"When that has been done I'll come back and find him, give him the words--him and many others. I promise you that. Let me believe it." "Believe it, Elis. But the boy Danik is dead. He was bright, curious. He should have lived 150 years." "We overtake mystery," Elis said, "and leave it behind." "Men have never overtaken the mystery of untimely death." "There is chaos," said Elis. "Chance. Mystery is great jungle around a small clearing. I accept that. We make a wider clearing." Paul felt Nisana's finger hook over his. Pakriaa groaned, perhaps in sleep. The darkness had blotted away the hills; even the small shape of Nisana was growing too dim. Elis said, "You're limping, Paul. Abroshin Nisana is tired. There are still three of the animals without riders. You and Doc----" "Yes," Wright said. "We might make better time." Nisana trilled an order to Abara, who rode the colossal bulk of Mister Johnson at the head of the line. The animals halted without sound. "We must go on all night, Paul--right? What became of your--prisoner?" "My----" the mental clarity must be a fraud, Paul thought, if new memories could flash into it so abruptly. At some time--it must have been after Elis had carried him clear of the nightmare at Samiraa's village--he had stumbled on a Vestoian soldier unconscious from a head wound and loss of blood but not dead. He had still been carrying her when they caught up with Wright. With this, the memory of that reunion became whole--the wordless suffering on the shield that Mijok carried, the improvised stretchers, the bewilderment and exhaustion in the red faces, the very smell of defeat--with this also a picture of the horribly fat witch from Pakriaa's village carried on a litter by two spearwomen, and one other witch, a lank skeleton with white and purple lines emphasizing the prominence of his ribs, striding beside his colleague and shooting glances of wrath from left to right and back. Someone had gently taken the unconscious soldier. "She's safe, Doc. Tejron took her--still has her, I'm sure." "Good." Wright added with a harshness canceling humor: "Now if only friend Lantis will initial a copy of the Geneva Convention...." He was fumbling in the twilight before one of the white beasts, uncertain what to do. The old cow olifant Susie, carrying Sears, fretted at the delay, sampling the air and rumbling. Paul petted her trunk to soothe her; Sears' voice came down to him: "Paul? Take this, will you?" He was reaching down the case that held his microscope, safe somehow out of the inferno of the day. "My grip's not too good, got nothing to tie it to--bare's a baby's bottom, like you. We look like the last days of a Turkish bath, hey?" "How d'you feel?" Nisana tore shreds from what remained of her purple skirt; she looped them about the case, fastened it to Paul's ammunition belt.