, and in an incredibly short time he had a
working vocabulary.

Judging by the pictures the lizard folk were the rulers of the crater
world, although there were other forms of life there. The elephant-like
_Tand_ was a beast of burden, the squirrel-like _Eron_ lived underground
and carried on a crude agriculture in small clearings, coming shyly
twice a year to exchange grain for a liquid rubber produced by the Folk.

Then there was the _Gibi_, a monstrous bee, also friendly to the lizard
people. It supplied the cavern dwellers with wax, and in return the Folk
gave the Gibi colonies shelter during the unhealthful times of the Great
Mists.

Highly civilized were the Folk. They did no work by hand, except the
finer kinds of jewel setting and carving. Machines wove their metal
cloth, machines prepared their food, harvested their fields, hollowed
out new dwellings.

Freed from manual labor they had turned to acquiring knowledge. Urg
projected on the screen pictures of vast laboratories and great
libraries of scientific lore. But all they knew in the beginning, they
had learned from the Ancient Ones, a race unlike themselves, which had
preceded them in sovereignty over _Tav_. Even the Folk themselves were
the result of constant forced evolution and experimentation carried on
by these Ancient Ones.

All this wisdom was guarded most carefully, but against what or whom,
Urg could not tell, although he insisted that the danger was very real.
There was something within the blue wall of the crater which disputed
the Folk's rule.

As Garin tried to probe further a gong sounded. Urg arose.

"It is the hour of eating," he announced. "Let us go."

They came to a large room where a heavy table of white stone stretched
along three walls, benches before it. Urg seated himself and pressed a
knob on the table, motioning Garin to do likewise. The wall facing them
opened and two trays slid out. There was a platter of hot meat covered
with rich sauce, a stone bowl of grain porridge and a cluster of fruit,
still fastened to a leafy branch. This the Ana eyed so wistfully that
Garin gave it to the creature.

The Folk ate silently and arose quietly when they had finished, their
trays vanishing back through the wall. Garin noticed only males in the
room and recalled that he had, as yet, seen no females among the Folk.
He ventured a question.

Urg chuckled. "So, you think there are no women in the Caverns? Well, we
shall go to the Hall