where there was re-radiation of his
message, as if from a tuned receiver. But he could not get a fix on
it: nobody might be listening. He exhausted the normal communication
pattern. Then he broadcast on old-fashioned amplitude modulation which
a modern communicator would not pick up at all, and which therefore
might be used by men in hiding.

He worked for a long time. Then he shrugged and gave it up. He'd
repeated to absolute tedium the facts that any Darians--blueskins--on
Orede ought to know. There'd been no answer. And it was all too likely
that if he'd been received, that those who heard him took his message
for a trick to discover if there were any hearers.

He clicked off at last and stood up, shaking his head. Suddenly the
Med Ship seemed empty. Then he saw Murgatroyd staring vexedly at the
exit port. The inner door of that small airlock was closed. The
telltale light said the outer door was not locked. Someone had gone
out quietly. The girl. Of course.

Calhoun said angrily, "How long ago, Murgatroyd?"

"_Chee!_" said Murgatroyd indignantly.

It wasn't an answer, but it showed that Murgatroyd was vexed that he'd
been left behind. He and the girl were close friends, now. If she'd
left Murgatroyd in the ship when he wanted to go with her, then she
wasn't coming back.

Calhoun swore. He made certain she was not in the ship. He flipped the
outside-speaker switch and said curtly into the microphone, "Coffee!
Murgatroyd and I are having coffee. Will you come back, please?"

He repeated the call, and repeated it again. Multiplied as his voice
was by the speakers, she should hear him within a mile. She did not
appear. He went to a small and inconspicuous closet and armed himself.
A Med Ship man was not ever expected to fight, but there were
blast-rifles available for extreme emergency.

When he'd slung a power-pack over his shoulder and reached the
airlock, there was still no sign of his late stowaway. He stood in the
airlock door for long minutes, staring angrily about. Almost certainly
she wouldn't be looking in the mountains for men of Dara come here for
cattle. He used a pair of binoculars, first at low-magnification to
search as wide an area down-valley as possible, and then at highest
power to search the most likely routes.

He found a small, bobbing speck beyond a faraway hill crest. It was
her head. It went down below the hilltop.

He snapped a command to Murgatroyd, and when the _tormal_ was on th