land itself was curiously symmetrical, a perfect oval, too
perfect to be a natural outcrop of sand and rock.

There was no day or night here in the cavern. The light from the roof
patches remained constantly the same, and that flow was abetted within
the building by a soft radiation from the walls. Shann reached the next
room in line, hunkering down to see within it. To all appearances the
chamber was exactly the same as the one he had just left; there were the
same unadorned walls, a thick mat bed against the far side, and no
indication whether it was in use or had not been entered for days.

He was on the next section of corridor wall when he caught that faint
taint in the air, the very familiar scent of wolverines. Now it provided
Shann with a guide as well as a promise of allies.

The next bead-room gave him what he wanted. Below him Taggi and Togi
paced back and forth. They had already torn to bits the sleeping mat
which had been the chamber's single furnishing, and their temper was
none too certain. As Shann squatted well above their range of vision,
Taggi reared against the opposite wall, his claws finding no hold on the
smooth coating of its surface. They were as competently imprisoned as if
they had been dropped into a huge fishbowl, and they were not taking to
it kindly.

How had the animals been brought here? Down that water tunnel by the
same unknown method he himself had been transported until that almost
disastrous awakening in the center of the flood? The Terran did not
doubt that the doors of the room were as securely fastened as those of
his own further down the corridor. For the moment the wolverines were
safe; he could not free them. And he was growing increasingly certain
that if he found any of his native jailers, it would be at the center of
that wheel of rooms and corridors.

Shann made no attempt to attract the animals' attention, but kept on
along his tightrope path. He passed two more rooms, both empty, both
differing in no way from those he had already inspected; and then he
came to the central chamber, four times as big as any of the rest and
with a much brighter wall light.

The Terran crouched, one hand on the surface of the partition top as an
additional balance, the other gripping his stunner. For some reason his
captors had not disarmed him. Perhaps they believed they had no
necessity to fear his off-world weapon.

"Have you grown wings?"

The words formed in his brain, bringing