"Ah, so near, yet so far," he murmured. "Even if I get to you, then what? What if the poor devil of a survivor turns out to be a navigator? Still, he ought to know enough to get her off the ground and into space. And from there on, with interstellar drive, we ought to be able to get home, somehow." He sounded plaintive, even to himself, for he knew how vast space was and how complicated astromathematics was. And of course there was no guarantee that the Earthman would even be a navigator. He might just be an officer or perhaps a civilian official who was being ferried in one of the swifter small ships. Then there was the awful possibility that the vessel might have landed here because there was something wrong with it, and that it could not rise again even if it had a full crew. In fact, that was the most logical explanation. He sighed and turned to the boy. "This may be for nothing, but we can't just sit down and watch. Let's take off for the windbreak." "What are we going to do there?" asked Grizquetr, as they walked down the steps. "Well, we're not going back to the yacht," Green answered. "Soldiers'll be waiting there to arrest us. No, we'll go to the other side of the 'break. Stealing another 'roller isn't going to get us in any more trouble than we're already in." The boy's eyes widened. "What're we doing that for?" "We must return to the island-fortress of Shimdoog." "What? Why, that's a hundred miles away!" "Yes, I know. And we won't be able to make the speed going back that we did coming. We'll have to do quite a lot of tacking to sail against the wind, and that'll eat up our time. But there's nothing else to do." "If you say so, father, I believe you. But what is there on Shimdoog?" "Not on. _In._" Grizquetr was a bright lad. He was silent for a minute, so silent Green could imagine he heard the wheels turning within his head. Then he said, "There must be a cave on Shimdoog like the one on the cannibals' island. And you must have gone into it that night we stayed in the 'break. I remember waking up and hearing you and Mother say something about your being gone and about Miran following you." Grizquetr paused, then said, "If there is a cave-entrance there, why haven't other people gone into it?"