ht before, was
dismantled--smashed. All those strips of hide he had so laboriously
culled were cut--into inch-long bits which could be of no service.

Shann whirled, ran to the shell he had the night before pulled from the
water and stowed in safety. Its rounded dome was dulled where it had
been battered, but there was no break in the surface. He ran his hands
anxiously over the curve to make sure. Then, very slowly, he came back
to the mess of broken wood and snipped hide. And he was sure, only too
sure, of one thing. He, himself, had wrought that destruction. In his
dream he had built to satisfy the whim of an enemy; in reality he had
destroyed; and that was also, he believed, to satisfy an enemy.

The dream was a part of it. But who or what could set a man dreaming and
so take over his body, make him in fact betray himself? But then, what
had made Thorvald maroon him here? For the first time, Shann guessed a
new, if wild, explanation for the officer's desertion. Dreams--and the
disk which had worked so strangely on Thorvald. Suppose everything the
other had surmised was the truth! Then that disk _had_ been found on
this very island, and here somewhere must lie a clue to the riddle.

Shann licked his lips. Suppose that Thorvald had been sent away under
just such a strong compulsion as the one which had ruled Shann last
night? Why was he left behind if the other had been moved away to
protect some secret? Was it that Shann himself was wanted here, wanted
so much that when he at last found a means of escape he was set to
destroy it? That act might have been forced upon him for two reasons: to
keep him here, and to impress upon him how powerless he was.

Powerless! A flicker of stubborn will stirred to respond to that implied
challenge. All right, the mysterious _they_ had made him do this. But
they had underrated him by letting him learn, almost contemptuously, of
their presence by that revelation. So warned, he was in a manner armed;
he could prepare to fight back.

He squatted by the wreckage as he thought that through, turning over
broken pieces. And, Shann realized, he must present at the moment a
satisfactory picture of despondency to any spy. A spy, that was it!
Someone or something must have him under observation, or his activities
of the day before would not have been so summarily countered. And if
there was a spy, then there was his answer to the riddle. To trap the
trapper. Such action might be a project b