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people backslide, there's no telling what'son their minds and we have no time to waste negotiating or convincingthem. In any case, how could they stop us from moving in?" Abruptly heswitched to his own interest. "Aubray, have you learned anything newabout the Scoops?"

  "Nothing beyond the fact that the islanders don't talk about them," Jeffsaid. "I've seen perhaps a dozen offshore during the seven cycles I'vebeen here. One usually surfaces outside my harbor at about the time oldCharlie Mack's supply boat comes in."

  Thinking of Charlie Mack brought a forced end to his report. "Charlie'sdue now. I'll call back later."

  He cut the circuit, hurrying to have his communicator stowed away beforeold Charlie's arrival--not, he thought bitterly, that being found outnow would make any great difference.

  * * * * *

  Stepping out into the brief Calaxian dawn, he caught his glimpse of theCiriimian ship's landing before the island forest of palm-ferns cut itoff from sight. Homeside hadn't been bluffing, he thought, assuming as amatter of course that this was the task force Satterfield had beenordered to send.

  "They didn't waste any time," Jeff growled. "Damn them."

  He ignored the inevitable glory of morning rainbow that just precededProcyon's rising and strode irritably down to his miniature dock. He wasstill scowling over what he should tell Charlie Mack when the _IslandQueen_ hove into view.

  She was a pretty sight. There was an artist's perception in Jeff inspite of his drab years of EI patrol duty; the white puff of sail ondark-green sea, gliding across calm water banded with lighter and darkerstriae where submerged shoals lay, struck something responsive in him.The comparison it forced between Calaxia and Earth, whose yawning FourthWar scars and heritage of anxieties made calm-crystals so desperatelynecessary, oppressed him. Calaxia was wholly unscarred, her peoplewithout need of the calm-crystals they traded.

  Something odd in the set of the _Queen's_ sails puzzled him until heidentified the abnormality. In spite of distance and the swift approachof the old fishing boat, he could have sworn that her sails bellied notwith the wind, but against.

  They fell slack, however, when the _Queen_ reached his channel andflapped lazily, reversing to catch the wind and nose her cautiously intothe shallows. Jeff dismissed it impatiently--a change of wind or somecrafty maneuver of old Charlie Mack's to take advantage of the current.

  Jeff had just set foot on his dock when it happened. Solid as theplanking itself, and all but blocking off his view of the nearing_Island Queen_, stood a six-foot owl.

  It was wingless and covered smoothly with pastel-blue feathers. It stoodsolidly on carefully manicured yellow feet and stared at him out ofsquare violet eyes.

  Involuntarily he took a backward step, caught his heel on a sun-warpedboard and sat down heavily.

  "Well, what the devil!" he said inanely.

  The owl winced and disappeared without a sound.

  * * * * *

  Jeff got up shakily and stumbled to the dock's edge. A chill convictionof insanity gripped him when he looked down on water lapping smooth andundisturbed below.

  "I've gone mad," he said aloud.

  Out on the bay, another catastrophe just as improbable was in progress.

  Old Charlie Mack's _Island Queen_ had veered sharply off course, leftthe darker-green stripe of safe channel and plunged into water tooshallow for her draft. The boat heeled on shoal sand, listed and hungaground with wind-filled sails holding her fast.

  The Scoop that had surfaced just behind her was so close that Jeffwondered if its species' legendary good nature had been misrepresented.It floated like a glistening plum-colored island, flat dorsal flippersundulating gently on the water and its great filmy eyes all but closedagainst the slanting glare of morning sun.

  It was more than vast. The thing must weigh, Jeff thought dizzily,thousands or maybe millions of tons.

  He thought he understood the _Queen's_ grounding when he saw theswimmer stroking urgently toward his dock. Old Charlie had abandoned hisboat and was swimming in to escape the Scoop.

  But it wasn't Charlie. It was Jennifer, Charlie's niece.

  Jeff took the brown hand she put up and drew her to the dock beside her,steadying her while she shook out her dripping red hair and regained herbreath. Sea water had plastered Jennifer's white blouse and knee-lengthdungarees to her body like a second skin, and the effect bordered on thespectacular.

  "Did you see it?" she demanded.

  Jeff wrestled his eyes away to the Scoop that floated like a purpleisland in the bay.

  "A proper monster," he said. "You got out just in time."

  She looked at once startled and impatient. "Not the Scoop, you idiot.The owl."

  It was Jeff's turn to stare. "Owl? There was one on the dock, but Ithought--"

  "So did I." She sounded relieved. "But if you saw one, too.... All of asudden, it was standing there on deck beside me, right out of nowhere. Ilost my head and grounded the _Queen_, and it vanished. The owl, Imean."

  "So did mine," Jeff said.

  While they stood marveling, the owls came back.

  * * * * *

  Chafis Three and Four were horribly shaken by the initial attempt atcommunication with the natives. Nothing in Ciriimian experience hadprepared them for creatures intelligent but illogical, individuallyperceptive yet isolated from each other.

  "Communication by audible symbol," Chafi Three said. He ruffled hisfeathers in a shudder. "Barbarous!"

  "Atavistic," agreed Chafi Four. "They could even _lie_ to each other."

  But their dilemma remained. They must warn the natives before theprowling Zid found them, else there would be no natives.

  "We must try again," Three concluded, "searching out and using theproper symbols for explanation."

  "Vocally," said Chafi Four.

  They shuddered and teleported.

  * * *

  The sudden reappearance of his hallucination--doubled--startled Jeff nomore than the fact that he seemed to be holding Jennifer Mack tightly.Amazingly, his immediate problem was not the possibility of harm fromthe owls, but whether he should reassure Jennifer before or afterreleasing her.

  He compromised by leaving the choice to her. "They can't be dangerous,"he said. "There are no land-dwelling predators on Calaxia. I read thatin--"

  "Nothing like _that_ ever hatched out on Calaxia," said Jennifer. Shepulled free of him. "If they're real, they came from somewhere else."

  The implication drew a cold finger down Jeff's spine. "That would meanother cultures out here. And in all our years of planet-hunting, wehaven't found one."

  Memory chilled him further.

  "A ship landed inland a few minutes ago," he said. "I took it for an EIconsulate craft, but it could have been--"

  The Ciriimians caught his mental image of the landing and intervenedwhile common ground offered.

  "The ship was ours," said Chafi Three. He had not vocalized sincefledgling days and his voice had a jarring croak of disuse. "Our Zidescaped its cage and destroyed two of us, forcing us to maroon it herefor our own safety. Unfortunately, we trusted our star manual'sstatement that the planet is unpopulated."

  The Terrans drew together again.

  "Zid?" Jeff echoed.

  Chafi Four relieved his fellow of the strain by trying his own rustycroak. "A vicious Canthorian predator, combing the island at this momentfor prey. You must help us to recapture it."

  "So that you may identify it," Chafi Three finished helpfully, "the Zidhas this appearance."

  His psi projection of the Zid appeared on the dock before them withdemoniac abruptness--crouched to leap, twin tails lashing and itsten-foot length bristling with glassy magenta bristles. It had a lethalpair of extra limbs that sprang from the shoulders to end in talonedseizing-hands, and its slanted red eyes burned malevolently from asnouted, razor-fanged face.

  It was too real to bear. Jeff stepped back on suddenly unreliab
le legs.Jennifer fainted against him and the unexpected weight of her sent themboth sprawling to the dock.

  "We lean on weak reeds," Chafi Three said. "Creatures who collapse withterror at the mere projection of a Zid can be of little assistance inrecapturing one."

  Chafi Four agreed reluctantly. "Then we must seek aid elsewhere."

  * * * * *

  When Jeff Aubray pulled himself up from the planking, the apparitionswere gone. His knees shook and perspiration crawled cold on his face,but he managed to haul Jennifer up with him.

  "Come out of it, will you?" he yelled ungallantly in her ear. "If athing like that is loose on the island, we've got to get