here was music among them still, but it was a different sort of
music, now, an eerie, hopeless music that drifted out of the city in the
wind. It caused all but the bravest of the beasts, their hair prickling
on their backs, to run in panic through the jungle darkness. It was a
melancholy music, carried from thought to thought, from voice to voice
as the people of the city wearily prepared themselves once again for the
long journey.

To run away. In the darkness of secrecy, to be gone, without a trace,
without symbol or vestige of their presence, leaving only the scorched
circle of land for the jungle to reclaim, so that no eyes, not even the
sharpest, would ever know how long they had stayed, nor where they might
have gone.

In the rounded room of his house, Lord Nehmon dispatched the last of his
belongings, a few remembrances, nothing more, because the space on the
ships must take people, not remembrances, and he knew that the
remembrances would bring only pain. All day Nehmon had supervised the
loading, the intricate preparation, following plans laid down millennia
before. He saw the libraries and records transported, mile upon endless
mile of microfilm, carted to the ships prepared to carry them, stored
until a new resting place was found. The history of a people was
recorded on that film, a people once proud and strong, now equally
proud, but dwindling in numbers as toll for the constant roving. A proud
people, yet a people who would turn and run without thought, in a panic
of age-old fear. They _had_ to run, Nehmon knew, if they were to
survive.

And with a blaze of anger in his heart, he almost hated the two young
people waiting here with him for the last ship to be filled. For these
two would not go.

It had been a long and painful night. He had pleaded and begged, tried
to persuade them that there was no hope, that the very idea of remaining
behind or trying to contact the Hunters was insane. Yet he knew _they_
were sane, perhaps unwise, naive, but their decision had been reached,
and they would not be shaken.

The day was almost gone as the last ships began to fill. Nehmon turned
to Ravdin and Dana, his face lined and tired. "You'll have to go soon,"
he said. "The city will be burned, of course, as always. You'll be left
with food, and with weapons against the jungle. The Hunters will know
that we've been here, but they'll not know when, nor where we have
gone." He paused. "It will be up to you to see th