grimly. "We are all traveling back together. Take off in
the early morning. For some reason they wanted us out of the globe in
a hurry--practically shoved us out half an hour ago."

Though the Terrans kept a watch on the larger ship as long as the
light lasted, the darkness defeated them. They did not see the
prisoner being taken aboard. Yet none of them doubted that sometime
during the dusky hours it had been done.

It was barely dawn when the globe took off the next day, and Raf
brought the flitter up on its trail, heading westward into the sea
wind. Below them the land held no signs of life. They swept over the
deserted, terraced city that was the gateway to the guarded interior,
flew back over the line of sea islands. Raf climbed higher, not caring
to go too near the island where the aliens had wrought their terrible
vengeance on the trip out. And all four of the Terrans knew relief,
though they might not admit it to each other, when once more Soriki
was able to establish contact with the distant spacer.

"Turn north, sir?" the pilot suggested. "I could ride her beam in from
here--we don't have to follow them home." He wanted to do that so
badly it was almost a compulsion to make his hand move on the
controls. And when Hobart did not answer at once, he was sure that the
captain would give that very order, taking them out of the company of
those he had never trusted.

But Lablet spoiled that. "We have their word, Captain. That anti-grav
unit that they showed us last night alone--"

So Hobart shook his head, and they meekly continued on the path set by
the globe across the ocean.

As the hours passed Raf's inner uneasiness grew. For some queer reason
which he could not define to himself or explain to anyone else, he was
now possessed by an urgency to trail the globe which transcended and
then erased his dislike of the aliens. It was as if some appeal for
help was being broadcast from the other ship, drawing him on. It was
then that he began to question his assumption that the prisoner was
one of them.

Over and over again in his mind he tried to re-picture the capture as
he had witnessed it from the building just too far away and at
slightly the wrong angle for a clear view. He would swear that the
body he had seen tumble into the flood had not been furred, that much
he was sure of. But clothing, yes, there had been clothing. Not--his
mind suddenly produced that one scrap of memory--not the bandage
windings