Key Out of Time | Page 5

atomics. Suppose, just suppose, they could tamper
with the weather, with the balance of the planet's crust? We don't know
the extent of their powers, how they would use them. They had a
colony here once, or there would have been no guide tape. And that is
all we are sure of."
"Suppose"--Ross rolled over on his stomach, pillowed his head on his
arms--"we could uncover some of that knowledge--"
The twitch was back at Ashe's lips. "That's the risk we have to run
now."

"Risk?"
"Would you give a child one of those hand weapons we found in the
derelict?"
"Naturally not!" Ross snapped and then saw the point. "You mean--we
aren't to be trusted?"
The answer was plain to read in Ashe's expression.
"Then why this whole setup, this hunt for what might mean trouble?"
"The old pinch, the bad one. What if the Reds discover something first?
They drew some planets in the tape lottery, remember. It's a seesaw
between us--we advance here, they there. We have to keep up the race
or lose it. They must be combing their stellar colonies for a few
answers just as furiously as we are."
"So, we go into the past to hunt if we have to. Well, I think I could do
without answers such as the Baldies would know. But I will admit that
I would like to know what did happen here--two, five, ten thousand
years ago."
Ashe stood up and stretched. For the first time he smiled. "Do you
know, I rather like the idea of fishing off Karara's beckoning finger.
Maybe she's right about that changing our luck."
Ross kept his face carefully expressionless as he got up to prepare their
evening meal.

2
Lair of Mano-Nui
Just under the surface of the water the sea was warm, weird life showed
colors Ross could name, shades he could not. The corals, the animals
masquerading as plants, the plants disguised as animals which

inhabited the oceans of Terra, had their counterparts here. And the
settlers had given them the familiar names, though the crabs, the fish,
the anemones, and weeds of the shallow lagoons and reefs were not
identical with Terran creatures. The trouble was that there was too
much, such a wealth of life to attract the eyes, hold attention, that it was
difficult to keep to the job at hand--the search for what was not natural,
for what had no normal place here.
As the land seduced the senses and bewitched the off-worlder, so did
the sea have its enchantment to pull one from duty. Ross resolutely
skimmed by a forest of weaving, waving lace which varied from a
green which was almost black to a pale tint he could not truly identify.
Among those waving fans lurked ghost-fish, finned swimmers
transparent enough so that one could sight, through their pallid sides,
the evidences of recently ingested meals.
The Terrans had begun their sweep-search a half hour ago, slipping
overboard from a ferry canoe, heading in toward the checkpoint of the
finger isle, forming an arc of expert divers, men and girls so at home in
the ocean that they should be able to make the discovery Ashe
needed--if such did exist.
Mystery built upon mystery on Hawaika, Ross thought as he used his
spear-gun to push aside a floating banner of weed in order to peer
below its curtain. The native life of this world must always have been
largely aquatic. The settlers had discovered only a few small animals
on the islands. The largest of which was the burrower, a creature not
unlike a miniature monkey in that it had hind legs on which it walked
erect and forepaws, well clawed for digging purposes, which it used
with as much skill and dexterity as a man used hands. Its body was
hairless and it was able to assume, chameleon-like, the color of the soil
and rocks where it denned. The head was set directly on its bowed
shoulders without vestige of neck; and it had round bubbles of eyes
near the top of its skull, a nose which was a single vertical slit, and a
wide mouth fanged for crushing the shelled creatures on which it fed.
All in all, to Terran eyes, it was a vaguely repulsive creature, but as far
as the settlers had been able to discover it was the highest form of land

life. The smaller rodentlike things, the two species of wingless diving
birds, and an odd assortment of reptiles and amphibians sharing the
island were all the burrowers' prey.
A world of sea and islands, what type of native intelligent life had it
once supported? Or had this been only a galactic colony, with no native
population before the coming of the stellar explorers? Ross hovered
above a