live to boast about it?"

"Keep quiet," Humbolt ordered, studying him with curiosity. Narth, like
all the Gerns, was different from what they had expected. It was true
the Gerns had strode into their town with an attempt at arrogance but
they were harmless in appearance, soft of face and belly, and the
snarling of the red-faced Narth was like the bluster of a cornered
scavenger-rodent.

"I promise you this," Narth was saying viciously, "if you don't release
us and return our weapons this instant I'll personally oversee the
extermination of you and every savage in this village with the most
painful death science can contrive and I'll----"

Humbolt reached out his hand and flicked Narth under the chin. Narth's
teeth cracked loudly together and his face twisted with the pain of a
bitten tongue.

"Tie him up, Jess," he said to a man near him. "If he opens his mouth
again, shove your foot in it."

He spoke to Schroeder. "We'll keep three of the blasters and send two to
each of the other front groups. Have that done."

Dusk was deepening into darkness and he called Chiara again. "They'll
turn on their searchlights any minute and make the town as light as
day," he said. "If you can keep them blacked out until some of us have
reached the ship, I think we'll have won."

"They'll be kept blacked out," Chiara said. "With some flint-headed
arrows left over for the Gerns."

He called Lake and Craig, to be told they were ready and waiting.

"But we're having hell keeping the unicorns quiet," Craig said. "They
want to get to killing something."

He pressed the switch of the communicator but it was dead. They had, of
course, transferred to some other wave length so he could not hear the
commands. It was something he had already anticipated....

Fenrir and Sigyn were still obediently inside the doorway, almost
frantic with desire to rejoin him. He spoke to them and they bounded
out, snarling at three Gerns in passing and causing them to blanch to a
dead-white color.

He set Tip on Sigyn's shoulders and said, "Sigyn, there's a job for you
and Tip to do. A dangerous job. Listen--both of you...."

The yellow eyes of Sigyn and the dark eyes of the little mocker looked
into his as he spoke to them and accompanied his words with the
strongest, clearest mental images he could project:

"Sigyn, take Tip to the not-men thing. Leave him hidden in the grass to
one side of the big hole in it. Tip, you wait there. When the not-men