as an under-officer of police. He shook his head
distractedly. It appeared that his suspicions concerning Birken had been
only too accurate.

Why was it one like him who got through? he asked himself in silent
anguish. After ten years. The Tepoktans had been thinking well of
Terrans, but now--

He did not worry about his own position. That was well enough
established, whether or not he could again hold up his head before the
purple-scaled people who had been so generous to him.

Even if they had been aroused to a rage by the killing, Kinton told
himself, he would not have been concerned about himself. He had reached
a fairly ripe age for a spaceman. In fact, he had already enjoyed a
decade of borrowed time.

But they were more civilized than that wanton murderer, he realized.

He straightened up, forcing back his early-morning weariness.

"We must get into the air immediately," he told Klaft. "Perhaps we may
see him before he reaches--"

He broke off at the word "spaceship" but he noticed a reserved
expression on Klaft's pointed face. His aide had probably reached a
conclusion similar to his own.

They climbed back into the cabin and Klaft gave brisk orders to the lean
young pilot. A moment later, Kinton saw the ground outside drop away.

Only upon turning around did he realize that two armed Tepoktans had
materialized in time to follow Klaft inside.

One was a constable but the other he recognized for an officer of
some rank. Both wore slung across their chests weapons resembling
long-barreled pistols with large, oddly indented butts to fit Tepoktan
claws. The constable, in addition, carried a contraption with a
quadruple tube for launching tiny rockets no thicker than Kinton's
thumb. These, he knew, were loaded with an explosive worthy of respect
on any planet he had heard of.

To protect him, he wondered. Or to get Birken?

The pilot headed the craft back toward Kinton's town in the brightening
sky of early day. Long before the buildings of Kinton's institute came
into view, they received a radio message about Birken.

"He has been seen on the road passing the dam," Klaft reported soberly
after having been called to the pilot's compartment. "He stopped to
demand fuel from some maintenance workers, but they had been warned and
fled."

"Couldn't they have seized him?" demanded Kinton, his tone sharp with
the worry he endeavored to control. "He has that spear, I suppose; but
he is only one and injured.