Deliberately he waved his arms. A swimming torvak turned in its own length and plunged toward him, and Barry barely evaded its rush. "If we try to escape they'll see us," Xintel said. Barry nodded sadly. Even though Komso's curse had been voided they could still only wait and hope. The nomads who had found refuge with them unwittingly solved his dilemma. As once more the age-old envious hatred of the homeless ones for the city dwellers came to the fore they whispered to each other. For a moment Barry and Xintel grew inattentive. The norus had been waiting for just that. They dashed forward, intent on snatching the weapons that to them represented great wealth. Xintel shouted in alarm and one of the savages struck at her with a webbed fist. Barry's knife flashed and a noru died. As the survivor swerved to evade Xintel's spear, Barry was upon him from behind. His knife descended, this time not in a killing stroke. Deliberately he carved a long, shallow gash down the savage's back, a wound that would bleed copiously. Then he shouted and roared ferociously. The wounded noru fled. Xintel streaked in pursuit, a grim expression on her face and a spear poised, but Barry reached out one arm and caught her ankle. Instinctively she twisted and her fingernails raked his face. He slapped her hard. "No!" he barked. "Let the noru go!" She looked at him in furious disgust as the nomad churned in panic-stricken flight toward the rim. "He's bleeding!" Barry snapped. A great dark shadow swooped at the noru, missed, and Xintel looked admiringly at Barry as she understood. The water above the cleft grew streaky with light as the monsters abandoned the tenuous remnants of the lure to follow a trail of fresh blood. The noru gibbered in horror as he dodged along the rocky bottom. "Let's go!" Barry barked. "_Straight up!_" It was a long, tiring swim. At last they floated just below the surface. "Can you find the colony?" Barry asked. "We go to the nearest shore, near Last City," Xintel corrected. "We are not safe here over deep water." They swam again, this time horizontally, guided once more by Xintel's compass sense. Once Barry raised his head, but all he could see was a narrow circle of rippled water upon which the ever-present mists pressed heavily. A slight rosy glow overhead, dim and diffuse, was the only indication of the sun. Finally the girl stopped. "We are almost to the edge of the Above," she said. Barry put his head up again but still could see nothing but water and mist. They swam a few strokes more, and then he and the girl lowered their feet to a bottom of soft mud. When he stood up in the neck-deep water and emptied his lungs there was an interval of wracking coughing and gasping. But then he found with elation that he was breathing without too much difficulty. His practice sessions in the cavern were paying off.