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Something brushed his ankles. So startled was he, so convinced that a spear had just missed him, he leaped into the air and whirled around. Then he saw that it was only the cat that had rubbed itself against him when he'd first come out of the tunnel. It was a large female cat with a beautiful long black silky coat and with golden eyes. It exactly resembled the Earth cat and was probably descended from the same ancestors as its terrestrial counterpart. Wherever Homo sapiens of the unthinkably long ago had penetrated he seemed to have taken his canine and feline pets.

«You like me, huh?» said Green. «Well, I like you, too, but I'm not going to if you keep on scaring me. I've been through enough tonight for a lifetime.»

The cat, purring, paced delicately toward him.

«Maybe you can do me some good,» he said and lifted the cat to his shoulder, where she crouched, vibrating with contentment.

«I don't know what you see in me,» he confided softly to her. «I must be a frightful-looking object, what with being covered with dust, and my eyes red and raw and running. But then, you're not so delightful yourself, what with your beery breath blowing in my face. I like you very much, What's-your-name. What is your name? Let's call you Lady Luck. After all, when I rubbed you I found the priestess dead. If she hadn't died she'd have got away to warn the cannibals. And obviously, you, her luck, had deserted her for me. So Lady Luck it will be. Let's go back up the hill and see what's happened to the rest of my friends.»

He found Amra sitting down at the cave's mouth, cuddling Paxi in an effort to quiet her. Nine others were there, too, Grizquetr, Soon, Miran, Inzax, three women, two little girls. The rest, he presumed, were lying dead or unconscious in the altar room. They made a dirty-looking, red-eyed, weary group, not good for much except lying down and passing out.

«Look,» he said, «we have to have sleep, whatever else happens. We'll go back into the first chamber and get some there, and…»

As one, the others protested that nothing would get them to return anywhere near that horrible fiend-haunted room. Green was at a loss. He thought he knew exactly what had happened, but he just could not explain to these people in terms they'd understand. And they probably would have a dark distrust of him from then on.

He decided to take the simple, if untrue, explanation.

«Undoubtedly Aga provoked a host of demons by striking at the wall behind the altar,» he said. «I tried to warn her. You all heard me. But those demons won't bother us again, for we are now under the protection of the cat, the cannibals' totem. Moreover it is the nature of such beings that, once they've released their fury and taken some victims, they are harmless, quiescent, for a long time after. It takes time for them to build up strength enough to hurt human beings again.»

They swallowed this offering as they would never have his other explanation.

«If you will lead the way,» they said, «we will return. We put our lives in your hands.»

Before going into the cave he paused to take another survey. From his spot in the clearing, which was almost on the top of the hill, he could look over the tree tops and see most of the island, except where other hills barred his view. The island had stopped moving and had settled down against the plain itself. Now, to the untutored eye, the entire mass looked like a clump of dirt, rocks and vegetation for some reason rising from the grassy seas. It would remain so until dusk, when it would again launch itself upon its five-mile-an-hour journey to the east. And once having reached a certain point there, it would reverse itself and begin its nocturnal pilgrimage toward the west. Back and forth, shuttling for how many thousands of years? What was its purpose, and whom had its builders been? Surely they could not have conceived in their wildest dreams of its present use, a mobile fortress for a tribe of cannibals?

Nor could they have seen to what uses their dust-collectors would be put. They couldn't have guessed that, millennia thence, men ignorant of their originally intended purpose would be using the devices as part of their religious ritual and of human sacrifice.

Green left the others in the room next to the one where the explosion had taken place. They lay down on the hard floor and at once went to sleep. He, however, felt that there were certain things that had to be done and that he was the only one physically capable of doing them.

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