"Why doesn't he get it?" Saxton asked finally. "Apparently he agrees--but he just stands there." "Maybe we're supposed to do something now," Wallace said. "But what? Do you suppose we're expected to pay him some way?" "That could be," Saxton answered. "Or maybe the chief's eating the last of what they have now, and they'll give us a chunk when they get some more. Anyway, let's not wait any longer. I'm starved. Even canned concentrate would taste good to me now." * * * * * By morning the s-tracer had marked the tracking chart sufficiently to give them some data on the bloodhound's actions. Wallace went over it carefully. Saxton stayed in his bunk and pretended to be still sleepy, but Wallace could feel his gaze following the work closely. When at last he looked up Saxton said, "Well?" "We have something to work on," Wallace answered the question in his voice. "But unless we get more, I don't see how it will help us. "The bloodhound," he went on, not waiting for further inquiry from Saxton, "is acting pretty much as we thought it would. It has no straight line trajectory. At irregular intervals it circles, backtracks, or goes off at a new tangent. Often it stays over a particular territory for longer than the three hours we'd need to get away. It's probable that at some time it will do this on the other side of the planet--where it couldn't pick up the signal of our leaving. But...." Saxton was sitting up now. "But what?" "It's following a random pattern." Wallace studied his fingernails as he sought for words to make the explanation clear. "The s-tracer will show us when it is out of range--but there's no way for us to know how long it will stay in any one place." "In other words there will be intervals when it will be directly across the planet from us. But unless it stayed there for close to three hours--the time we'd need to clear the atmosphere--it would pick up our signal as it came around, and run us down?" "That's about it." "Then we'll have to take the chance." "We could. And if we can think of nothing better, we will. But the odds would be heavily against us. Most of its locale changes are made in a shorter period of time than we'd need to get away." "We can't sit here for two years." Saxton was a man whose high-strung nature demanded action, and was the more inclined of the two to take chances. Wallace preferred weighing influencing factors before making any decision. "I think we'd better wait," Wallace said. "Perhaps we'll be able to think of something that will give us a better chance." Saxton pulled the sheet-blanket off his legs irritably, and climbed from the bunk, but he did not argue. * * * * * During the morning Saxton killed a small rodent, but found its flesh as inedible as that of the cat. Wallace stayed inside studying the charts and instruments.