Shann stared into the other's face. All the eager alertness of only a moment earlier had been wiped away. Thorvald was no longer the man he had known, but in some frightening way a husk, holding a quite different personality. The younger Terran answered his fear with an attack from the old days of rough in-fighting in the Dumps of Tyr. He brought his right hand down hard in a sharp chop across the officer's wrists. The bone coin spun to the sand and Thorvald stumbled, staggering forward a step or two. Before he could recover balance Shann had stamped on the medallion. Thorvald whirled, his stunner drawn with a speed for which Shann gave him high marks. But the younger man's own weapon was already out and ready. And he talked--fast. "That thing's dangerous! What did you do--what did it do to you?" His demand got through to a Thorvald who was himself again. "What was _I_ doing?" came a counter demand. "You were acting like a mind-controlled." Thorvald stared at him incredulously, then with a growing spark of interest. "The minute you dripped water on that thing you changed," Shann continued. Thorvald reholstered his stunner. "Yes," he mused, "why _did_ I want to drip water on it? Something prompted me ..." He ran his still damp hand up the angle of his jaw, across his forehead as if to relieve some pain there. "What else did I do?" "Faced to the sea and said 'that way,'" Shann replied promptly. "And why did you move in to stop me?" Shann shrugged. "When I first touched that thing I felt a shock. And I've seen mind-controlled----" He could have bitten his tongue for betraying that. The world of the mind-controlled was very far from the life Thorvald and his kind knew. "Very interesting," commented the other. "For one of so few years you seem to have seen a lot, Lantee--and apparently remembered most of it. But I would agree that you are right about this little plaything; it carries a danger with it, being far less innocent than it looks." He tore off one of the fluttering scraps of rag which now made up his sleeve. "If you'll just remove your foot, we'll put it out of business for now." He proceeded to wrap the disk well in his bit of cloth, taking care not to touch it again with his bare fingers while he stowed it away. "I don't know what we have in this--a key to unlock a door, a trap to catch the unwary. I can't guess how or why it works. But we can be reasonably sure it's not just some carefree maiden's locket, nor the equivalent of a credit to spend in the nearest bar. So it pointed me to the sea, did it? Well, that much I am willing to allow. Maybe we'll be able to return it to the owner, _after_ we learn who--or what--that owner is."