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Updated: June 4, 2025
And now they had reached the last breathing point before they took the plunge into the heart of the enemy country. About the way in which they were to make that plunge, Ross had his own plan. One he did not intend to share with either Ashe or Karara. Though he had had to outline it to the one now waiting here with him. "This is still your mind, younger brother?"
He enjoyed the hours when he buckled on gill-pack and took to the sea with those two ten-foot, black-and-silver escorts sharing the action. But Karara ... Karara's presence was a different matter altogether. The Agents' teams had always been strictly masculine.
Karara had come with Jazia to stand on the stone ledge chipped to form a base for a column bearing a strange, brooding-eyed head looking seaward. The Rover woman was superintending the freeing of the head from the column. At the Terran girl's question the Captain gazed down into the dreadful chaos of the valley. They could yet hear the roars of the dying salkars.
That odd misty quality this day held provided a murk hard to pierce, but the men were gesturing at a low-riding object rolling with the waves. That was near enough for even Ross to be able to distinguish a small boat akin to the one in which he, Karara, and Loketh had dared the sea gate of the Foanna. Torgul took up a great curved shell hanging by a thong on the mainmast.
Ross crossed to the rope ladder, but another was there before him. Karara perched on the rail. He regarded her angrily. "You can't go." "I know. But we are still safe here. Just because you are free of one defense of the gate, Ross, do not believe that makes it easy." He was stung by her assumption that he could be so self-assured. "I know my business."
He must gain some idea of where they might be in relation to the island, how far from its shore. Karara and the dolphins what had happened to them? "You took no other prisoners?" Ross had to ask. "There were more of you?" Torgul countered. "Yes." No need to say how many, Ross decided. "We saw no others. You ... all of you " the Captain rounded on the still-clustered crew, "get about your work!
She relayed the question. Ross saw the prisoner's head jerk around. The Hawaikan looked from Karara to her companion, a shade of speculation in his expression. "He wants to know why you ask about the Foanna? Surely you must well know what manner of beings they are."
Ross Murdock, Gordon Ashe, Karara Trehern, Tino-rau, Taua five Terrans forever lost in time in the past with a dubious future. Would this be the barren, lotus world, or another now? Yes, no either. They had found their key to the mystery out of time, but they could not turn it, and there was no key to the gate which had ceased to exist. Grasp tight the present. Ross looked about him.
Ross heard a gasp from the watcher, a faint sound of movement. Karara began to sing softly, her voice rippling in one of the liquid chants of her own people, the dolphin interjecting a note or two. Ross had heard them at that before, and it made perfect cover for his move. He sprang. His grasp tightened on flesh, fingers closed about thin wrists.
Karara asked the right question. This was Ross's kind of venture. Yes, one-in-a-million chances had been pulled off by the Time Agents. Why, it had been close to those odds against their ever finding what they had first sought along the back trails of time the wrecked spaceships. Just suppose this could be a rehearsal for another attack?
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