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If they had not, they could go without sleep to an amazing degree, for as Raf walked in a circle about the flyer to limber up, they watched him closely, nor did their grips on their odd weapons loosen. And he had a very clear idea that if he stepped over some invisible boundary he would be in for trouble. When he came back to the flitter, Soriki was awake and stretching.
Hobart and Lablet were engrossed in speculation about what might lie ahead. Soriki had gone back to the flitter to make his report to the ship. The pilot sat where he was, content to be forgotten, but eager to see an animal peering at him from cover, a bird winging through the air. " if we don't hit it by nightfall But we can't be that far away! I'll stay out and try tomorrow." That was Hobart.
They got out and walked for a space along pavement which had once been smooth. "High-powered traffic " That was Lablet. He had gone down on one knee and was tracing a finger along the substance. "Straight " Soriki squinted against the sun. "Nothing stopped them, did it? We want a road here and we'll get it! That sort of thing. Must have been master engineers."
"Can you set us down on that?" The pilot measured the curving roof of the structure. A crazy fool might try to make a landing there. But he was no crazy fool. "Not on that roof!" he spoke with decision. To his relief the captain confirmed his verdict with a slow nod. "Better find out more first." Hobart could be cautious when he wanted to. "Are they still broadcasting, Soriki?"
"What about all the wonders they've promised to show us?" countered Raf. Soriki grinned. "And how much do we understand of their mouth-and-hand talk? Maybe they were promising us wonders, maybe they were offering to take us to where we could have our throats cut more conveniently for them!
He triggered the controls and soared up and away, fighting the heaving in his middle, shaking off with one savage jerk the insistent pawing hand of the alien who wanted to join in the fun. "Did you see that?" he demanded of Soriki. For once the com-tech sounded subdued. "Yes," he replied shortly. "Those were children," Raf hammered home the point. "Young ones anyway," the com-tech conceded.
Hobart's voice sounded out of the shadows. "Stay where you are for the present." Soriki settled deeper in his seat. "He doesn't have to tell me to brake jets," he muttered. "I like it here " Raf did not need to echo that. He had a strong surmise that had he been tempted to roam away from the flitter the move would not have been encouraged by the alien guardsmen.
For he was certain that the isolated structure Soriki had pointed out was not the treasure house they had come to loot. The night wore on and sometime during it Raf fell asleep. But the two or three hours of restless, dream-filled unconsciousness was not what he needed, and he blinked in the dawn with eyes which felt as if they were filled with hot sand.
The whistling call of some night bird, the distant lap, lap of water which he associated with the river curving through the long-deserted city, the rustle of grass as either the wind or some passing animal disturbed it. "Not the best place in the world for a nap," Soriki observed out of the dark as Raf wriggled, trying to find a more comfortable position.
Tense, the four spacemen stood watching the graceful movements of the flyer. There were no visible portholes or openings anywhere along its ovoid sides. It might be a robot-controlled ship, it might be anything, Raf thought, even a bomb of sorts. If it was being flown by some human or nonhuman flyer, he was a master pilot. "I don't understand," Soriki moved impatiently.
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