body, looked at the Terran with narrowed eyes. She nursed a bandaged arm
against her, and now and then her mouth quivered as if she could not
altogether control some emotion or physical pain.

"Yours is the cursing, Lady Jazia. Make it heavy to bear for him as his
kind has laid the burden of pain and remembering on all of us."

She brought her good hand up to her mouth, wiping its back across her
lips as if to temper their quiver. And all the time her eyes held upon
Ross.

"Why do you bring me this man?" Her voice was strained, high. "He is not
of those who brought the Shadow to Kyn Add."

"What--?" Torgul began and then schooled his voice to a more normal
tone. "Those were from the sea?" He was gentle in his questioning. "They
came out of the sea, using weapons against which we had no defense?"

She nodded. "Yes, they made very sure that only the dead remained. But I
had gone to the Shrine of Phutka, since it was my day of duty, and
Phutka's power threw its shade over me. So I did not die, but I
saw--yes, I saw!"

"Not those like me?" Ross dared to speak to her directly.

"No, not those like you. There were few ... only so many--" She spread
out her five fingers. "And they were all of one like as if born in one
birth. They had no hair on their heads, and their bodies were of this
hue--" She plucked at one of the coverings they had heaped around her;
it was a lavender-blue mixture.

Ross sucked in his breath, and Torgul was fast to pounce upon the
understanding he read in the Terran's face.

"Not your kind--but still you know them!"

"I know them," Ross agreed. "They are the enemy!"

The Baldies from the ancient spaceships, that wholly alien race with
whom he had once fought a desperate encounter on the edge of an unnamed
sea in the far past of his own world. The galactic voyagers were
here--and in active, if secret, conflict with the natives!

11

Weapon from the Depths

Jazia told her story with an attention to time and detail which amazed
Ross and won his admiration for her breed. She had witnessed the death
and destruction of all which was her life, and yet she had the wit to
note and record mentally for possible future use all that she had been
able to see of the raiders.

They had come out of the sea at dawn, walking with supreme confidence
and lack of any fear. Axes flung when they did not reply to the
sentries' challenges had never touched them, and a bombardment of
heavier missiles ha