r in a broken
sleep cage at a spaceport when I was a child. We were both cold and
hungry, alone and hurt. So I stole and was glad that I stole Trav. For a
little space we both were very happy...." Forcibly he stifled memory.

"So, though we are unlike in body and in mind, yet we find beauty
together if only in a dream. Therefore, between your people and mine
there can _be_ a common speech. And I may show you my dream store for
your enjoyment, star voyager."

A flickering of pictures, some weird, some beautiful, all a little
distorted--not only by haste, but also by the haze of alienness which
was a part of her memory pattern--crossed Shann's mind.

"Such a sharing would be a rich feast," he agreed.

"All right!" Those crisp words in his own tongue brought Shann away from
the window to Thorvald. The Survey officer was no longer locked hand to
hand with the Wyvern witch, but his features were alive with a new
eagerness.

"We are going to try your idea, Lantee. They'll provide me with a new,
unmarked disk, show me how to use it. And I'll do what I can to back you
with it. But they insist that you go today."

"What do they really want me to do? Just rout out that Throg? Or try to
talk him into being a go-between with his people? That _does_ come under
the heading of dreaming!"

"They want him out of there, back with his own kind if possible.
Apparently he's a disruptive influence for them; he causes some kind of
a mental foul up which interferes drastically with their 'power.' They
haven't been able to get him to make any contact with them. This Elder
One is firm about your being the one ordained for the job, and that
you'll know what action to take when you get there."

"Must have thrown the sticks for me again," Shann commented.

"Well, they've definitely picked you to smoke out the Throg, and they
can't be talked into changing their minds about that."

"I'll be the smoked one if he has a blaster."

"They say he's unarmed----"

"What do they know about our weapons or a Throg's?"

"The other one has no arms." Wyvern words in his mind again. "This fact
gives him great fear. That which he has depended upon is broken. And
since he has no weapon, he is shut into a prison of his own terrors."

But an adult Throg, even unarmed, was not to be considered easy meat,
Shann thought. Armored with horny skin, armed with claws and those
crushing mandibles of the beetle mouth ... a third again as tall as he
himself was.