to
believe that they had little to fear. Perhaps the blow they had struck
at the heart of the citadel had been more drastic than they had hoped.
He had listened since that hour in the gorge for the shrilling of one
of the air hounds. And when it did not come the thought that maybe it
was the last of its kind had been heartening.

At last the scout lay down beside the off-world man, listening to the
soft hiss of waves on sand, the distant cluttering of night insects.
And his last waking thought was a wish for his bow.

There was another day of patient plodding; two, three. Raf, led by the
hand, helped over rocks and obstacles which were only dark blurs to
his watering eyes, raged inwardly and sometimes outwardly, against the
slowness of their advance, his own helplessness. His fear grew until
he refused to credit the fact that the blurs were sharpening in
outline, that he could now count five fingers on the hand he sometimes
waved despairingly before his face.

When he spoke of the future, he never said "if we reach the ship" but
always "when," refusing to admit that perhaps they would not be in
time. And Dalgard by his anxiety, tried to get more news from the
north.

"When we get there, will you come back to earth with us?" the pilot
asked suddenly on the fifth day.

It was a question Dalgard had once asked himself. But now he knew the
answer; there was only one he dared give.

"We are not ready--"

"I don't understand what you mean." Raf was almost querulous. "It is
your home world. Pax is gone; the Federation would welcome you
eagerly. Just think what it would mean--a Terran colony among the
stars!"

"A Terran colony." Dalgard put out a hand, steadied Raf over a stretch
of rough shingle. "Yes, once we were a Terran colony. But--can you now
truthfully swear that I am a Terran like yourself?"

Raf faced the misty figure, trying to force his memory to put features
there, to sharpen outlines. The scout was of middle height, a little
shorter in stature than the crewmen with whom the pilot had lived so
long. His hair was fair, as was his skin under its sun tan. He was
unusually light on his feet and possessed a wiry strength Raf could
testify to. But there was that disconcerting habit of mind reading and
other elusive differences.

Dalgard smiled, though the other could not see that.

"You see," deliberately he used the mind touch as if to accent those
differences the more, "once our roots were the same, but