wo Arzian
fishers instantly under their snapping, threshing bodies. Then around
the outcrop the sea boiled whitely, churned to foam by a sudden
uprushing of black, octopoid shapes.

"The squids," Stryker grunted. "Right on schedule. Two seconds too late,
as usual, to stop the slaughter."

A barrage of barbed tentacles lashed out of the foam and drove into the
melee of winged lizards. The lizards took the air at once, leaving
behind three of their number who disappeared under the surface like
harpooned seals. No trace remained of the two Arzian natives.

"A neat example of dog eat dog," Farrell said, snapping off the
magnoscanner. "Do any of those beauties look like city-builders, Gib?"

Chattering pink natives straggled past from the shelter of the thorn
forest, ignoring the Earthmen, and lined the casting ledges along the
beach to begin their day's fishing.

"Nothing we've seen yet could have built that city," Gibson said
stubbornly. "But it's here somewhere, and I'm going to find it. Will
either of you be using the scouter today?"

Stryker threw up his hands. "I've a mountain of data to collate, and
Arthur is off duty after standing watch last night. Help yourself, but
you won't find anything."

* * * * *

The scouter was a speeding dot on the horizon when Farrell crawled into
his sleeping cubicle a short time later, leaving Stryker to mutter over
his litter of notes. Sleep did not come to him at once; a vague sense of
something overlooked prodded irritatingly at the back of his
consciousness, but it was not until drowsiness had finally overtaken him
that the discrepancy assumed definite form.

He recalled then that on the first day of the _Marco's_ planetfall one
of the pink fishers had fallen from a casting ledge into the water, and
had all but drowned before his fellows pulled him out with extended
spear-shafts. Which meant that the fishers could not swim, else some
would surely have gone in after him.

And the Marco's crew had explored Arz exhaustively without finding any
slightest trace of boats or of boat landings. The train of association
completed itself with automatic logic, almost rousing Farrell out of his
doze.

"I'll be damned," he muttered. "No boats, and they don't swim. _Then how
the devil do they get out to that islet?_"

He fell asleep with the paradox unresolved.

* * * * *

Stryker was still humped over his records when