nal he was led to the stair.
To descend that ladder with his hands behind him was almost impossible,
and they had to pause at the next level to unclasp the handcuffs and let
him go free. Keeping a gun on him carefully, they hurried along, trying
to push the pace while Ross delayed all he could. He realized that in
his recognition of the power of the gun back in the control chamber, his
surrender to its threat, he had betrayed his real origin. So he must
continue to confuse the trail to the project in every possible way left
to him. He was sure that this time they would not leave him in the first
convenient crevice.

He knew he was right when they covered him with a fur parka at the
entrance to the ship, once more manacling his hands and dropping a noose
leash on him.

So, they were taking him back to their post here. Well, in the post was
the time transporter which could return him to his own kind. It would
be, it must be possible to get to that! He gave his captors no more
trouble but trudged, outwardly dispirited, along the rutted way through
the snow up the slope and out of the valley.

He did manage to catch a good look at the globe-ship. More than half of
it, he judged, was below the surface of the ground. To be so buried it
must either have lain there a long time or, if it were an air vessel,
crashed hard enough to dig itself that partial grave. Yet Ross had
established contact with another ship like it, and neither of the
creatures he had seen were human, at least not human in any way he
knew.

Ross chewed on that as he walked. He believed that those with him were
looting the ship of its cargo, and by its size, that cargo must be a
large one. But cargo from where? Made by what hands, what _kind_ of
hands? Enroute to what port? And how had the Reds located the ship in
the first place? There were plenty of questions and very few answers.
Ross clung to the hope that somehow he had endangered the Reds' job here
by activating the communication system of the derelict and calling the
attention of its probable owners to its fate.

He also believed that the owners might take steps to regain their
property. Baldy had impressed him deeply during those few moments of
silent appraisal, and he knew he would not like to be on the receiving
end of any retaliation from the other. Well, now he had only one chance,
to keep the Reds guessing as long as he could and hope for some turn of
fate which would allow him to try for th