Pete's sake! You're as brainless as the bird is!" But I think, for all his attitude, he was curious, too.

He began to spray me with something. "Close your eyes and mouth. If you don't wash this off with soap and water in twenty-four hours, you'll die. But it sure keeps in the body heat."

I stuck the book in my pocket for good luck, and Rene handed me a gun, some lunch packages, an antibiotic kit and a water purification kit.

"All right," I said, pocketing them, "but it can't be far. Uncle Izzy wouldn't have gone more than a day's journey."

"Then why haven't we smelled the perfume? And why would he have gone through all this rigmarole when he must have known you'd search that far?"

I didn't know why.

I pushed the door open. The bird hopped out and I realized how easy it would be to lose him from the small, round glow of my flash.

He looked curiously at me, as though expecting something further.

I looked curiously at him, wondering where he would lead to.

Then he was off. There was no question of following him. That big, awkward bird ran so fast that in a few minutes we could no longer hear the beat of his huge claws on the rocks, even in the perfectly still, dry air.

"How fast do you figure he's going?" I asked Rene.

"How the hell would I know?"

"Roughly."

"Roughly? Maybe fifty miles an hour."

"But that's incredible!"

"The big point-tails on Aldebaran kappa can do eighty with a native on their backs."

"Ah!" I said. "So that's it! Maybe tomorrow night...."

But we could hear the drumming of the returning dodo.

"Don't be stupid," Rene said. "He can't carry both of us and you'd be a fool either to go alone or stay here alone."

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