He was shocked when he felt the hands eagerly stop him in mid-plunge, lift him, hurry him off, high in the hungry air, like a torch held and waved, ablaze. "How strange is death," he thought, and blackness took him. * * * * * He wakened to the flow of cool water on his cheeks. He opened his eyes fearfully. Lyte held his head upon her lap, her fingers were moving food to his mouth. He was tremendously hungry and tired, but fear squeezed both of these things away. He struggled upward, seeing the strange cave contours overhead. "What time is it?" he demanded. "The same day as the contest. Be quiet," she said. "The same day!" She nodded amusedly. "You've lost nothing of your life. This is Nhoj's cave. We are inside the black cliff. We will live three extra days. Satisfied? Lie down." "Nhoj is dead?" He fell back, panting, his heart slamming his ribs. He relaxed slowly. "I won. Gods, I won," he breathed. "Nhoj is dead. So were we, almost. They carried us in from outside only in time." He ate ravenously. "We have no time to waste. We must get strong. My leg--" He looked at it, tested it. There was a swathe of long yellow grasses around it and the ache had died away. Even as he watched the terrific pulsings of his body went to work and cured away the impurities under the bandages. It _has_ to be strong by sunset, he thought. It _has_ to be. He got up and limped around the cave like a captured animal. He felt Lyte's eyes upon him. He could not meet her gaze. Finally, helplessly, he turned. She interrupted him. "You want to go on to the ship?" she asked, softly. "Tonight? When the sun goes down?" He took a breath, exhaled it. "Yes." "You couldn't possibly wait until morning?" "No." "Then I'll go with you." "No!" "If I lag behind, let me. There's nothing here for me." They stared at each other a long while. He shrugged wearily. "All right," he said, at last. "I couldn't stop you, I know that. We'll go together." IX They waited in the mouth of their new cave. The sun set. The stones cooled so that one could walk on them. It was almost time for the leaping out and the running toward the distant, glittering metal seed that lay on the far mountain. Soon would come the rains. And Sim thought back over all the times he had watched the rains thicken into creeks, into rivers that cut new beds each night. One night there would be a river running north, the next a river running north-east, the third night a river running due west. The valley was continually cut and scarred by the torrents. Earthquakes and avalanches filled the old beds. New ones were the order of the day. It was this idea of the river and the directions of the river that he had turned over in his head for many hours. It might possibly--Well, he would wait and see.