"What comes to your mind, little brother?" she asked.

Why did she do this when there were other things to be thought of? But under her compelling gaze he looked down at the clod he held. In that part of his mind which could and did speak to Togger and the others something stirred.

He closed his eyes, again not knowing just why.

Before him was darkness, then into that night came—

A creature moved. It was slender of body, and was raised on stiltlike limbs—four of them. Two more jutted out from the body and those gripped a black wand or stick. The slim body was round in comparison to those legs, as was its much smaller head. And it emitted purpose—and that purpose was killing. Behind that no rage nor fear, rather the neutral state of a thing which grew because the instinct of growth lay within it, as might a seed within the earth. It raised its weapon, if weapon that was, to bring it down with what appeared to be the full strength it possessed.

Yet that defense did not save it. Rather it stumbled back as a sharp lance of what might be flame centered on the creature's body. It twisted its limbs as it fell, twitching and kicking. Still Farree knew that it was dead.

He opened his eyes then and looked to Zoror. Choosing words as best he could he was about to speak when the Zacanthan said it for him.

"Death—yes—and a being who knew enough to arm itself and strive for defense." He spoke to Maelen and Vorlund. "You saw—?"

They both nodded. Zoror took the lump from Farree. He tapped it carefully against the table then brought forth that talon instrument which he had used to such good effect in the shiptown. The nearly iron hard covering flaked away, to show a contorted mass of fine yellow bones—hardly larger than a finger.

"This is from my own world," the Zacanthan explained. "Zatan made an expedition when I was but a fingerling. He went into the Canyon of Double Dark and what he found there was this—" Again he slipped a tape holder into the screen rim and the scene vanished to display something else—a bulky cylinder lying on a table, a hand and part of an arm of a Zacanthan resting next to it to show that it was indeed small.

"The remains of a ship," Zoror continued. "Old beyond even our counting, but truly a star ship. The crew must have been both small and limited as to numbers. We sent inner beams to explore and classify. Its like had never been seen before. That"—he indicated the bones still entombed in the stone hard lump—"was found not far from the exit lock. What our little brother here has shown us may be a crew member of that ship. This lump was caught against the ship which our expedition brought back. I have kept it as a reminder that there may be strange things even in one's old world—puzzles which have no solving—as yet. We have talked, Farree and I, about legends and tales, both encased in 'history' as these bones are in this petrified soil, but perhaps still alive in the speech of some races even today. The Terrans have such stories, which they carried with them out among the stars. A winged race, a race which once inhabited the same planet as they sprang from, a race which was feared both for their strange knowledge and its enmity with the dominant species of that home world.

"The legend sprang up again on many worlds as those of Terran descent spread among the stars: Little People sometimes friendly, but mostly to be feared for the powers they possessed, which could not be equaled or understood by those of other blood.

"It is perhaps not mere coincidence that such a story could be known on Wayland. In fact that world was named by a scout who was known to be a collector of legends. He served my people also with what he brought back in strange tales and artifacts. When age caught him he retired to Zorp where he was received with honors and his lectures were deservedly popular. I, myself, attended the one which dealt with 'Wayland,' which world he named after a legendary 'god' or storied hero. There was part of a memory song which he told us then—and it has lingered always in my mind, for to my race it carries a hint of interesting speculation. To his kind it was meant as a warning, to my race a challenge in our quest for knowledge.

"The bit of old lore went like this:

Vorlund's lips had moved in company with the Zacanthan's as he repeated the rhyme. The Zacanthan nodded.

"So you know this also, far traveler?"

"I heard a part of it once—from a tales teller on Dawn. But it was then part of another story which ended—'because of the grind'—which was a local story monster—one who was an eater of children."

"Little men," repeated Maelen. "And the knowledge of them spread—yet none have been seen?"

Zoror nodded toward Farree. "Perhaps they are seen now. As for gifts which would seem strange and even dangerous to those who did not have them—here is our younger brother able to mind speak, and also to read the past in part." He tapped the broken lump.

Only Farree was thinking of something else. "The wings," his hand went up to touch an edge of one of his own. "The wings—'skins'?"

That rage which had possessed him earlier was returning. Again his hands met before him so he could rub fingers about that brand which had been set on him, as he looked over Zoror's shoulder to the screen where he saw not the miniature space craft still pictured there but rather the star chart. It would seem that the Zacanthan's thought moved with him though Farree was not aware of the invasion of that other mind this time.

"It would seem that there is trouble there."

"The Patrol?" questioned Vorlund.

Slowly the Zacanthan shook his head. "What evidence have we? You have read the data existing on the man with whom we have had contact. Xexepan is under suspicion, but unless more evidence comes to light they would not move. The Guild? One can believe anything of them. What we overheard makes plain that there have been seeing eyes following Farree and doubtless you also. But it is our younger brother here who I think is their main objective. Yet he does not have any knowledge which would benefit them. Thus they want him because he is how he is."

"And who am I?" flared Farree. Sometimes he felt as if he were entangled in words when he wished only the freedom to do—to do what? He could not answer that.

"That is what you have come here to learn," Zoror returned. "A race new to us, save in old legends—"

"A race," Farree repeated, "which was once feared, which has a feud perhaps with the Guild—" His mind sped from what he believed to what might be believed. There were odds and ends which might well be woven to form the truth of that!

"West quadrant." Vorlund might be still staring at the chart but it was plain that his thoughts were speeding elsewhere. "There are journey tapes for Wayland, that must be so. But do those exist which will lift a ship still farther out?"

"Officially?" Zoror picked up his drink again. "That would be only the brief one of the scanner. There may be another—perhaps Xexepan has it."

"A scanner tape," Krip said musingly. "We have operated on such before. It is a chancy way to travel, to be sure. But my people proved that it can be done—over and over again."

"So they have," the Zacanthan agreed.

"You cannot go there." Farree spoke against the surge of feeling which was filling him. "You have done much for me—" He held out his hands, one toward Maelen and one to the Free Trader. "Twice you have freed me. From the stench that was the Limits, from the hiding place I carried with me." His wings waved as he remembered how he had walked under the burden of his tight-furled pinions, thinking that he was one deformed, a bit of refuse. They had called him, those of the Limits, "Dung," and he had accepted that he was not one who had any future save the days and nights of a scavenger. Not until when venturing with these two into danger had his wings at last broken free, and he had done for his friends what they had done for him—a service beyond their power of body. They did not look at him. Krip might have been turning over in his mind some problem, viewing it first from one side and then the other, as he often did. Maelen again flexed her fingers—she could have been painting on the air some picture which only she and those of her people might translate.