quickly. "Two days past, the three came
again, and our old men refused to give up the slaves. Today they will
return, these Rorn, and my people, the Teemorn will all be made dead!"

* * * * *

Then I told her what Mercer had said: that she and every one of her
people must flee swiftly and hide, beyond the boat, a distance beyond
the village. Mercer and I would wait here, and when the Rorn came, it
was they who would be made dead, as we had promised. Although how, I
admitted to myself, being careful to hide the thought that she might
not sense it, I didn't know. We had been too busy since the girl's
arrival to go into details.

She turned and spoke quickly to the old men. They looked at me
doubtfully, and she urged them vehemently. They turned back towards
the village, and in a moment the Teemorn were stalking by obediently,
losing their slim white forms in the gloom behind the dim bulk of the
_Santa Maria_, resting so quietly on the sand.

They were hardly out of sight when suddenly Mercer spoke through the
antenna fitted inside my helmet.

"They're coming!" he cried. "Look above and to your right! The Rorn,
as Imee calls them, have arrived!"

I looked up and beheld a hundred--no, a thousand!--shadowy forms
darting down on the village, upon us. They, too, were just as the girl
had pictured them: short, swart beings with but the suggestion of a
nose, and with pulsing gill-covers under the angles of their jaws.
Each one gripped a long, slim white knife in either hand, and their
tight-fitting shark-skin armor gleamed darkly as they swooped down
upon us.

* * * * *

Eagerly I watched my friend. In the clasping talons of his left hand
he held a long, slim flask that glinted even in that dim, confusing
twilight. Two others, mates to the first, dangled at his waist.
Lifting it high above his head, he swung his metal-clad right arm, and
shattered the flask he held in his taloned left hand.

For an instant nothing happened, save that flittering bits of broken
glass shimmered their way to the sand. Then the horde of noseless ones
seemed to dissolve, as hundreds of limp and sprawling bodies sank to
the sand. Perhaps a half of that great multitude seemed struck dead.

"Hydrocyanic acid, Taylor!" cried Mercer exultantly. "Even diluted by
the sea water, it kills almost instantly. Go back and make sure that
none of the girl's people come back before the current