"Don't worry," Krasna reassured him bitterly. "I'll go alone. I have no desire to be seen with you and make you an exile too."

"You know I don't believe—" her brother protested.

"Perhaps not. But the Council does."

Bolan went out first. Krasna followed a few minutes later with the lemur-creature riding upon her shoulder. Eldon was left alone with his own very unpleasant thoughts.

He slept, and was awakened by a skittering sound in the room. Silently he touched the nearest wall and thought light, and as the glow flashed he grabbed up the dagger he had placed near. His breath went out in a sigh of relief, for it was only Tikta, and then with a shock he knew something was wrong.

He tried to catch the agile little creature, but it eluded him easily. Then he remembered Krasna's lessons about the power of thought. He sat down again and concentrated on the idea that he meant it no harm.

At last, with desperation overcoming shyness, Tikta made a leap to his shoulder. It had never come near him before. He sat perfectly still as the handlike little paws moved to his head, remembering how he had seen it communicate with Krasna.

The room was gone. A forest glade blurred, cleared, blurred again, shifted from colors to colorblind tones of grey, widened, narrowed, as though seen through changing sets of eyes, finally settled.

Krasna was there, writhing in the grasp of a pair of lumpy grey creatures who towered above her. Luvans. One was using a device that Eldon guessed was calling an aircraft to pick up the prisoner.

He pulled Tikta's paws away and instantly was back in the underground room. Tikta glared at him reproachfully as he sat on the side of the couch. His heart was pounding and he was caught in the grip of uncertainty.

Finally he rose and fumbled in one of the wall cupboards for the extra blast rod Krasna had left behind. He knew he had to at least try, no matter what the odds, but he moved reluctantly.

Tikta pulled at his trouser leg to attract attention, and Eldon remembered with a gasp of dismay. Power weapons such as the blast rod were worse than useless against Luvans. They backfired. Slowly he picked up the heavy sword the lemur-creature had laboriously dragged to the middle of the floor.

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