people strolling along the street, going
in and out of shops, stopping to chat.

"I guess that was the all-clear," commented one wryly.

The others laughed nervously, but Tyndall was strangely troubled, he was
thinking of the strange words of the priest, "You, Tyn-Dall, even you."
Why should he have known, and not the others? He tried to forget it.
Arrillian was a complex tongue with confusing syntax, perhaps the priest
had said something else. But Tyndall knew one thing for certain, the
mention of his name had been unmistakable.

The mood hung on, and quite suddenly Tyndall had asked, "I wonder about
the children. Why do you suppose it is?"

One of the men laughed, "Maybe they feed them to the Bugs." At no time,
during their stay on Arrill, had they seen a single child, or young
person under the age of about twenty-one. The crew had speculated upon
this at great length, coming to the conclusion that the youngsters were
kept secluded for some reason known only to the Arrillians, probably
some part of their religion. One of them had made so bold as to ask one
of the scientists who politely told him that since his group was not
composed of ethnologists or theologists, but of biologists and
zoologists, they were interested neither in the Arrillians, their
offspring nor their religion, but merely in the flora and fauna of the
planet, both of which seemed to be rather deadly. The expedition had had
several close calls in the jungle, and some of the plants seemed as
violently carnivorous as the animals.

It was just a few days after the incident that the Arrillians kidnapped
Tyndall. It had been a simple, old-fashioned sort of job, pulled off
with efficiency and dispatch as he wandered a few hundred feet away from
the ship. It was late, and he had been unable to sleep, so he had
strolled out for a smoke. The nightwatch must have been somewhere about
on patrol, probably only a few hundred feet away, on the other side of
the ship. It happened suddenly and silently, the hand clapped over his
mouth, the forearm constricting his windpipe, his legs jerked out from
under him, and a rag smelling sickly-sweet shoved under his nose,
bringing oblivion.

* * * * *

When he came to consciousness, he found himself in this room, and he
knew that since then, many days and nights had passed. His wants were
meticulously attended to, his bath prepared, his food brought to him
regularly, delicious and steam