"We may be in for it," I went on. "When I got back to camp, Hank had a girl. He'd thrown her down, was struggling with her. I had to put him asleep to stop it. Didn't want trouble with her people." Noldi glanced at the torn place in the soft sod where the scuffle had taken place. I had unconsciously nodded toward it. He got up, walked over, picked something out of the grass. "Some girl, wearing this kind of stuff!" He handed the glittering bauble to Polter. It was a necklace of emeralds, with a pendant of gold in which was set a big blue stone that I couldn't recognize, maybe a diamond, maybe something else. It looked almighty valuable, each stone was as big as a man's thumbnail. It had snapped, lain there unnoticed by either of us. Noldi looked at me a little venomously. "Looks as if you were a little premature, letting her go. We should have found out where she gets this kind of sparkle first!" "Seemed the safest thing to do. We are only four, how could we handle her friends?" "Bah, they wouldn't have known where she was. We could have kept her till we were good and ready to let her go." I stood up, took out my pipe and filled it. "What about this ship you saw, and the people around it. That's important, not this girl and her jewelry." "We couldn't see much except that it was a ship and that it landed in the trees where it couldn't be seen from the sky. It's pretty big, and there are men moving around it. That's all." "That's plenty! If we run into them, there is no knowing what they'll do. That ship was never built on this planet." Noldi didn't smile or laugh. He just looked at me. Serious, puzzled, and a little scared. "You think it's a space ship, eh, Keele?" I nodded. "What else could it be?" "What's it doin' out here in no man's land?" Polter asked. "You'd think strangers like that would land near a city, try to make some kind of official contact." "If you were landing on a strange world, would you land near a city?" I asked. Polter laughed. "I guess you hit it. They don't know whether they'd be welcome or not. Scared, eh?" "Just careful, I'd say. We don't know anything about them. But ships like that have been reported off and on for hundreds of years. Don't be surprised if you never see a trace of it again, and if no one else but me ever believes you when you mention it. I don't think we'll have to worry about the flying saucer." "What the hell do they want, then?" Noldi didn't know what I meant, exactly. "Nobody knows, Frans. Nobody ever saw them as close as you just did today." * * *