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He comforted himself with the knowledge that no agent was able to absorb every primitive skill, and Karara's people had explored the Pacific in out-rigger canoes hardly more stable than their present vessel, navigating by currents and stars. Smothering his feeling of helplessness and the slow anger that roused in him, the Terran busied himself with study of a sort.

The brown patch was larger, disclosing itself as a hump doming up from the gravel. The Terran did not need to run his hands over that rough surface to recognize the nature of the find. This was another shell such as had come floating in after the storm to form the raw material of their canoe.

While a remaining two continued with stolid precision to fire at the lurking shapes which could only be half seen; and a third helped the officer to his feet. The Throg commander reeled back against the frame, his musky body scent filling Shann's nostrils. But he, too, paid no attention to the Terran, though his horny arms scraped across Shann's.

He thought that he did not see with his eyes, hear with his ears but used other senses his own kind did not recognize nor acknowledge. Space ... not a room ... a cave-anything made by normal nature. Space which held something. Pure energy? His Terran mind strove to give name to that which was nameless. Perhaps it was that spark of memory and consciousness which gave him that instant of "Seeing."

Torgul gathered up from the deck the belt and gill-pack Ross had shed in preparation for the fight. He turned the belt around over his forearm until the empty knife sheath was uppermost. One of the crew came forward and slammed back into its proper place the long diver's knife which had been there when Ross was captured. Then the Rover offered belt and gill-pack to Ross. The Terran relaxed.

Swiftly the Terran nodded and then followed with a lengthened stride as the Salarik sped down into the lower reaches of the Queen, obviously in quest of something of great importance. "What in" Frank Mura, steward, storekeeper, and cook of the Queen, retreated into the nearest cabin doorway as the young Salarik flashed down the ladder into his section.

He tried to count the number of days and nights lying behind him now since that early morning when he had watched the Terran camp die under the aliens' weapons.

"Sugar about a tablespoon full," the Engineer-assistant returned, "and two colored steelos. So far they haven't run up the price on us. I think they're sharing out the spoil evenly, a new cub brings him back every night." As did all Terran ships, the Solar Queen carried a cat as an important member of the regular crew.

He brought himself under control; the grammar and harsh sounds of Imperial English were difficult enough without having to fight emotion at the same time. "Yourself identify," he growled. "Major Horst Marguerre, Imperial Terran Marine Corps." It didn't look at all good for him, Marguerre thought grimly.

Stranger or no, Raf was sure that he saw a Terran. Had another ship made a landing on this planet? One of those earlier ships whose fate had been a mystery on their home world? Who and when and why? He huddled as close to the grid as he could get, alert to the slightest movement below as the prisoner faced his captors.