m away from the flitter the move would not have
been encouraged by the alien guardsmen. If this was their treasure
city, they would not welcome any independent investigation by
strangers.

When the captain joined them, he was accompanied by the officer who
had first shown Raf the globe. And the warrior was either disturbed or
angry, for he was talking in a steady stream and his hands were
whirling in explanatory gestures.

"They didn't like that flare," Hobart remarked. But there was no
reproof in his words. As a spacer pilot he knew that Raf had only done
what duty demanded. "We're to remain here--for the night."

"Where's Lablet?" Soriki wanted to know.

"He's staying with Yussoz, the alien commander. He thinks he has the
language problem about solved."

"Good enough." Soriki pulled out his bed roll. "We're out of touch
with the ship--"

There was a second of silence, unduly prolonged it seemed to Raf. Then
Hobart spoke:

"We couldn't expect to keep in call forever. The best com has its
range. When did you lose contact?"

"Just before these wrapped-up heroes played with fire back there. I
gave the boys all I knew up until then. They know we were headed west,
and they had us beamed as long as they could."

So it wasn't too bad, thought Raf. But he didn't like it, even with
that mitigating factor. To all purposes the four Terrans were now
surrounded by some twenty times their number, in an unknown country,
out of all communication with the rest of their kind. It could add up
to disaster.

9

SEA GATE

"What is it?" Dalgard asked his question as Sssuri, his attention still
on their back trail, stole along cautiously on a retracing of their
path.

But that retreat ended abruptly with the merman plastered against the
wall, his whole shadowy form a tense warning which stopped Dalgard
short. In that moment the answer flashed from mind to mind.

"There are those which follow--"

"Snake-devils? Those Others?" The colony scout supplied the only two
explanations he had, sending his own thought out questing. But as
usual he could not hope to equal the more sensitive merman whose race
had always used that form of communication.

"Those who have long haunted the darkness," was the only reply he
could get.

But Sssuri's actions were far more indicative of danger. For the
merman turned and caught at Dalgard, pulling the larger colonist along
a step or two with the urgency of his grip.

"We cannot re