mned thing about it, or
about them. We can't run and we don't want to fight, if we can help it.
Furthermore, Nielson, I want you to learn to control your tongue.
Remember that in the future, will you?"

For a second, Nielson glared at him. "Yes, sir."

"All right. Go on back to the ship."

* * * * *

Nielson went clumping back toward the vessel. Hargraves turned to Ron
Val.

"What do you make of it?"

"I don't know, Jed. There is something about it that I don't like a
little bit. They can read minds. Maybe that is what I don't like because
I don't know how to react to it. Jed, it may be that we are in great
danger here."

"There is little doubt about _that_," Hargraves answered. "Tonight we
will stand watches. Tomorrow we will make a reconnaissance of our own."

Dusk came over the grove. Vega hesitated on the horizon as though trying
to make up its mind, then abruptly took the plunge and dived from sight
beyond the rim of the world. Night came abruptly, hiding the ship and
its occupants. In the sky overhead, stars twinkled like the eyes of
watchful wolves.

CHAPTER IV

The Monster

They blacked out the ship before they moved it, carefully covering each
port with paper, then showing no lights. Hargraves handled the controls
himself, slowly turning current into the drivers so their grunting would
not reveal what was happening.

"Are we going to take her up high for tonight?" Ushur, the archeologist
asked. "She will fly all right as long as we stay in the atmosphere. We
would be safer up high, it seems to me."

"Safer from ground attack, yes," Hargraves said thoughtfully. "However,
I'm afraid we would be more exposed to attack from a ship."

"Oh! That damned sphere. I had forgotten about it."

Hargraves moved the ship less than a mile, carefully hid her among the
trees. Then he posted guards outside all the ports. He took the first
watch himself, in the control room. Ron Val was waiting for him there.
The astro-navigator's face was grave. "Jed," he said. "I've been talking
to several of the fellows. They don't believe you are taking a
sufficiently realistic view of our situation. They don't believe you are
facing the facts."

"Um. What facts have I been evading?"

"You apparently don't realize that it will take months--if it can be
done at all--to repair the damage to the ship."

Hargraves settled deep into his chair. He looked at the astro-navigator.
Ron Val