d to that? And why this flight? What had
pushed Dr. Ashe and Murdock and Colonel Kelgarries, time agents he knew
and trusted, into dispatching them without warning to Topaz? Something
had happened, something which had given Dr. Ruthven ascendancy over
those others and had started them on this wild trip.

Travis was conscious of a stir about the firelit circle. The men were
rising, moving back into the shadows, stretching out on the blankets
they had found among other stores on the ship. They had discovered
weapons there--knives, bows, quivers of arrows, all of which they had
been trained to use in the intensive schooling of the project and which
needed no more repair than they themselves could give. And the rations
they carried were field supplies, few of them. Tomorrow they must begin
hunting in earnest....

"Why has this thing been done to us?" Buck was beside Travis, those
quiet eyes sliding past him to seek the fire once more. "I do not think
you were told when the rest of us were not----"

Travis seized upon that. "There are those who say that I knew, agreed?"

"That is so. Once we stood at the same place in time--in our thoughts,
our desires. Now we stand at many places, as if we climbed a stairway,
each at his own speed--a stairway the Pinda-lick-o-yi has set us upon.
Some here, some there, some yet farther above...." He sketched a series
of step outlines in the air. "And in this there is trouble--"

"The truth," Travis agreed. "Yet it is also true that I knew nothing of
this, that I climb with you on these stairs."

"So I believe. But there comes a time when it is best not to be a woman
stirring a pot of boiling stew but rather one who stands quietly at a
distance--"

"You mean?" Travis pressed.

"I say that alone among us you have crossed the stars before, therefore
new things are not so hard to understand. And we need a scout. Also the
coyotes run in your footsteps, and you do not fear them."

It made good sense. Let him scout ahead of the party, taking the coyotes
with him. Stay away from the camp for a while and speak small--until the
people on Buck's stairway were more closely united.

"I go in the morning," Travis agreed. He could slip away tonight, but
just now he could not force himself away from the fire, from the
companionship.

"You might take Tsoay with you," Buck continued.

Travis waited for him to enlarge on that suggestion. Tsoay was one of
the youngest of their group, Buck's own cr