At the edge floated the limp, dead thing that Mara had killed to save Planter. Small flutterers, like gross-winged flies but as large as gulls, swarmed to dig out morsels. Mara called the creature a krau, the flying scavengers ghrols. "Skygor words, for ugly beasts," she commented. "Neither is good for food."

Planter picked his way from root to root toward the ship. "Disbro!" he called. "Max!"

There was no answer. He scrambled up and inside, then out again. "Something's happened," he said gravely.

Mara studied the massed logs that made a rough raft. "Skygor work. And eke the rope of wires about your ship."

"They've been captured by Skygors? For slaves?" Planter had climbed down again. His hand sought the Skygor pistol at his belt, his face was tense and pale. "I'll get them back. Where's this swamp-city you mention?"

She pointed. "Not far. But the way is perilous. The trails throng with Skygors, and there is the spell."

"That sounds like some old superstition," snorted Planter. "I'm not afraid of Skygors. I killed two today."

"Aye," she smiled. "They are not great fighters in these parts. But there are more than two at the city ... come along."

"You can go back to the Nest."

She smiled more broadly. "How else will you find the way, my David? For you are my David."

"Don't start that again," he bade her, more roughly than he felt. "Lead the way."

Mara took a nearby jungle trail. After some time, she paused and studied the matted footing. "Tracks," she pronounced. "Certain Skygors, and two pairs of feet shod like yours."

Planter looked at the muddled marks thus diagnosed by the skilled trail-eye of Mara. "My friends and their captors?"

"Aye, that. They went this way. Come."

She slipped aside through the close-set stems. Planter did likewise. Mara slung her crossbow behind her, and climbed a trunk as a beetle scales a flower-stalk. "'Tis safer from Skygors up here," she told him over her shoulder "Follow me carefully."

Planter did so, with difficulty. He was a vigorous climber, and the lesser gravity of Venus made him more agile. But Mara, some forty feet overhead, 

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