Webb shoved his glasses back for the hundredth time that morning. "I suppose we could consider this critical, condition red," he said in such a dubious tone that he might have been begging someone to protest his statement. But no one did. Millaird was busy with the map. "I think we do, Miles!" He looked to Ashe. "You'll parachute in. The packs with which you will be equipped are special stuff. Once you have them off sprinkle them with a powder Miles will provide and in ten minutes there won't be enough of them left for anyone to identify. We haven't but a dozen of these, and we can't throw them away except in a crisis. Find the base and rig up the detector. Your fix in this time will be easy--but it is the other end of the line we must have. Until you locate that, stick to the job. Don't communicate with us until you have it!" "There is the possibility," Ashe pointed out, "the Reds may have more than one intermediate post. They probably have played it smart and set up a series of them to spoil a direct trace, as each would lead only to another farther back in time----" "All right. If that proves true, just get us the next one back," Millaird returned. "From that we can trace them along if we must send in some of the boys wearing dinosaur skins later. We _have_ to find their primary base, and if that hunt goes the hard way, well, we do it the hard way." "How did you get the fix?" McNeil asked. "One of their field parties ran into trouble and yelled for help." "Did they get it?" The major grinned. "What do you think? You know the rules--and the ones the Reds play by are twice as tough on their own men." "What kind of trouble?" Ashe wanted to know. "Some kind of a local religious dispute. We do our best with their code, but we're not a hundred per cent perfect in reading it. I gather they were playing with a local god and got their fingers burned." "Lurgha again, eh?" Ashe smiled. "Foolish," Webb said impatiently. "That is a silly thing to do. You were almost over the edge of prudence yourself, Gordon, with that Lurgha business. To use the Great Mother was a ticklish thing to try, and you were lucky to get out of it so easily." "Once was enough," Ashe agreed. "Though using it may have saved our lives. But I assure you I am not starting a holy war or setting up as a prophet." Ross had been taught something of map reading, but mentally he could not make what he saw on paper resemble the countryside. A few landmarks, if there were any outstanding ones, were all he could hope to impress upon his memory until he was actually on the ground.