inspired.

Layroh noted Jeff Peters' absence at once. "We seem to have our first
deserter," he commented evenly. His voice was as richly resonant as the
tone of some fine old violin. He hesitated almost imperceptibly between
words, like one to whom English was not a native tongue.

"It does not matter," he continued indifferently. "We can spare one man
easily enough. To-day we shall continue toward the east. Pack the truck
at once. We are ready to start."

Without waiting for an answer, he turned and strode back to the sedan. A
curious thought struck Foster as he stared after Layroh's retreating
figure. What if the oddly distorted shadow he had seen against the tent
wall last night had really been that of a man--had been that of Jeff
Peters?

* * * * *

For only a moment did Foster mull over the idea. Then he promptly
dismissed it as being absurd. He could imagine no possible reason for
Jeff Peters being in Layroh's tent in the middle of the night. The
shadow had been only remotely like that of a man, anyway. There had been
neither head nor arms to the figure, only shapeless masses totally
unlike anything human.

They finished packing the breakfast stuff in the supply truck, and the
party started out along the trail with Layroh's sedan leading the way.
For nearly two hours they followed their usual routine, working steadily
eastward and stopping at regular intervals while Layroh made his
methodical tests with his instruments.

Then near the end of the second hour something happened that abruptly
sent a thrill of excitement through the entire expedition. Layroh had
just set his apparatus up on a small sand dune beside the trail. The
mechanism looked somewhat like a portable radio, with two slender
parallel rods on top and a number of dials on the main panel.

Layroh swung the rods slowly around the horizon while he carefully tuned
the various dials. It was when the rods pointed toward the southeast
that there suddenly came the first response he had ever received. From
somewhere within the mechanism there came a faint staccato ripple of
clear beauty like countless tiny hammers beating upon a crystal gong.

* * * * *

The sound galvanized Layroh into the nearest approach to emotion anyone
had ever seen him display. The giant moved with the furious speed of a
madman as he returned the apparatus to the sedan and swung the car out
across the sand toward