d that
to relinquish his grasp required some exercise of will.

"What is it?"

Thorvald restored the coin to his hiding place.

"You tell me. I can say this much, there is no listing for anything even
remotely akin to this in the Archives."

Shann's eyes widened. He absently rubbed the fingers which had held the
bone coin--if it was a coin--back and forth across the torn front of his
blouse. That tingle ... did he still feel it? Or was his imagination at
work again? But an object not listed in the exhaustive Survey Archives
would mean some totally new civilization, a new stellar race.

"It is definitely a created article," the Survey officer continued. "And
it was found on the beach of one of those sea islands."

"Throg?" But Shann already knew the answer to that.

"Throg work--_this_?" Thorvald was openly scornful. "Throgs have no
conception of such art. You must have seen their metal plates--those are
the beetle-heads' idea of beauty. Have those the slightest resemblance
to this?"

"Then who made it?"

"Either Warlock has--or once had--a native race advanced enough in a
well-established form of civilization to develop such a sophisticated
type of art, or there have been other visitors from space here before us
and the Throgs. And the latter possibility I don't believe----"

"Why?"

"Because this was carved of bone or an allied substance. We haven't been
quite able to identify it in the labs, but it is basically organic
material. It was found exposed to the weather and yet it is in perfect
condition, could have been carved any time within the past five years.
It has been handled, yes, but not roughly. And we have come across
evidences of no other star-cruising races or species save ourselves and
the Throgs. No, I say this was made here on Warlock, not too long ago,
and by intelligent beings of a very high grade of civilization."

"But they would have cities," protested Shann. "We've been here for
months, explored all over this continent. We would have seen them or
some traces of them."

"An old race, maybe," Thorvald mused, "a very old race, perhaps in
decline, reduced to a remnant in numbers with good reason to retire into
hiding. No, we've discovered no cities, no evidence of a native culture
past or present. But this--" he touched the front of his blouse--"was
found on the shore of an island. We may have been looking in the wrong
place for our natives."

"The sea...." Shann glanced with new interes