His eyes came deliberately up to mine and stopped there. He said nothing. He waited. Outside, the drums throbbed, slowly at first, then moderated in tempo. It was like the throbbing--or sobbing, if you prefer--of the old, old pumps whose shafts go so tirelessly down into the planet for such pitifully thin streams of water. "I'm looking for an Earthwoman," I said. "This particular Earthwoman took a Martian for a husband." "That is impossible," he grunted bitterly. "I would have said so, too," I agreed. "Until this afternoon, that is." His old, dried lips began to purse and wrinkle. "I met her little son," I went on. "A little semi-human boy with Martian features. Or, if you want to turn it around and look at the other side, a little Martian boy who whistles." His teeth went together with a snap. I nodded and smiled. "You know who I'm talking about." For a long long while he didn't answer. His eyes remained unblinking on mine and if, earlier in the day, I had thought the little boy's face was expressionless, then I didn't completely appreciate the meaning of that word. Wahanhk's face was more than expressionless; it was simply blank. "They disappeared from the shack they were living in," I said. "They went in a hurry--a very great hurry." That one he didn't answer, either. "I would like to know where she is." "Why?" His whisper was brittle. "She's not in trouble," I told him quickly. "She's not wanted. Nor her child, either. It's just that I have to talk to her." "Why?" I pulled out the file photo of Harry Smythe and handed it across to him. His wrinkled hand took it, pinched it, held it up close to a lamp hanging from one of the ridge poles. His eyes squinted at it for a long moment before he handed it back. "I have never seen this Earthman," he said. "All right," I answered. "There wasn't anything that made me think you had. The point is that he knows the woman. It follows, naturally, that she might know him." "This one is _wanted_?" His old, broken tones went up slightly on the last word. I nodded. "For murder." "Murder." He spat the word. "But not for the murder of a Martian, eh? Martians are not that important any more." His old eyes hated me with an intensity I didn't relish. "You said that, old man, not I." A little time went by. The drums began to beat faster. They were rolling out a lively tempo now, a tempo you could put music to. He said at last: "I do not know where the woman is. Nor the child." He looked me straight in the eyes when he said it--and almost before the words were out of his mouth, they were whipped in again on a drawn-back, great, sucking breath. For, somewhere outside, somewhere near that dancing circle, in perfect time with the lively beat of the drums, somebody was whistling. It was a clear, clean sound, a merry, bright, happy sound, as sharp and as precise as the thrust of a razor through a piece of soft yellow cheese. "In your teeth, Wahanhk! Right in your teeth!"