_We have been as you think burned once and we do not wish to be burned again we cannot say whether or not these things you warn us of really exist but we will take our own destinies in our hands and treat them if they come we have seen no such indications of eruptions and we do not believe you._ The thoughts ceased. Then one word alone: _Go_. Shreve cursed the limitations of the psi faculty. Of what use was a mind-reading ability if it merely told you what another person thought--not whether it was true or not? He stepped toward them again. He looked up at the fearsome masks and felt the sinking of his stomach. He realized they were a young and headstrong people, Teller had made that clear to him. Their arrogance was the false front of a people frightened by the unknown. But were they so young that they could not realize when they needed help? "Look," he found himself speaking, "you don't seem to understand." The aliens moved back as Shreve approached. They didn't seem to want him near them. "Your planet is a young one. There are internal stresses that are going to rip open your continents. We can set up machines that will re-direct these eruptions--into the ocean, back in the jungle where it's uninhabited--so your people won't die. We--" _Did you see the blood pits near the Great Ocean?_ Shreve caught the thought, and knew there was more to it than the Diamorai had thought at first. The thought was laden with blast-furnace hatred and a deadly bitterness. He remembered the planet-circling landing the _Wallower_ had made. He remembered the single body of water, the Great Ocean, stretching yellow and rippling across a third of Diamore. The picture completed itself in his mind and he saw the monstrous gouges ripped into the land, near the shore of that ocean. Pits of fused, crimson soil; bare, gaping wounds, nothing but emptiness and dead plants surrounding them for miles. _Those are the ones_, the thought came. _Those were the cities of Golamoor, Nokrosch and Huyt on the shores of the Great Ocean we resisted the Kyben when they wanted to drill out our ceremonial grounds for their soils they said were radioactive we would not let them drill and they sent down death to our cities._ Tinged with such emotion, the words were so boldly put, their meaning was all too clear. These people would never reverse their decision. They hated all outsiders. Shreve wondered whether they could be blamed. "But you _need_ our help! You've got to believe me! You can read my thoughts--can't you see I'm telling the truth!" _We could read the Kyben thoughts, too._ Silence in their minds for an instant, then: _Have you seen the blood pits?_ * * * * *