Below them now stretched rolling grasslands, mile after green-gold mile. Afar, the darker green of shrubs and trees marked water-holes or fringed the meandering streams that glinted in the clear white light of Yoh, Lysor's midday sun. A fragrance--of flowers, of foliage--drifted upward even to the disc, high above it all, still gliding southward. A paradise, it was. But a paradise apparently without human population. Craig still could find no sign of habitation--only the tiny, moving dots that were herds of some unknown animal grazing. Then, off to the west, a thin wisp of smoke curled skyward. Craig shifted his weight so that the disc wheeled towards the distant streamer. "Narla...." The girl's blonde head moved just a fraction--barely enough to tell him that she, too, saw the far-off feather. That was all. She didn't speak. A little of Craig's elation left him. Again, as a thousand times before, he wondered about the slim girl crouching on the disc between his feet. She was Zenaor's daughter. Yet ... she had also helped to bring him, Craig Nesom, into contact with the Baemae. Whose side was she really on? Or did she even know herself? Craig wondered. But whatever the answer, she was here with him, in his power--his weapon to break her father's grip on Lysor. He should have been glad for it. It was what he'd sought, the thing he needed to help avenge his friends who'd died aboard the starship. Only somehow, now, it brought no sense of surging triumph. If anything, the thing he felt was guilt, an ugly gnawing of his own conscience because he'd forced her to come with him. Ahead, a huddle of buildings came into view below the smoke-wisp. Craig changed course a fraction. The buildings showed clearer now--shanties straggling out behind a palisade, across a broad, hill-sheltered plain that sloped down gently to a river. For the first time, Craig could see people moving about. He tilted the disc, coasting down towards the village in a long, looping arc. But now those below glimpsed the saucer. A flurry of excitement flared. Fingers pointed. Men ran towards the largest of the buildings. But not for shelter. For suddenly they were back again, out in the open, carrying discs. In seconds a whole company had taken to the air. Craig banked sharply as they raced towards him. But a fierce cry rang out from above him. He jerked around just in time to see a host of other discs slashing down out of the blue. Then one peeled off, lanced closer. Craig glimpsed a lean, half-naked body ... bared teeth ... a fierce bronzed face. The rider's arm snaked out. A long black whip flicked towards Craig. Before he could move, the lash twined about his upflung wrist. The rider above twisted sharply. His disc sideslipped away from Craig. The next instant the Earthman was flying through the air, jerked clear of his carrier by the whiplash. Dimly, he heard Narla scream.