ashed through him with a clear wave of icy
shock.

* * * * *

Grimly, he shrugged it off. He had ESP. He ought to have expected it--it
was the next logical step. He scrambled back to the road and walked
onward a little faster, until the battlements of Lagash came in sight.

The Lagash Arm was farther from the city than was that of Vaornia, and
as he came to the strip of jungle, he turned his eyes upon the empty
parklike arcades between the trees. The last edible garbage had long
since been consumed and the greater and lesser beasts had departed for
the cooler depths of the forest, but Albert was conscious of life. It
was all around him, in the trees with the ringed layers of their trunks
and the sap flowing slowly upward through the cambium layer beneath
their scaly bark, in the insects feeding upon the nectar of the aerial
vine blossoms, in the rapid photosynthetic reactions of the leaves.

His gaze, turning aloft, was conscious of the birds and the tiny
arboreal mammals. He saw the whole forest with eyes filled with wonder
at its life and beauty. It was the only right way to see.

At the proper distance from Lagash, he plunged off boldly across country
and entered the main area of the forest, reflecting wryly as he did so
that he was probably the first human in the short history of Antarian
exploration who had gone into one of the great forests with absolute
knowledge that he would come out of it alive. And, as so often happens
to men who have no fear, trouble avoided him.

He followed the directions he had obtained from Shifaz and found the
plantation without trouble. He could hardly miss it, because its size
was far from accurately expressed in the native's memory. Skillfully
concealed beneath an overhanging network of aerial vines whose
camouflage made it invisible from the air, concealing the tobacco plants
from casual detector search, the plantation extended in row upon narrow
row, the irregular strips of fields separated by rows of trees from
which the camouflage was hung. A fragile electric fence encircled the
area, a seemingly weak defense, but one through which even the greatest
Antarian beast would not attempt to pass.

Albert whistled softly under his breath at what he saw, recorded it in
his memory. Then, having finished the eyewitness part of his task, he
recalled a section of road over which he had passed, and pushed.

The return journey to Vaornia was experimental