The knife point rose and made two quick motions. Torcred did not flinch; on his forehead was a tau cross in oozing drops of blood. The chief bent, took a pinch of sand, and rubbed it into the wound to make sure that it would scar--if the victim lived that long. Vazcled turned away. "Cast them out!" he ordered over his shoulder, to the guarding warriors. "The girl too?" Helsed asked hastily; his eyes lingered. "Of course!" rasped the chief. "It is the tradition--and what else should we do?" Helsed licked his battered lips nervously. "Of course," he agreed. "What else?" V Torcred sat, head sunk limply in his hands, on the white salt beach facing the lifeless sea. The throb of motors and swirl of dust behind the departing terrapins had died down in the south; instead of hunting today as planned from this camp, they had left the spot that had become accursed. And Torcred sat numb with despair, passively waiting for the end. Near him Ladna, the bird-girl rose to her feet. She looked in the other direction, out over the lifeless waste of sand, and then at the man's slumped, motionless figure. Her voice was hard and scorn-edged. "So--a terrapin shorn of his armor is less than a bird clipped of her wings?" Torcred raised his head and looked at her glassy-eyed. "You heard," he growled. "I'm not a terrapin any more." "You'll always be a terrapin to me," she said. "A miserable, beaten crawler." He stared without understanding. Around them was the thirsty, deadly desert; the sun was hot already, his mouth was dry, and the poisonous sea lapped mockingly at its flat shore. The girl had been ready to die when her aero crashed--but now her slender body was vibrant with the will to live. But her bitter words could not fail of effect. Torcred stumbled erect and snapped, "I'm not beaten until I'm dead! But--what chance do we have?" She accepted the _we_ with a faint smile, and said in a softer tone, "There is an aero eyrie--not my own, but one with which we have friendly relations--about seventy miles east of here, in those blue mountains you can see. Perhaps we can make it there on foot." "That's all very well for you," said Torcred somberly. "But for me--what could I expect from your people?" "We are not so narrow-minded as the terrapins. We see more and tolerate more. You can be taken in and given tasks to perform in return for your keep." She frowned at his doubt, and explained further, "Some day--soon--we birds will rule all the Earth. And we do not want to wipe out all the other races; we'll preserve them to do the jobs that must be done on the ground, and all of our people will be free to fly." The picture of conquest she painted so naively repelled Torcred, reared in the terrapin tradition of a barbaric individualistic freedom. "You offer me slavery," he said harshly.