no idea of how he had been moon-calfing at Jane Kelly.

Hafnagel laughed. It was a joyous sound, the expression of a troubled man who had found release. "Go on, Sarge," he said. "Go to the hill, all three of you. I'll cover your withdrawal from here." He hefted the raygun he carried. "Don't argue with me," he said before Trace could speak. "You know a retreat needs a rear guard—and I mean to have another Graken scalp or two before I quit. Go on."

Trace argued in passionate whispers, but shortly found himself creeping on all fours across the razed town, without fully remembering how he had left the wall. There was no sound or sign of movement on all the wide plain; and as they came to the beginnings of the slope, he said, "I shouldn't have left him. He ought to have come with us."

Then they saw in the distance the streaks of green fire, and a pair of orange spotlights which almost immediately went out. The ray pistols kept darting their beams along the ground, and Trace said again, "I shouldn't have left Hafnagel."

"He never meant to follow us," said Slough.

"It was right to leave him," said Bill Blacknight quietly. "You gave him a few minutes of glory. That's no bad deal, you know."

When they crested the hill, the green shafts had vanished, and the plain was dark under the heavy clouds that hid the sky.

CHAPTER XIV

The five of them sat on the lip of the hill, hunched up against the cold, clasping their knees and occasionally rubbing hands or ankles for warmth. Trace had one arm around Jane Kelly, whose dark head lay against his chest. He was almost happy. He thought he had lost, lost his vengeance and his universe, and still he was all but contented, because he had this girl close to him.

The saucers rested without motion on the plain. The clouds had thinned, the moon's location could be told by its misted radiance, but no stars shone and the humans could not tell whether they were spinning around Sol or Tsloahn. After all, as Trace had said, the moon might have been kidnapped with them—or it might be a different moon, one of the other stolen planets in the Graken's home system.

Barbara hated stillness. She asked Trace, "How come those greenies thought your damned old movie was real? Couldn't they tell it was only a picture—them and their high IQ's?"

"No," said Trace. He roused 

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