Reluctantly Barry put the idea aside, but he did not abandon it. Instead he doubled his practice sessions in the oxygen at the top of the cavern, driving himself until his chest burned and throbbed. He was still a member of the Five Ship Plan whose duty was to the colony, and besides he had a frightening surety that without outside help Komso would eventually encompass his death. * * * * * One day when they were returning from the fields in the far reaches of the cavern they saw a man swimming away from their house. Barry put on an angry burst of speed, but the distance was great and the furtive figure vanished. Xintel went through the three rooms inch by inch, checking all her possessions--but nothing was missing and nothing seemed to have been disturbed. "We must have frightened him away before he could steal anything," Barry commented. The girl frowned and bit her lip. "No. I do not think thievery was his object." "What then?" "I--I do not know," she admitted uneasily. Komso finally took official cognizance of the talk of demons. He selected ten young men, not of the Chosen, and led them forth to reconnoiter in the Above. The men went heavily armed, but still superstitious dread would have prevented them from venturing to the myth-haunted surface without the high priest's mystic protection. Barry grew acutely uneasy when he heard of the expedition. It boded no good for anyone except Komso. Hour after hour the underwater city hummed with speculation. For Barry and Xintel it was a nerve-wracking wait. Then Komso returned--and with him came only three of the ten. With lightning rapidity the story spread. There were demons in the Above, and despite Komso's great powers they had turned overwhelmingly potent weapons against them. The mates of the slain were loud in their lamentations, and as though following prepared instructions, the Chosen spread the rumor that Barry, and Xintel too, were responsible for the slaughter. Barry was a demon spy, and Xintel had turned against her own people to mate with him. Barry felt certain the priest had deliberately led his men into disaster for the psychological effect. He had been building hatred, and to one of Komso's mentality, seven deaths would be a negligible price for this crowning touch. Drawn together by a spreading terror the people massed near the center of the city, each seeking company to stem their rising panic of helplessness. Their mutterings increased, their mood grew uglier. But with dramatic suddenness Komso appeared in the doorway of his cave-temple and swam slowly forward. The murmuring died, then broke out again with a questioning undertone. The priest raised his arms so the sacred bracelets of office on his thick wrists flashed in the cold yellow light. Then slowly, deliberately he began to speak. He expressed regret for the deaths of those who had followed him aloft. He had underestimated the malignancy of the demons, he admitted.