That helped the Yawtl for a few seconds, but the two guards, their chests heaving, sweat-covered, appeared.

Deyv ran at the dogs, his sword raised.

The Yawtl hurled his spear, and its stone head drove into a guard's shoulder. He spun then as Deyv sped by him.

A reddish hand reached out and yanked the bag from Deyv's grasp. The Yawtl's howl of triumph faded as he ran down a narrow lane between the houses.

Deyv was shocked. And he couldn't pursue the thief because he was surrounded by dogs. His blade slashed out as he turned to keep them from his legs.

During one of his swift circles, he saw the remaining guard clutch his chest and fall on his face.

Four dogs lay dead from his sword, and two had limped off howling. One fell from Vana's dart. Another.

The four survivors fled his charge.

"Did you see that?" he gasped.

She shook her head. Her face was pale.

"Go after him! I'm out of breath!"

The man who'd awakened staggered out from between two houses. He held a spear, but he didn't seem to know what to do with it. Deyv chopped its head off with his blade, and he half-cut the man's arm off with another stroke. Breathing heavily, his legs feeling a little tired, he ran after Vana. He found her lying on the ground, face up. A bruise across her forehead showed where the Yawtl had struck her with the butt of his spear.

Her unconsciousness lasted only a minute. Still, she didn't know where she was or who Deyv was until he had helped her halfway to the sentinel platform. He told her what had happened.

"Our eggs! They're gone!" She began sobbing.

He didn't say anything. He felt a burning anger. At the same time, he felt humiliated. The Yawtl had made a fool of him.

She had to be supported to the ladder. When he saw she couldn't get up without falling, he hoisted her on his back and carried her up the ladder. She sat on the platform a minute or two, then said, "I can get down the rope by myself."

Deyv blew on his bone whistle. Jum and Aejip burst out of the foliage and came running. Vana stood up unsteadily, but she successfully slid down the rope to the ground. In the village, a few people were beginning to stir. He thought of setting some houses on fire. That would keep them busy for a while and delay any pursuit. However, he didn't want to spend the time on arson. Besides, they really weren't in any condition to chase him. By the next sleep-time, maybe, and he'd be long gone before then.

He untied the rope and dropped it, his weapons, and the blowgun case. He climbed over the pointed ends of the log, hung from his hands, and dropped. The soft mud eased the impact to his feet. He rolled over, and just as he stood up, the animals arrived.

Deyv set Jum and Aejip on the Yawtl's tracks. They sped off silently. He and Vana followed at a leisurely pace until she was fully recovered. They found the animals on the bank of a creek. Jum was running up and down it trying to pick up the scent. Aejip was sitting on her haunches and looking disgusted. Deyv took Jum across the broad shallow stream, but the dog could find no traces anywhere.

For a long time, all four went up and down both banks before giving up.

Deyv was sick with the pain of his loss. Yet he could not help admiring the wily, slippery-slick thief.

SLOOSH was walking in the middle of the ancients' highway as if he owned it. Hearing Vana's whistle, he stopped and turned slowly. If he was surprised, he had no way of showing it. It was impossible to see any expression on that cabbage-head face—if there was a face under the leaves. For all Deyv knew, the head contained no bones.

"So, you got out alive," the Archkerri buzzed.

"But without our eggs," Vana whistled.

"I knew some time ago that you didn't get them," Sloosh said.

Deyv and Vana stared open-mouthed. Deyv asked, "How could you know that?"

"I saw the Yawtl just before the last sleep-time. He was carrying the leather bag with the eggs."

The thief had come up softly behind him and then run swiftly past him. "

"He had the effrontery to slap me on my rear as he went by," Sloosh said. He added a modulated buzz, an abrupt rising and then slow falling to express his indignation. "What's more, he laughed at me."

Deyv ignored that remark. He had just thought of something that worried him. "What about your prism?

If he finds out how to work that, he'll always be able to keep ahead of us. We won't be able to sneak up on him because he could see us in it."

Sloosh replied calmly, "He might find out how to operate it. But he won't be able to interpret what he sees in it. However, he might just throw it away if he thinks it's of no value to him. Still, the Yawtl are not only thieves, they're magpies. They find it difficult to abandon anything that looks interesting, even if it is not utilitarian for them. On the other hand, the crystal is heavy, and he might feel that it weighs him down too much. It would then be a battle between his desire for survival and his cupidity. Still ..."

Deyv waited, impatiently, until the Sloosh had considered all possibilities. Then he asked, "Aren't you interested in what happened to us?"

"Keenly. But there is plenty of time to hear every detail of your adventure. If you have more urgent matters to tell, do so."

Deyv sighed, and he related how the Yawtl had managed to snatch the bag from him. "And don't tell me," he said, "that we should have taken the time to hang the eggs around our necks. We're painfully aware of that."

"Then I won't. But I'll point out that you should also have removed my crystal so you could have brought it to me."

Vana said angrily, "You walked out on us, left us on our own. Why should we bother to chase you down just to give you the crystal when you wouldn't bother to go after it yourself?"

"I mistakenly thought you didn't have a chance of getting the eggs. I supposed that you'd be killed in the attempt or, seeing the futility of it, would give it up. In a sense, I wasn't mistaken. I lacked the data to form a proper conclusion. I didn't know that you two had such determination and vigor. Nothing in your behavior and attitudes had evidenced such strong characteristics.

"As for your returning my prism to me, well, that would have expressed your gratitude. You humans are always talking about gratitude, you know. Maybe it's just talk; maybe you lack it to any great degree but feel that you should exhibit it. A moral trait which is satisfied by being discussed but not practiced.

However, since you could not have tracked the Yawtl without me, just as you can't in the future, you could have thanked me by bringing my crystal to me."

"We might have," Deyv said. He didn't believe it, though.

"Does the Yawtl know that you can see his ghostly tracks?" Vana asked.

"I don't know. That would depend upon whether or not he's had extensive contact with my people."

They came to another junction of the highway. Vana got down on her knees and bowed three times.

Deyv followed her example. The Archkerri, however, just walked through. Deyv, watching him, was amazed that nothing happened to him. There was no lightning nor any terrible pain transmitted through the surface of the road. He arose and hurried after Sloosh.

"Do you have a pact with the gods?" he said. "Or are you yourself a demigod?"

Sloosh didn't have to ask him what he meant. That brain in the cabbage-head had figured it all out. That is, if his brain was in his head. Since his mouth was in his chest, his brain could be there, too, or perhaps in the lower body.

"Why should I make obeisance to light signals for traffic that ended twenty thousand or so generations ago?"

Deyv was so flabbergasted he couldn't whistle for a moment.