The native nodded. "Come!" he commanded. He turned his back and walked away.

There was no question in Wallace's mind about obeying. It was only his subconscious that moved his hand, to make certain that his gun was in its holster, and to glance at Saxton to see that he too was armed. He had walked several yards before the incongruity struck him: the savage had spoken Earthian!

They followed the native for several miles over a faint game trail that wound leisurely through brush and skimpy, small-leaved trees, before either of the men recovered his composure enough to speak.

"He said 'Come'," Saxton mused. "Yet we're the first humans this far over the Rim. Where did he learn our language?"

Wallace shrugged. "I've been wondering too," he answered.

"Should we try to talk to him?" Saxton asked, glancing ahead at their companion.

The native, apparently, had no interest in their conversation. "Better wait," Wallace suggested.

"I don't understand it." Saxton's tone was querulous. "No one's allowed over the Rim ahead of us. A section has to be surveyed, and worlds declared fit for habitation, before colonists can move in. Yet we land here and find a native speaking our language."

"Perhaps he isn't a native," Wallace said.

"What do you mean?"

"When Earth first discovered spacebridge there were no laws regulating its use. Limits were put on colonizing areas only after some of the earlier expeditions failed to report back. One of them might have been marooned here."

"Then this fellow's human?"

"He could be."

"If he is, would he be naked?" Saxton asked.

"Some of those lost expeditions disappeared as long as two thousand years ago," Wallace answered. "A colony could have slipped back a long ways in that time."

"But not this far," Saxton demurred. "They'd still have some traces of their original culture left."

"A one-ship colony would have very limited mechanical resources," Wallace said. "And they'd be isolated here. As soon as the tools and machines they brought with them wore out they'd be 

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