fainted.

Sheltered by the mist and the darkness, the stolen barge moved rapidly north along the coast. Tak Laleen lay unconscious in the bottom of the boat, wrapped in her white uniform; Pendillo sat shivering beside her. Lanny and Gill stood in the stern. Although the motor was controlled by an automatic navigator, Gill tore out the flimsy destination tape and guided the wheel manually.

"Even this the Almost-men can't do for themselves," he remarked to his brother.

"Do you suppose they really can't read direction from the sun or the stars?"

"All their brains are in their machines."

"And machines are nothing."

"Juan has always said that," Gill said slowly. "It sounds logical and reasonable. But I don't know what it means, Lanny!"

For a long time they stood watching the heaving shadow of the sea, each of them trying in his own way to make sense of the riddle. Suddenly the motor sputtered. Gill tinkered with the machine until it was purring smoothly again.

"The power cells are nearly empty," he said. "We'll have to run the barge aground sometime tomorrow and start walking again."

"Yes, I know." Lanny clenched his fist over his brother's arm. "But how do we know it, Gill? How can we run this machine, when we have never seen it before?"

Gill laughed uneasily. "Don't forget, before the invasion our people were pretty good at building machines, too."

"That doesn't answer the question, Gill. When I fired the energy gun, I felt as if it were a part of myself—as if I knew all the cells in the metal just as I know my own."

"That happened to me when I sat in the automobile in the showroom."

"It scares me, Gill. I keep thinking I should remember something but—"

"I was scared last night, too, because I thought I'd made the motor go by forcing it to move with my mind. And that's absurd. If we had that much control over machines, as we do over our hunting clubs, how could the enemy ever have defeated us?"

Tak Laleen opened her eyes, then, and sat up stiffly. The wind struck her face and swept her hair back. Shivering, she pulled her uniform tight around her throat.

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