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“Now, wait a minute, Varian. Think. If your pentadactyls are not indigenous, they were brought here. Who, why would anyone want to relocate animals as large as that predator or your Mabel?”

She regarded him steadily, as if she expected him to know the answer to his question.

“You should know. They’ve already tipped us off. The Theks, slow-top,” she said with some asperity when he remained silent. “The inscrutable Theks. They’ve been here before. They left those seismic devices.”

“That makes no sense, Varian.”

“It makes a lot of sense.”

“What reason could the Theks possibly have for such an action?”

“They’ve probably forgotten,” Varian said, grinning mischievously. “Along with the fact that they’d surveyed this planet before.”

They had reached Trizein’s lab and he was contemplating the enlarged image of some fibers.

“Of course, we’d need to have one of those avians of yours, Varian, to discover if it requires carotene,” Trizein was saying as if he didn’t realize that Varian had left the lab.

“We’ve Mabel,” said Varian, “and little Dandy.”

“You’ve animals in this compound?” Trizein blinked with astonishment.

“I told you we had, Trizein. The slides you analyzed yesterday and the day before . . .”

“Ah, yes, I remember now,” but it was obvious to his listeners that he didn’t remember any such thing.

“Mabel and Dandy aren’t fliers,” Kai said. “They’re completely different species.”

“Indeed they are, but they are also pentadactyl. So is the fang-face, and he needed the grasses.”

“Mabel and Dandy are herbivorous,” said Kai, “and the predator and the fliers aren’t.”

Varian considered that qualification. “Yes, but generally speaking, carnivores absorb sufficient vitamin A from the animals they eat who do get it regularly in their diet.” She shook her head over the quandary. “Then fang-face wouldn’t need to go to the valley. He’d get enough from chewing Mabel’s flank. I don’t make any sense out of it—yet. Besides, the fliers may have another reason for gathering grass, as Terilla pointed out today.”

“You’ve lost me,” said Kai, and then directed Varian’s attention to Trizein, who had gone back to his microscopic viewer and was oblivious to their presence again.

“You’ll understand when you see the tapes we got today of those fliers, Kai. C’mon, unless you’ve got something else to do?”

“Frame messages to the Theks, but let me see what you taped first.”

“By the way, Kai,” said Varian, following him out of the lab, “we didn’t encounter any life forms in the vicinity of the pitchblende saddle that would cause a secondary camp there any trouble. If the camp’s set up properly, preferably on a prominence, and the force-screen posted deep, your team should be safe enough.”

“That’s good news. Not that I think you’d’ve scared anyone off with tales of herds of fang-faces.”

“Fang-faces, for the record, are solitary hunters.”

They had reached the pilot cabin and Varian inserted the tape for playback, explaining her conclusions and her desire to investigate the golden-furred fliers’ colony more closely at the earliest opportunity.

“How closely, Varian?” asked Kai. “They’re not small, and as I remember, those wings are strong and could be dangerous. I’d hate to get attacked by that beak.”

“So would I. So I’m not going to be. I’ll go slowly, Kai, but if they’re as intelligent as the evidence suggests, I may even be able to approach them on a personal basis.” When Kai began to protest, she held up her hand. “The fliers are not stupid like Mabel, or scared like Dandy, or dangerous like fang-face. But I cannot give up the opportunity to investigate an aerial species that acts in such an organized manner.”

“Fair enough, but do nothing on your own, co-leader. I want heavy-worlders with you at all times.”

“You’re a friend! Did they improve with the day?”

“I’ve never seen them so clumsy: slow, yes, but never plain raking grease-fingered. Paskutti and Tardma dropped one of the seismimics down a crevice. I don’t have so many that I can spare one,”