patiently around
all night. I wondered how the creature had managed to trap Tweel, but
there wasn't any way of asking him. I found that out too, later; it's
devilish!

"However, we were ambling around the base of the Xanthus barrier looking
for an easy spot to climb. At least, I was. Tweel could have leaped it
easily, for the cliffs were lower than Thyle--perhaps sixty feet. I
found a place and started up, swearing at the water tank strapped to my
back--it didn't bother me except when climbing--and suddenly I heard a
sound that I thought I recognized!

"You know how deceptive sounds are in this thin air. A shot sounds like
the pop of a cork. But this sound was the drone of a rocket, and sure
enough, there went our second auxiliary about ten miles to westward,
between me and the sunset!"

"Vas me!" said Putz. "I hunt for you."

"Yeah; I knew that, but what good did it do me? I hung on to the cliff
and yelled and waved with one hand. Tweel saw it too, and set up a
trilling and twittering, leaping to the top of the barrier and then high
into the air. And while I watched, the machine droned on into the
shadows to the south.

"I scrambled to the top of the cliff. Tweel was still pointing and
trilling excitedly, shooting up toward the sky and coming down head-on
to stick upside down on his beak in the sand. I pointed toward the south
and at myself, and he said, 'Yes--Yes--Yes'; but somehow I gathered that
he thought the flying thing was a relative of mine, probably a parent.
Perhaps I did his intellect an injustice; I think now that I did.

"I was bitterly disappointed by the failure to attract attention. I
pulled out my thermo-skin bag and crawled into it, as the night chill
was already apparent. Tweel stuck his beak into the sand and drew up his
legs and arms and looked for all the world like one of those leafless
shrubs out there. I think he stayed that way all night."

"Protective mimicry!" ejaculated Leroy. "See? He is desert creature!"

"In the morning," resumed Jarvis, "we started off again. We hadn't gone
a hundred yards into Xanthus when I saw something queer! This is one
thing Putz didn't photograph, I'll wager!

"There was a line of little pyramids--tiny ones, not more than six
inches high, stretching across Xanthus as far as I could see! Little
buildings made of pygmy bricks, they were, hollow inside and truncated,
or at least broken at the top and empty. I pointed at them and said
'What?' to Tweel, but