"Who can tell? Perhaps from the forgotten world where came our ancestors. Somehow they had learned of our conquest here, our advances and wealth-gathering in spite of natural obstacles. That is what they hope to plunder from us, these conquering Newcomers!"

"Ill be their fate," repeated Gederr, and two or three of the Council with him.

"But the winds are too high for a final battle to happen quickly. After some fighting, they seized upon the other strip of habitable land, on Dondromogon's other side. We fight them at the two poles—mostly underground. Do you understand?"

"I seem to," I replied. "But now what about me? The story of Yandro?"

"Did not Sporr tell everything?" broke in Gederr. "He should have done so. Sporr, the Council is not pleased."

"I had to go slowly," apologized the old man, and Elonie took up the tale:

"It is known to all on Dondromogon. The days of the First Comers held great minds that could see the future. Then it was foreseen that, in Dondromogon's hour of peril and need, a time set by the destruction of an enemy great and mighty—"

"Barak," I said aloud, still puzzling over that strangely familiar name.

"At that time," finished Elonie, "a leader to be called Yandro, the Conquering Stranger, would come. Even clothing was supplied—clothing not like that we wear today."

She gestured toward me. Indeed, the garments I wore were different from those of my companions. I shook my head slowly, and tried to digest what I had heard once again. But one bit of it still clamored for rejection.

"About these eliminations," I harked back. "Who decides on which person must die to keep the number down to seven hundred?"

"We do," replied Gederr, almost bleakly.

"And the Newcomers, have they a similar custom?"

"Not they, the greedy interlopers." Gederr looked very greedy himself. "They delve and destroy in Dondromogon, feeding ever new spates of arrivals."

"It seems," I offered, "that you would be well advised to grow in number, and so win this war."

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