go away, and maybe he could slip back into the
darkness again.

Somehow he did it, pulled the packet out of its container pouch,
worked the fingers of his one usable hand until he shredded open the
end of the covering. The tablets inside, spilled out. But he had three
or four of them in his grasp. Laboriously he brought his hand up,
mouthed them all together, chewing their bitterness, swallowing them
as best he could without water.

Water--the lake! For a moment he was back in time, feeling for the
water bulbs he should be carrying. Then the incautious movement of his
questing fingers brought a sudden stab of raw, red agony and he
moaned.

The tablets worked. But he did not slide back into unconsciousness
again as the throbbing torture became something remote and
untroubling. With his good arm he braced himself against the cliff,
managed to sit up.

Sun flashed on the metal barrel of a needler which lay in the trampled
dust between him and another figure, still very still, with a pool of
blood about the head. Vye waited for a steadying breath or two, then
started the infinitely long journey of several feet which separated
him from Hume.

He was panting heavily when he crawled close enough to touch the
Hunter. Hume's face, cheek down in the now sodden dust, was dabbled
with congealing blood. As Vye turned the hunter's head, it rolled
limply. The other side was a mass of blood and dust, too thick to
afford Vye any idea of how serious a hurt Hume had taken. But he was
still alive.

With his good hand Vye thrust his numb and useless left one into the
front of his belt. Then, awkwardly he tried to tend Hume. After a
close inspection he thought that the mass of blood had come from a
ragged tear in the scalp above the temple and the bone beneath had
escaped damage. From Hume's own first-aid pack he crushed tablets into
the other's slack mouth, hoping they would dissolve if the Hunter
could not swallow. Then he relaxed against the cliff to wait--for what
he could not have said.

Wass' party had gone on into the valley. When Vye turned his head to
look down the slope he could see nothing of them. They must have tried
to push on to the lake. The flitter was at the top of the cliff, as
far out of his reach now as if it were in planetary orbit. There was
only the hope that a rescue party from the safari camp might come.
Hume had set the directional beam on the flyer, when he had brought
her down, to serve as a beacon for