Ho Dyak put the girl down. He gave her a push in the direction of the wrecked ship and with the same motion turned to face the _drog's_ gaping maw. His stout double-edged sword was in his hand. He could feel its welcome pressure through the insulated layers of _siladur_ that sealed out the chill air of the plateau. His sword flicked up toward the eye of the huge dragon. He pressed the button that released the needle-like extension from the weapon's tip, and his prolonged weapon ripped through the huge reddish eyeball. The monster roared with rage, and whistling with its blasting breath, swung its head. Again the sword flashed and the blinded monster dashed itself against a huge smooth-boled tree. Its legs crumpled for a moment and then it was up ripping ferociously with great nails and rending jaws at the unresisting wood. By now Nelson had taken a hand. His rocket projectiles were shattering the armor-plated _drogs_. They were down upon the swampy turf, their mighty bulks crimsoned and torn, and yet they hissed and growled while their dead limbs shredded the dank black muck. The Earthman turned his weapon upon the unseeing lizard thing and blew its head from its ugly scaly neck. Even then the legs continued to strip bark from the great tree, nor did the great body collapse for several long minutes. Ho Dyak cleaned his sword-tip and pressed it back upon the spring at its base. Then he went to Nelson and the girl. She had come back when she saw the _drogs_ were down. Nelson was holding the girl in his arms, talking softly to her. He could see in their unguarded minds that they loved one another. So it was that he turned abruptly away and went back to his comfortable steam-heated igloo of stones. Memories of Mian Ith, she of the rioting pinkish-brown tendrils and the full-breasted slim young body, came to him. Memory of the Earthman's words came to him and his full lips smiled. Yes, he could rebel and lead others. "Tomorrow," he told himself, "I will go again to the Place of Lalal. There I will find others of the precious scrolls of the ancients. And when I return I will bring with me Mian Ith." With the knowledge of the Earthman coupled with his own he might indeed restore to his people the empire they had lost when the fog seas shrank away.... * * * * * Glade Nelson, the Earthman, walked as far as the rim of the lower plateau with Ho Dyak. And, before he swung down into the foggy lake that hid the lowlands and the sea of Thol, he told the Earthman that he might not return. "If I do not come back," he said, "there is a possibility that you can return to Earth." Nelson laughed half-heartedly. "Not in the _Lo_," he said. "Naturally," Ho Dyak flashed back, "but your helicopter, that you planned to use for exploration on that other planet--"