teeth white and biting, while her whole body shivered. It was a rippling gyration of muscle and pink skin, building, furious.

Fairchild pushed himself out of the chair. His eyes were wild and vacant. "Don't ..." he said, and his words were meshed together so that it was a hoarse sound, full of anguish.

The woman laughed, a wild laugh that blended with the music and the frenzied movement of her body. She whirled and slapped her hands together and her body quivered.

The man staggered a step forward. "Janet, don't, please...." He fell forward, sprawling over the ground. Gradually, the woman ceased her movement, while her laughter rang through the wet jungle.

The gray-caped figures hold motionless around the muddy silver orb. A green head cocks. Another. The golden walls encase them, and only a circular opening near a tip of a spire brings in dim light and a little of the wispish outside vapor. Fingers disengage and a green extends from a gray cape. The hand sweeps in a downward slice, splitting by symbol, purity from evil. A second hand imitates. A third. A dozen. Voices flute to the cloudy orb. A cat snarls. Minds probe.

The light was dimming, and she was a dark curving figure, standing over the crumpled figure of the man. The music pounded relentlessly. Caine stood up.

"Each time I make one of these trips," he said, looking at the motionless form of Fairchild, "I promise myself it'll be the last, and I'm promising myself again, right now."

The woman stood silent, and there was just her smiling mouth and the white teeth and the reddish hair. "But this one isn't over, yet, Mr. Caine. We still have a long way to go." Her eyes danced.

"That's right, Mrs. Fairchild," Caine said, bending to lift the man. "Unfortunately, that's right."

He picked the man up while the woman watched, and he carried him to the ship. He climbed to the cabin, working against the surprising weight of the smaller man. For his age, Fairchild was a very tough, sinewy man who looked as though he had spent most of his life fighting through strange and varied wilds, constantly in search of new adventures and thrills.

Caine laid the man across a bunk built into the rear of the ship's cabin. The tip end of the wide scar was visible now, showing above Fairchild's open shirt, and the thin lines about the eyes and mouth 

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