scanner back up the valley and over to one of the
ridges bordering it. High on the crest of the ridge, the undergrowth was
less luxuriant than down in the valley.

And it was here they caught their first glimpse of a human being.

He was hunkered down behind some rocks at the crest, peering over them
at the valley below. From the shape of his shoulders and back, the set
of his head, they knew it to be a man. As far as they could tell, he had
no clothes on. Apparently they had caught him at the moment of his
arrival at the crest.

They watched him turn his head as he looked quickly, then searchingly,
up and down the valley. They watched his hand come up to shade his eyes
against the light from Ceti as he attempted to see into the dark patches
of foliage where the village ought to be.

What he saw, or did not see, seemed to stun him. He squatted, as frozen
as a statue for long moments. Then, on hands and knees, they saw him
back away from the crest. Now they saw he did not wear even so much as a
breechclout. When the height of the ridge concealed him from the other
side, he sprang to his feet and began to run, zigzagging in the manner
of an obstacle racer to avoid the bushes.

"Looks like they've decided to make a nudist colony of it," Lynwood
commented.

"And faked the pictures so nasty-minded old Earth people wouldn't come
out to break it up," Louie persisted.

"Then why should he be so scared?" Frank asked.

"Notice that patch of bare dirt he's crossing?" Cal asked. "See the
little spurts of dust when he puts his feet down? Now look behind him."

The three crewmen leaned closer to look over his shoulder at the
scanning screen. Cal adjusted it minutely, to get a sharp focus on the
ground.

"No footprints!" Lynwood exclaimed. "He doesn't leave any footprints!"

The three of them looked at Cal, wide-eyed. Cal didn't like what he saw
in Louie's eyes. The habitual irritation and annoyance with life's
little petty tricks was gone.

The look had been replaced with fear, and something more.

11

The naked man, running frantically down the side of the slope,
disappeared momentarily under some taller growth, came out the other
side of it still running. He leaped over a small ravine, stumbled,
recovered himself, and disappeared again beneath a larger growth of
trees. Below him, on his side of the ridge, there lay another valley
with its own stream.

They caught one more fleeting glimpse, a mere flash o