They parted company with casual farewells but for Steve Schroeder, who smiled sardonically at the bones of the woods goats in the vale and asked: "Who's supposed to tell the woods goats?" * * * * * Tip, the black, white-nosed mocker on Lake's shoulder, kept twisting his neck to watch the departure of the others until he had crossed the next hill and the others were hidden from view. "All right, Tip," he said then. "You can unwind your neck now." "Unwind--all right--all right," Tip said. Then, with a sudden burst of energy which was characteristic of mockers, he began to jiggle up and down and chant in time with his movements, "All right all right all right all right----" "Shut up!" he commanded. "If you want to talk nonsense I don't care--but don't say 'all right' any more." "All right," Tip agreed amiably, settling down. "Shut up if you want to talk nonsense. I don't care." "And don't slaughter the punctuation like that. You change the meaning entirely." "But don't say all right any more," Tip went on, ignoring him. "You change the meaning entirely." Then, with another surge of animation, Tip began to fish in his jacket pocket with little hand-like paws. "Tip hungry--Tip hungry." Lake unbuttoned the pocket and gave Tip a herb leaf. "I notice there's no nonsensical chatter when you want to ask for something to eat." Tip took the herb leaf but he spoke again before he began to eat; slowly, as though trying seriously to express a thought: "Tip hungry--no nonsensical." "Sometimes," he said, turning his head to look at Tip, "you mockers give me the peculiar feeling that you're right on the edge of becoming a new and intelligent race and no fooling." Tip wiggled his whiskers and bit into the herb leaf. "No fooling," he agreed. * * * * * He stopped for the night in a steep-walled hollow and built a small fire of dead moss and grass to ward off the chill that came with dark. He called the others, thinking first of Schroeder so that Tip would transmit to Schroeder's mocker: "Steve?" "Here," Tip answered, in a detectable imitation of Schroeder's voice. "No luck." He thought of Gene Taylor and called, "Gene?" There was no answer and he called Chiara. "Tony--could you see any of Gene's route today?" "Part of it," Chiara answered. "I saw a herd of unicorns over that way. Why--doesn't he answer?" "No." "Then," Chiara said, "they must have got him." "Did you find anything today, Tony?" he asked. "Nothing but pure andesite. Not even an iron stain." It was the same kind of barren formation that he, himself, had been walking over all day. But he had not expected success so soon.... He tried once again to call Gene Taylor: "Gene ... Gene ... are you there, Gene?" There was no answer. He knew there would never be. * * * * *