Prim finished reading sentence. "--and so Ters and Septem will escort Oktav back to the world, and when he is in the flesh, make disposition of him." He paused, continued. "Meanwhile, Sikst will make an expedition to recover the lost talisman, calling for aid if not immediately successful. At the same time, since the functioning of the Probability Engine is seriously hampered so long as there is an empty station, Sekond, Kart and Kant will visit the world in order to select a suitable successor for Oktav. I will remain here and--" He was interrupted by a flurry of startled thought from Kart, which rose swiftly to a peak of dismay. "My talisman! Oktav has stolen it! He is gone!" VI. By her battened hatch I leaned and caught Sounds from the noisome hold-- Cursing and sighing of souls distraught And cries too sad to be told. _Gloucester Moors_, William Vaughn Moody. Thorn teetered on the dark edge. His footgear made sudden grating noises against it as he fought for balance. He was vaguely conscious of shouts and of a needle of green light swinging down at him. Unavailingly he wrenched the muscles of his calves, flailed the air with his arms. Yet as he lurched over, as the edge receded upward--so slowly at first!--he became glad that he had fallen, for the down-chopping green needle made a red-hot splash of the place where he had been standing. He plummeted, frantically squeezing the controls of flying togs he was not wearing. There was time for a futile, spasmodic effort to get clear in his mind how, plunging through the forest, he should find himself on that dark edge. Indistinct funnel-mouths shot past, so close he almost brushed them. Then he was into something tangly that impeded his fall--slowly at first, then swiftly, as pressures ahead were built up. His motion was sickeningly reversed. He was flung upward and to one side, and came down with a bone-shaking jolt. He was knee-deep in the stuff that had broken his fall. It made a rustling, faintly skirring noise as he ploughed his way out of it. He stumbled around what must have been a corner of the dark building from whose roof he had fallen. The shouts from above were shut off. He dazedly headed for one of the bluish glows. It faintly outlined scrawny trees and rubbish-littered ground between him and it. He was conscious of something strange about his body. Through the twinges and numbness caused by his fall, it obtruded itself--a feeling of pervasive ill-health and at the same time a sense of light, lean toughness of muscular fiber--both disturbingly unfamiliar. He picked his way through the last of the rubbish and came out at the top of a terrace. The bluish glow was very strong now. It came from the nearest of a line of illuminators set on poles along a broad avenue at the foot of the terrace. A crowd of people were moving along the avenue, but a straggly hedge obscured his view.