"Flauval's nice, don't you think?" continued Peer conversationally, picking up courage. "Depends a lot on how you look at it," Nasal-voice said dreamily. "She's a real pretty thing anyhow, that Flauval! Luck of the devil she's had, too. But it's got to run out sometime." There was another silence. Then Peer remarked: "Boy, he set that launch down nice! Right quick spang on top of the--what the big guy said it was. On the Mound." "We've got a good pilot," Nasal-voice agreed. "Flauval's going to get her surprise in just a minute now!" "And there they come out of the launch," continued Peer. "One, two, three, four. All four of them. Marching right down into the Mound!" "You've got sharp eyes," Nasal-voice acknowledged. "But that's funny!" he continued worriedly. "One of them was to stay with the guns." "And now look at the launch!" cried Peer in a high, bright voice. "Getting _pulled_ right into the Mound!" Nasal-voice was making loud, choking sounds. "What _was_ that?" he screamed then. "What's happened? What's that over there?" "Let go my arm!" cried Peer. "Don't pull it--you're pushing me off! _Here we go!_" * * * * * A small avalanche of weathered rock came down before the burrow's mouth as Channok shot out through it into the open. He looked up. In what looked like an inextricable tangle of arms and legs, Peer and Nasal-voice were sliding and scuffling down the steep side of the rock together. Nasal-voice was trying to hang on to the rock, but Peer was hanging on to him and jerking like a hooked fish whenever he got a momentary hold. She looked down and saw Channok, put her boots into the small of Nasal-voice's back, pushed off and landed two yards from Channok on hands and feet. He flattened himself back against the boulder, while Nasal-voice skidded down the rest of the way unaided, wisely refraining from triggering his jets. In the position he was in, they simply would have accelerated his descent to a fatal degree. He arrived more or less on his feet. Peer bounced up and down before him, her finger pointed, like a small lunatic. "Surprise!" she screamed. "Surprise! Like Flauval got! When you locked her in her cabin and ran off with the launch, so she'd have to jump out into space!" "That's right, kid," Nasal-voice panted softly, fumbling for his gun without taking his eyes off her. He looked somewhat like a white-faced lunatic himself just then. "Don't get scared, kid! Don't run off! I won't shoot." He pulled the gun out suddenly. But Channok had taken two soft steps forward by then, and he had only to swing. The Reaper was clubbed in his right hand, and he brought the butt end down on the top of Nasal-voice Ezeff's skull-tight flying cap as if he were trying to ram a stake through the surface rock of Old Nameless. * * * * *