well now, boys," Travis put in from the floor, "you see it
yourselves. I'm flat as a--" he paused. Apparently the Merts had no
word for pancake. "My pockets are--windy. No money is held therein."

"Still," the tall man mused absently, "this must have friends. On the
great ships lie things of value. Doubt?"

"Not," the girl said firmly. "But I see over the hills coming a
problem."

"How does it appear?"

"In the shape of disposal. See thee. Such as will come from the great
ships, of value though it be, can it not be clarifiably identified by
such pootian authorities as presently seek our intestines?"

"Ha!" the tall man snorted in anger. "So. Truth shapes itself."

"Will we not, then," continued the girl, "risk sunlight on our
intestines in pursuing this affair?"

"We will," the young man spoke up emphatically. "We will of
inevitability. Navel. Our risk is unpaid. So passes the cloud."

"But in freedom for this," the girl warily indicated Travis, "lies
risk in great measure. Which way lie his ribs? Can we with profit
slice his binds? He is of Them. What coils in his head? What strikes?"

They were all silent. Travis, having caught but not deciphered most of
the conversation, glanced quickly from face to face. The girl had
backed out into the light and he could see her now clearly, and his
mouth fell open. She was thickly coated with dirt but she was
absolutely beautiful. The features were perfect, lovely, the mouth was
promising and full. Under the ragged skirt and the torn sooty blouse
roamed surfaces of imaginable perfection. He had difficulty getting
back to the question at hand. All the while he was thinking other
voices inside him were whispering. "By jing, by jing, she's
absolutely...."

The two men were completely unlike. One was huge, from this angle he
was enormous. He had what looked like a dirty scarf on his head,
madonna-like, which would have been ridiculous except for the
mountainous shoulders below it and the glittering knife stuck in his
wide leather belt. The shaft of the knife flickered wickedly in the
light. It was the only clean thing about him.

The other man was young, probably still in his teens. Curly-haired and
blond and much cleaner than the other two, with a softness in his face
the others lacked. But in his belt he carried what appeared to
be--what was, a well-oiled and yawning barreled blunderbuss.

So they sat for a long moment of silence. He had time to observe tha