it would slow up any attack.

Red--pinpoints of red--were edging a break in the rock wall. They were
gone in a flash. Eyes? Perhaps of the rock dwellers which the Wyverns
hated? More red dots, farther ahead. Shann listened for a sound he could
identify.

But smell came before sound. That trace of effluvia which in force could
sicken a Terran, was his guide. The cleft ended in a space to which the
limited gleam of the crystal could not provide a far wall. But that
faint light did show him his quarry.

The Throg was not on his feet, ready for trouble, but hunched close to
the wall. And the alien did not move at Shann's coming. Did the
beetle-head sight him? Shann wondered. He moved cautiously. And the
round head, with its bulbous eyes, turned a fraction; the mandibles
about the the ugly mouth opening quivered. Yes, the Throg could see him.

But still the alien made no move to rise out of his crouch, to come at
the Terran. Then Shann saw the fall of rock, the stone which pinned a
double-kneed leg to the floor. And in a circle about the prisoner were
the small, crushed, furred things which had come to prey on the helpless
to be slain themselves by the well-aimed stones which were the Throg's
only weapons of defense.

Shann sheathed his stunner. It was plain the Throg was helpless and
could not reach him. He tried to concentrate mentally on a picture of
the scene before him, hoping that Thorvald or one of the Wyverns could
pick it up. There was no answer, no direction. Choice of action remained
solely his.

The Terran made the oldest friendly gesture of his kind; his empty hands
held up, palm out. There was no answering move from the Throg. Neither
of the other's upper limbs stirred, their claws still gripping the small
rocks in readiness for throwing. All Shann's knowledge of the alien's
history argued against an unarmed advance. The Throg's marksmanship, as
borne out by the circle of small bodies, was excellent. And one of those
rocks might well thud against his own head, with fatal results. Yet he
had been sent there to get the Throg free and out of Wyvern territory.

So rank was the beetle smell of the other that Shann coughed. What he
needed now was the aid of the wolverines, a diversion to keep the alien
busy. But this time there was no disk working to produce Taggi and Togi
out of thin air. And he could not continue to just stand there staring
at the Throg. There remained the stunner. Life on the Dumps tended t