were to be master at a concert next month. Think how the
concerts have changed! Even my grandmother can remember when the
concerts were just a few performers playing, and everyone else just
sitting and _listening_! Can you imagine anything more silly? They
hadn't even thought of transference then, they never dreamed what a
_real_ concert could be! Why, those people had never begun to understand
music until they themselves became a part of it. Even we can see these
changes, why couldn't the Hunters have grown and changed just as we
have?"

Nehmon's voice broke in, almost harshly, as he faced the excited pair.
"The Hunters don't have concerts," he said grimly. "You're deluding
yourself, Dana. They laugh at our music, they scoff at our arts and
twist them into obscene mockeries. They have no concept of beauty in
their language. The Hunters are incapable of change."

"And you can be certain of that when _nobody has seen them for thousands
of years_?"

Nehmon met her steady eyes, read the strength and determination there.
He knew, despairingly, what she was thinking--that he was old, that he
couldn't understand, that his mind was channeled now beyond the approach
of wisdom. "You mustn't think what you're thinking," he said weakly.
"You'd be blind. You wouldn't know, you couldn't have any idea what you
would find. If you tried to contact them, you could be lost completely,
tortured, killed. If they haven't changed, you wouldn't stand a chance.
You'd never come back, Dana."

"But she's right all the same," Ravdin said softly. "You're wrong, my
lord. We can't continue this way if we're to survive. Sometime our
people must contact them, find the link that was once between us, and
forge it strong again. We could do it, Dana and I."

"I could forbid you to go."

Dana looked at her husband, and her eyes were proud. "You could forbid
us," she said, facing the old man. "But you could never stop us."

* * * * *

At the edge of the Jungle-land a great beast stood with green-gleaming
eyes, licking his fanged jaws as he watched the glowing city, sensing
somehow that the mystifying circle of light and motion was soon to
become his Jungle-land again. In the city the turmoil bubbled over, as
wave after wave of the people made the short safari across the
intervening jungle to the circles of their ships. Husbands, wives,
fathers, mothers--all carried their small, frail remembrances out to the
ships. T