"We are strangers, and we are lost," I replied. "I am from California." I did not wish to tell him that we were from Vepaja until we knew more of him. If he was a Thorist he was an enemy; and the less he knew about us the better, especially that we were from the country of Mintep, the jong, than whom the Thorists have no more bitter enemy. "California," he repeated. "I never heard of such a country. Where is it?" "In North America," I replied, but he only shook his head. "And who are you," I asked, "and what country is this?" "This is Noobol, but that of course you already know. This part of it is known as Morov. I am Skor, the jong of Morov. But you have not told me your names." "This is Duare," I replied, "and I am Carson." I did not give my surname as they are seldom used on Venus. "And where were you going?" "We were trying to find our way to the sea." "From where did you come?" "Recently we were in Kapdor," I explained. I saw his eyes narrow ominously. "So you are Thorists!" he snapped. "No," I assured him, "we are not. We were prisoners of the Thorists." I hoped that my guess had been a good one and that he was not kindly disposed toward the Thorists. The slender thread upon which I hung my hopes was no more substantial than the frown that had clouded his brow at my admission that we had just come from Kapdor. To my relief his expression changed. "I am glad that you are not Thorists; otherwise I would not help you. I have no use for the breed." "You will help us, then?" I asked. "With pleasure," he replied. He was looking at Duare as he spoke, and I did not exactly relish the tone of his voice nor the expression on his face. The kazars were circling around us, cackling and whistling. When one of them approached us too close, Skor would flick it with the lash of a long whip he carried; and the creature would retreat, screaming and cackling the louder. "Come," he said presently, "I will take you to my house; then we may discuss plans for the future. The woman may ride behind me on my zorat." "I prefer to walk," said Duare. "I am accustomed to it now." Skor's eyes narrowed a bit. He started to speak, and then he checked himself. Finally he shrugged. "As you will," he said, and turned the head of his mount back in the direction from which he had come. * * * * * The creature he rode, which he called a zorat, was unlike any beast that I had ever seen before. It was about the size of a small horse. Its long, slender legs suggested great speed. Its feet were round and nailless and heavily calloused on the bottoms. Its almost vertical pasterns suggested that it might be a hard gaited beast, but this was not so. Later I learned that almost horizontal femurs and humeri absorbed the jolts and rendered the zorat an easy riding saddle animal.