stretched beyond that. It might serve Zurzal completely that he prove for all time his contention was right—the ancient and unknown past might be made clear, recorded for the reading of others—but they were still engaged in living and preparing to continue that state.
Jofre took first watch. The Zacathan did not seem prepared to either settle down to rest or put himself to camp routine. He had edged out into the night as Jofre crouched tensely trying to follow his movements, as well as pick up any threat which might lie hid. Back and forth along those trenches Zurzal had strode, the com in his hand, until at last he seemed to find some point he had been hunting and stood there for some time.
There was something about that hillock which was now a backdrop for their own camp which kept nudging at Jofre. He had absorbed enough of the time scanted instructions the Zacathan had given on Wayright and during their flight to Lochan to believe that that rise might indeed hide ruins,
part of a city or a single fortress. Yet those who had come here had not delved there but rather dug their trenches at its foot.
It was a place which could be defended—against anything but an air attack. Between quick glances at the Zacathan to make sure that he was safe, the guard began to set himself the problem of how that rise might be made to serve them best should those who collected skulls come to see what stirred here now.
Zurzal had returned when Jofre reached over to touch Taynad's shoulder, signal her for second guard duty. The double moons gave strange light to this barren country— it was wholly alien and more to be mistrusted for that.
'There is a watcher,' she whispered. 'Yan knows. See.'
Her gritty fingers touched the back of the hand Jofre had reached to awaken her. And he did understand. The sending was very dim, but it was there. They were indeed under observation.
'Yan will know,' she said. 'Rest while you can.'
Mistrust rippled in his mind and he repelled it. With her promise to the Zacathan she meant no ill, nor would she deliver any attack until she formally ended that courtesy tie. He could rely that she and the Jat would do just as he had been doing—stand guard.
So they won through to day again. Taynad reported that the watcher had withdrawn sometime in the early predawn and that the Jat had shown no fear concerning it.
They had to insist that Zurzal eat—he was as a child before a feast day—so eager to be at what he would do that nothing else mattered. With Jofre's help the scanner was once more mounted and then there was a tedious space of waiting as the Zacathan applied measurements and adjustments, making sure that the instrument aimed directly down, not across the central one of those ditches.
THEY WERE NOT PREPARED FOR WHAT CAME WITH less warning than a mountain storm. The sound tore through the brazen sky, something totally foreign to this place which had so been forgotten by time.
A shadow swept over the plateaus like a giant Kag preparing to dive on prey—though that airborne craft did not indeed skim as close to them as the sound suggested.
Jofre had thrown himself flat, taking Zurzal down with him, half covering the Zacathan's body with his own. He was prepared in one instant of recognition to feel the sear of laser fire catching them both.
But the flitter's occupants had not taken their advantage and the aircraft swept on, over the hump of the cone— northward. They had been such easy prey that Jofre could not believe for an instant or two that they seemed to have been ignored.
It was a screaming cry from the Jat which brought him up to his knees, half-slewed around. Yan was pulling at Taynad, striving to drag her from where she had prudently gone prone at the passing of the flitter, toward them. Why became understandable almost immediately.
The edge of that cut which bisected the plateau suddenly had developed a series of humps along its edge, moving things which flowed up and over as if they were part of some giant flood imprisoned below and determined now to be free.
Sword-knife in one hand, the barbed length of chain in the other, Jofre tried to settle his weight evenly, be prepared to meet that dash. The Zacathan had drawn his stunner but against this wave that would be little good. Taynad moved in, the Jat leaping up and down at her side and screaming. It stooped to scrabble up an armload of stones, nursing those against its small body as potential weapons.
The creatures from the chasm resembled Skrem—but of a different kind than those who had companied with them earlier. These were larger; they did not ride but scuttled at a speed which hardly seemed possible toward the beleaguered off-worlders.
The Zacathan's weapon hissed and the first line of the charge twisted and went down, frozen in the cords of stass. However, that was only a portion of those arranged against them.
Jofre's eyes narrowed, he measured distances, the footing before him, and then with the ear-splitting, heart- stopping cry of the issha, he went into action, meeting the first three of those who had tramped over their kind with the whirling hooked chain. One of those hooks caught under the edge of the helmetlike head covering of the foremost, and the force of the swing whirled the native off his feet, smashing him into his closest fellow.
Jofre was back in a crouch. The tip of his knife had caught the third at the point where a human would have had a chin and sent it down as cleanly as the chain had taken the others.
A rock flew past Jofre to strike another Skrem flat on the head so it staggered and fell. Then another and another such projectile flew with skillful aim. It was not only Yan who was the marksman. Taynad had joined him, proving herself an expert with even such crude weapons. Still they came.
Zurzal had had time to thumb another charge into his hand weapon and this he now discharged, adding to the line of motionless bodies.
The Skrem had made no sound when they attacked; only Jofre's cry had broken the silence. Now they could hear again the beat of the flitter engine. Jofre's shoulders stiffened. They had them at their mercy, those in the flitter, for he was very sure that the crew of that was not coming to their rescue.
Yet, it would seem that he had been wrong. The Skrem milled around on the edge of the cut, now forming another attack line. Yan was screaming again, jumping up, trying to catch at the Zacathan's maimed arm, draw his
