r of voices. But he turned and went to the
flitter. Taking his hand torch, he checked the work he had done during
the day. To-morrow--tomorrow he could take her up into the blue-green
sky, circle out over the sea of grass for a short testing flight. That
much he wanted to do.

But the thought of the cruise south, of venturing toward that
sprawling splotch Hobart and Lablet identified as a city was somehow
distasteful, and he was reluctant to think about it.

3

SNAKE-DEVIL'S TRAIL

Dalgard drew the waterproof covering back over his brow, making a
cheerful job of it, preparatory to their pushing out to sea once more.
But he was as intent upon what Sssuri had to tell as he was on his
occupation of the moment.

"But that is not even a hopper rumor," he was protesting, breaking
into his companion's flow of thought.

"No. But, remember, to the runners yesterday is very far away. One
night is like another; they do not reckon time as we do, nor lay up
memories for future guidance. They left their native hunting grounds
and are drifting south. And only a very great peril would lead the
runners into such a break. It is against all their instincts!"

"So, long ago--which may be months, weeks, or just days--there came
death out of the sea, and those who lived past its coming fled--"
Dalgard repeated the scanty information Sssuri had won for them the
night before by patient hour-long coaxing. "What kind of death?"

Sssuri's great eyes, somber and a little tired, met his. "To us there
is only one kind of death to be greatly feared."

"But there are the snake-devils--" protested the colony scout.

"To be hunted down by snake-devils is death, yes. But it is a quick
death, a death which can come to any living thing that is not swift or
wary enough. For to the snake-devils all things that live and move are
merely meat to fill the aching pit in their swollen bellies. But there
were in the old days other deaths, far worse than what one meets under
a snake-devil's claws and fangs. And those are the deaths we fear." He
was running the smooth haft of his spear back and forth through his
fingers as if testing the balance of the weapon because the time was
not far away when he must rely upon it.

"Those Others!" Dalgard shaped the words with his lips as well as in
his mind.

"Just so." Sssuri did not nod, but his thought was in complete
agreement.

"Yet they have not come before--not since the ship of my fathers
lande