feeling
when he had ventured into those wildernesses. Almost he could believe
that the records Hobart had showed him were false, that this world had
never known intelligent life herding together in cities.

He walked slowly down the ramp, drawing deep breaths of the crisp air.
The day would grow warmer with the rising sun. But now it was just the
sort of morning which led him to be glad he was alive--and young!
Maybe part of it was because he was free of the ship and at last not
just excess baggage but a man with a definite job before him.

Spacemen tended to be young. But until this moment Raf had never felt
the real careless freedom of youth. Now he was moved by a desire to
disobey orders--to take the flitter up by himself and head off into
the blue of the brightening sky for more than just a test flight, not
to explore Hobart's city but to cruise over the vast sea of grass and
find out its wonders for himself.

But the discipline which had shaped him almost since birth sent him
now to check the flyer and wait, inwardly impatient, for Hobart,
Lablet, and Soriki, the com-tech, to join him.

The wait was not a long one since the three others, with equipment
hung about, tramped down the ramp as Raf settled himself behind the
control board of the flyer. He triggered the shield which snapped over
them for a windbreak and brought the flitter up into the spreading
color of the morning. Beside him Hobart pressed the button of the
automatic recorder, and in the seat behind, Soriki had the headset of
the com clamped over his ears. They were not only making a record of
their trip, they were continuing in constant communication with the
ship--now already a silver pencil far to the rear.

It was some two hours later that they discovered what was perhaps one
reason for the isolation of the district in which the _RS 10_ had set
down. Rolling foothills rose beneath them and miles ahead the
white-capped peaks of a mountain range made a broken outline against
the turquoise sky. The broken lands would be a formidable barrier for
any foot travelers: there were no easy roads through that series of
sharp lifts and narrow valleys. And the one stream they followed for a
short space descended from the heights in spectacular falls. Twice
they skimmed thick growths of trees, so tightly packed that from the
air they resembled a matted carpet of green-blue. And to cut through
such a forest would be an impossible task.

The four in the flit