n clear that
its physical strength would far outlast their considerable but limited
telekinetic ability.

Still they possessed their share of owlish Ciriimian logic and hit soon
enough upon the one practical course--to jettison the Zid on the nearest
world demonstrably free of intelligent life.

* * * * *

They worked hurriedly, between jumps fore and aft. Chafi Three, while
they were still in the control cubicle, threw the ship out of hyperdrive
within scant miles of the neighboring sun's single planet. Chafi Four,
on the next jump, scanned the ship's charts and identified the system
through which they traveled.

Luck was with them. The system had been catalogued some four Ciriimian
generations before and tagged: _Planet undeveloped. Tranquil marine
intelligences only._

The discovery relieved them greatly for the reason that no Ciriimian,
even to save his own feathered skin, would have set down such a monster
as the Zid among rational but vulnerable entities.

The planet was a water world, bare of continents and only sparsely
sprinkled with minor archipelagoes. The islands suited the Chafis'
purpose admirably.

"The Zid does not swim," Chafi Four radiated. "Marooned, it can do no
harm to marine intelligences."

"Also," Chafi Three pointed out as they dodged to the control cubicle
again just ahead of the slavering Zid, "we may return later with a
Canthorian hunting party and recover our investment."

Closing their perception against the Zid's distracting ragings, they set
to work with perfect coordination.

Chafi Three set down the ship on an island that was only one of a
freckling chain of similar islands. Chafi Four projected himself first
to the opened port; then, when the Zid charged after him, to the
herbivore-cropped sward of tropical setting outside.

The Zid lunged out. Chafi Four teleported inside again. Chafi Three
closed the port. Together they relaxed their perception shields in
relief--

Unaware in their consternation that they committed the barbarous lapse
of vocalizing, they twittered aloud when they realized the extent of
their error.

Above the far, murmurous whisper of expected marine cerebration there
rose an uncoordinated mishmash of thought from at least two strong and
relatively complex intelligences.

"Gas-breathing!" Chafi Four said unbelievingly. "Warm-blooded,
land-dwelling, mammalian!"

"A Class Five culture," Chafi agreed shakenly. His aura