meaning, he saw something in motion in the pale gray light of dawn. He squinted. Then he caught his breath.

He stood frozen until the moving object vanished. It moved, somehow, as if it carried something. But it was bigger than the Galloping Cow! Only after it vanished did he breathe again, and then he licked his lips and blinked.

Haynes' voice came sleepily from the bunk-space of the flier.

"What's from the Galloping Cow? Planning to push off for Earth?"

Wentworth took a deep breath and stared where the moving thing had gone out of sight.

"No," he said then, very quietly. "McRae was worried because we hadn't reported. It's two hours after sunrise back where the ship is." He swallowed. "Want to get up now?"

"I could do with coffee," said Haynes, "pending a start for home."

Wentworth heard him drop his feet to the floor. Bob Wentworth pinched himself and winced, and swallowed again, and then twisted the opener of a beverage can labeled Coffee, and it began to make bubbling noises. He put it aside to heat and brew itself, and pulled out two breakfast-rations. He put them in the readier. Finally he stared again out the flier's window.

The light outside grew stronger. To the north—if where the sun rose was east—a low but steep range of mountains began just beyond the spot where the flier had landed for the night. It had settled down on a patently artificial embankment of earth, some fifty feet high, that ran out toward the skit-tree sea from one of the lower mountain spurs. The moving thing had gone into those mountains, as if it carried something. But it was bigger.

Haynes came forward, yawning.

"I feel as if this were going to be a good day," he said, and yawned again. "I wish I had some clay to mess with. I might even do a portrait bust of you, Wentworth, lacking a prettier model."

"Keep an eye out the window," said Wentworth. "Meanwhile you might set the table."

He went back to his bunk and dressed quickly. His expression was blank and incredulous. Once more he pinched himself. Yes, he was awake. He went back to where steaming coffee and the breakfast-platters waited on the board normally used for navigation.

The communication-set still 

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