Salaman told the others that a piece of an actual death-star would be a holy talisman that could ward off any sort of peril. After a time he came to believe that himself. But his main purpose in digging was to prove to himself that the crater had indeed been formed by the impact of a plummeting star. Theories must have verification, Salaman told himself. One must not rely on guesswork alone. And so he dug on. He dreamed of striking shovel against metal, and finding some great mass of congealed iron lying in the ground just beyond the city’s edge, and shouting to the others to come and see, come and see.

He had found nothing so far, however, but stones and the thick roots of trees and occasional scraps of dead animals that some scavenger had buried. Perhaps the death-star lay so deep in the ground that he could not hope to dig down to it in five lifetimes; or perhaps, as he had suspected from the start, the death-stars had been made of some material that did not last, balls of fire or balls of ice, which did their terrible damage but left no remnant behind. The one hypothesis Salaman would not accept, because he was convinced it was false, was that this huge circular crater, so regular in form, so obviously an intrusion on the smoothness of the bland valley, could have been formed by anything other than a death-star. An entire civilization had perished under the impact of those falling stars; Salaman had no doubt that they would have left horrendous scars behind, and that the scars would be in the form of such craters as this one where Harruel had chosen to build the City of Yissou.

But death-stars were not uppermost in Salaman’s mind as he dug this morning. Today he was obsessed with that strange message from afar — if a message is what it was — which had come to him while he and Weiawala were touching their sensing-organs together on the high place south of the crater.

That insistent drumbeat throbbing. That pounding, rumbling sound. That frightening undercurrent of menace. His imagination, merely? No. No. The signal had been faint; the distance must be great; but Salaman was certain that he had not dreamed it. It had been subtle but it had been real. There was some movement out there, some stirring in the vastness of the continent. Perhaps there was a threat to the city. Perhaps there were precautions that could be taken.

Fearful, trembling, drenched in his own sweat, he dug like a madman for more than an hour, hacking through the ground as though all answers lay buried there. Bits of muddy sand clung to him everywhere. His fur became gritty with it. He felt it grinding between his teeth, and spat and spat without ridding himself of it. He dug with such lunatic force that the soil went spraying out in a wide arc behind him. He scarcely cared where he flung it. After a time he paused, heart thumping, eyes blurred with fatigue, to lean on his shovel and think.

Hresh would know what to do, he told himself.

Suppose you are discussing this with Hresh. What advice would Hresh give? I have received a message, but it is indistinct. It may be a message of great import, but I am unable to tell, because I cannot read it clearly. Tell me how you would proceed.

And Hresh would say, If a message is indistinct, Salaman, why, hold it to a brighter light!

Yes. Hresh always had a clever answer.

Salaman threw down his shovel and clambered from his ditch. In amazement he looked back at the ragged work he had done this morning, the wildly uneven cut, the dirt scattered everywhere all around. He shook his head in disapproval. Later he would have to mend it, he thought. Later.

Weary as he was, he forced himself to run. He circled past Lakkamai’s house, nearly bowled over an astounded Bruikkos, and sprinted up the trail that led toward the south rim of the crater. A demonic energy guided him. He felt Yissou perched on his right shoulder and Dawinno on his left, pouring their force into him; and there was the healing god Friit running just ahead of him, smiling, beckoning him on. Scrambling, stumbling, gasping, Salaman staggered to the crater’s edge, vaulted it, found new wind, went running madly on up the trail to his high place, his private viewing-point.

The earth in all its green majesty lay spread out before him.

He looked toward the sunlit southern hills, and paused a moment to gather his breath and collect his strength. Then he raised his sensing-organ and sent forth his second sight, that special perceptive skill that lay in reserve within all his kind. His sensing-organ became as rigid as a mating-rod. He aimed it toward the bright horizon and poured all the energy he had into it.

Once again he heard the throbbing sound: a low dull booming, resonating through the hills far away.

By second sight Salaman found himself at the edge of an understanding of that sound — but only at the edge. He saw a flash of color, a swatch of brilliant screaming scarlet. What did that mean? And then other colors: yellow, black, yellow, black, yellow, black, pulsing, pounding, alternating and repeating, over and over and over.

With those sensations came a profound feeling of terror that sent him down to the ground, crouching, quivering, digging his fingers deep into the rich loamy soil as if to anchor himself.

Something is coming this way, something frightening. But what? What?

He had held the message to a brighter light, and still the light was not bright enough. But he was aflame with resourcefulness now. Twining alone had not brought him clarity of vision; second sight alone had not, though the perception had been a deeper one. But twining and second sight, both at once—

Instantly Salaman was on his feet and running down the slope of the crater back into the city. In his frantic headlong plunge he dislodged all manner of pebbles and even larger rocks, so that a tiny avalanche accompanied him, and more than once he turned an ankle, though he let it slow him only for a moment. He knew that a kind of madness was upon him, that the fire of the gods had entered into him.

“Weiawala!” he called, as he burst into the center of the little city. “Where are you? Weiawala! Weiawala!”

She came out of the house of Bruikkos and Thaloin, frowning, looking around. When she saw him she put a hand over her mouth.

“What has happened to you, Salaman? I’ve never seen you like this! You’re all sweaty — covered with dirt—”

“That doesn’t matter.” He seized her by the wrist. “Come on! Come with me!”

“Have you gone insane?”

“Come! Up to the high place!”

He started to tug at her. Thaloin now emerged from the house, blinking in the sunlight, staring in bewilderment at the scene before her. The sight of her inspired Salaman to an experiment. If one twining-partner could amplify a mental message from afar, two might yield a far greater depth of perception. With a quick swoop of his hand he caught hold of her too, and began to drag both women toward the trail.

“Let go,” Thaloin cried. “What are you—”

“Just come along,” Salaman muttered. “Please. Don’t argue. It’s vital. We’re going up the hill — there—”

Grasping Thaloin with one hand and Weiawala with the other, he pulled them along behind him. The noise and furor attracted onlookers — Lakkamai, Minbain, the child Samnibolon — who exchanged mystified glances. As Salaman passed by the royal palace, Harruel came out its back door, brooding and sullen and dark of face, weaving and lurching in the last stages of drunkenness. He pointed to Salaman and laughed raucously.

“ Two,Salaman? Two at once? Only a king gets two women at once! Here — give me — give me—”

Harruel clutched at Weiawala. Salaman, cursing, butted him in the chest with his shoulder. Harruel’s eyes widened. He cried out in amazement and went toppling back, arms flailing, toward the edge of Salaman’s trench. Losing his balance then, he tumbled down into it. Salaman did not look back at him. Tightening his grip on Weiawala and Thaloin, he drew them away with him, up, up, up the rough rocky trail to the rim of the crater. He knew he was moving too fast for them: they stumbled and tripped and fell again and again, and he tugged them up, he dragged them onward. Thaloin was much shorter than Weiawala and could barely keep pace, but he paused, and paused again, to help her along. They were offering no resistance. They must have decided that they were in the hands of a madman and the safest thing was to accede to whatever he wanted.