re not prepared to kill summarily one of the Foanna.

Ross went to the well, went down the ladder slowly, keeping his robe
about him. Here at the next level there was a wider space about the
opening, and three door panels. Behind one must be those he sought. He
was buoyed up by a curious belief in himself, almost as if wearing this
robe did give him in part the power attributed to the Foanna.

He laid his hand on the door to his right and sent it snapping back into
its frame, stepped inside as if he entered here by right.

There were three Baldies. To his Terran eyes they were all superficially
alike, but the one seated on a control stool had a cold arrogance in his
expression, a pitiless half smile which made Ross face him squarely. The
Terran longed for one of the Foanna staffs and the ability to use it. To
spray that energy about this cabin might reduce the Baldy defenses to
nothing. But now two of the paralyzing tubes were trained on him.

"You have come to us, Foanna, what have you to offer?" demanded the
commander, if that was his rank.

"Offer?" For the first time Ross spoke. "There is no reason for the
Foanna to make any offer, slayer of women and children. You have come
from the stars to take, but that does not mean we choose to give."

He felt it now, that inner pulling, twisting in his mind, the willing
which was their more subtle weapon. Once they had almost bent him with
that willing because then he had worn their livery, a spacesuit taken
from the wrecked freighter. Now he did not have that chink in his
defense. And all that stubborn independence and determination to be
himself alone resisted the influence with a fierce inner fire.

"We offer life to you, Foanna, freedom of the stars. These other dirt
creepers are nothing to you, why take you weapons in their cause? You
are not of the same race."

"Nor are you!" Ross's hands moved under the envelope of the robe,
unloosing the two hidden clasps which held it. That bank of controls
before which the commander sat--to silence that would cause trouble. And
he depended upon Ynlan. The Rovers should now be massed at either end of
the canyon waiting for the force field to fail and let them in.

Ross steadied himself, poised for action. "We have something for you,
star men--" he tried to hold their attention with words, "have you not
heard of the power of the Foanna--that they can command wind and wave?
That they can be where they were not in a single movem