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any great change between them during the years. Not to know—not to have any guides! Seasons had not mattered when they were only visitors in a strange world—but now— There was so much they should know—and would have to learn by the hard way of experience.
He stretched out by the fire, trying to list all that should be done—so deep in his thought that he was honestly startled when Rolth touched his shoulder. The night world was Rolth’s and he was alive with it as were the beasts now prowling beyond the circle of the firelight.
“Come!” The urgency in that one whispered word got Kartr to his feet. He gave a quick glance about the fire. The rest were in their bedrolls, asleep, or putting on a good show of being so. The sergeant crept out of the light, not setting his full foot to the ground until he reached the shadows.
“What—?” But he did not get to complete that question. Rolth’s hand was on his arm and the fingers pressed into his flesh as a warning.
Then those fingers slipped down until they tightened about his and Rolth drew him on into the full dark.
They were going up a slope which steepened as they advanced. The trees thinned out and vanished, leaving them in the moonlit open. On the crown of the hill the Faltharian pulled the sergeant around to face north.
“Wait!” Rolth ordered tersely. “Watch the sky!”
Kartr blinked into the curtain of the night. It was a clear one, stars made familiar and unfamiliar patterns across the sky. He remembered other suns and the myriad worlds they nourished.
Across the horizon from left to right swept a yellow-white beam, reaching from some point on the earth ahead far into the heavens. It took three seconds for it to complete the full sweep. Kartr counted. Sixty seconds later it leaped into sight once more, moving in the same course. A beacon!
“How