He was beginning to locate a number of scrapes and bruises on his own sturdy frame. He wondered if it might be best to take things easy until they reached either their desert destination or the area outside the city, according to which way they were headed, and then offer to bribe the officer in charge. It would probably be too risky: he would have to rely on large promises, and they had already caught him in a crude whopper. Whatever the case, it would be unwise to open negotiations without finding out what the Syssokan commander looked like. Taranto seemed to recall pasting the fellow pretty thoroughly. He caught a few words of Terran, blown back to him by a random gust. Meyers was complaining about being too tired to walk any farther. It did not sound as though he were making his point. _Of course!_ Taranto realized. _I must be in his stretcher. Mine was busted. Now the slob will put it on me for making him bump his rump along this trail!_ The image was not without humor. Contemplating it gave Taranto a momentary satisfaction. Well, they knew Meyers was alive, even if they might not be sure about Taranto himself. Perhaps they were merely saving both Terrans for a longer jail term. Taranto hoped that the Syssokans had nothing more unpleasant in mind. The remarks he had used earlier in his attempt to bluff the officer could be used for inimical purposes by anyone who cared to point out that Syssokan knowledge of Terran physiology was scanty. Then what? Taranto decided that he would be foolish to worry along that line at the present. What he needed was an idea for getting loose again. He speculated for a few minutes upon his chances of backtracking to the scene of his attempt at escape. Somewhere near there, in whichever direction it was, a spaceship should be landing. _If they ain't been and gone already_, he thought. In his supine position on the stretcher, he was able to see the sky without moving. That was why the distant trail of light was visible to him for some moments before any of the Syssokans could notice it. _I can't wait it out after all_, he realized. The ship would be heard presently, and the flare of its braking rockets would arouse the guards. Taranto peeked around again and saw that they were nearing the foot of the slope. Following the natural motion of the bearers, he let himself roll a little too far each time the litter swayed. The Syssokans struggled to compensate while scrabbling for safe footholds on the hard, slippery surface. In the end, one of them slipped. The litter crashed down. Taranto added a twist to the natural force of gravity, so that he rolled downhill. The fallen bearer picked himself up, mumbling something in Syssokan that sounded remarkably belligerent. One of the others moved to recover the stretcher. Taranto kept on rolling.