"Do you wish her head?" asked the mechanical, voice of Nar.

I knew that the insect, who would allow his kind to be exterminated before he would injure any rational creature, must have some plan in mind, or at least I assumed he did. At any rate, I said, "Yes." The mandibles began to close on her throat like the blades of giant scissors.

"Stop!" screamed the girl, her voice a frenzied whisper.

I motioned to Nar to relax his grip.

"I was trying to bring the tarn back to Ar," said the girl. "I was never on a tam before. I made mistakes. It. knew it. There was no tarn-goad."

I gestured, and Nar removed his mandibles from the girl's throat.

"We were somewhere over the swamp forest," said the girl, "when we flew into a flock of wild tarns. My tam attacked the leader of the flock."

She shuddered at the memory, and I pitied her for what must have been a horrifying experience, lashed helpless to the saddle of a giant tam reeling in a death struggle for the mastery of a flock, high over the trees of the swamp forest.

"My tam killed the other," said the girl, "and followed 3 it to the ground, where he tore it to pieces." She shook with the memory. "I slipped free and ran under the wing and hid in the trees. After a few minutes, his beak and talons wet with blood and feathers, your tam took flight. I last saw him at the head of the tarn flock."

That was that, I thought. The tam had turned wild, all his instincts triumphant over the tarn whistle, the memory of men.

"And the Home Stone of Ar?" I asked.

"In the saddle pack," she said, confirming my expectation. I had locked the pack when I had placed the Home Stone inside, and the pack is an integral part of the tarn saddle. When she had spoken, her voice had burned with shame, and I sensed the humiliation she felt at having failed to save the Home Stone. So now the tam was gone, returned to his natural wild state, the Home Stone was in the saddle pack, and I had failed, and the daughter of the Ubar had failed, and we stood facing one.j another on a green knoll in the swamp forest of Ar.