"That's right," admitted Torcred curtly, and started to brush past the other and his brimming questions. But he found himself face to face with another terrapin who had risen from the shadow, a taller man whose hair shaded from the usual black into gray, and whose face was permanently lined in a stern expression of command. He was Vazcled, the chief. Torcred fell back a step and inclined his head in salute. "What happened to you?" inquired Vazcled quietly. "I was attacked," said the younger man with reluctance. "By what?" "An aero." Even the chief's face showed surprise, and the listening Helsed's eyebrows went up steeply. Vazcled said, "You are lucky to have escaped so easily." "I didn't escape. I shot it down." Helsed exclaimed aloud and stared at his brother-terrapin enviously. The chief's withered lips smiled. "Such victories are rare," he said approvingly. "I know of only two or three in the past fifty years. You must tell us the story tonight, and Hiyik can make a song of it.... Did you bring any trophy from the wreck?" Torcred licked his lips nervously. "No," he said. "It fell a long way off...." "Well, no matter," the chief shrugged. "We will find the spot on the back trail." Already--Helsed, the eager newsbearer, had dashed off without waiting for details--they were surrounded by a growing audience, afire to know more about Torcred's almost unheard-of exploit. * * * * * Torcred, dazed, found himself sitting atop someone else's machine, relating his battle with the aero to an enthusiastic mob of his fellow-warriors. The terrapins lost their customary reserved poise and grew festive; while Torcred almost choked on the lies with which he ended his narrative, they pressed food and drink on him and made him go back over the most stirring parts. Then Hiyik the poet had his turn, and retold the story in improvised verses, his chanting voice mingling with the hiss and clangor of the workshop in the midst of the circle on whose rim the warriors were gathered. But the hero of it all sat moody, well-nigh oblivious, his brow wrinkling painfully from time to time. The thoughts he was thinking hurt. For what he was planning was treason, what he had already done was treason--more than that, sacrilege, abomination, a trampling of the laws that kept the diverse races of Earth eternally apart.... Lesser breeds might hold such laws lightly--but not the proud terrapins. For them all other peoples were enemies, or prey, or vermin beneath contempt. The bird-folk were enemies. And the crime of giving aid and comfort to an enemy deserved the ultimate in punishment.