"You what? Now that's a good trick. How do you know?"

"We thought about it," said Cheng, "and tested. Start- ing at the viewscreen perimeter we went out on a gradual spiral-"

"Not to miss anything," said Myra.

"And finding nothing," Cheng continued, "we de- cided to test the extent of the field in atmosphere. It was not difficult. One of us would switch the Shield of the other off, then on again."

303.

"Either a quick blackout, or not," Myra said. "We

took turns."

"Godrfamre it!" said Barton. "Didn't anybody tell you,

you could lose a chunk of memory that way?"

"We used only very brief-momentary-exposures,"

said Cheng. "We notice no ill effects."

"I hope you're right. But-you sure you didn't miss any live corpses? I mean, you covered a lot of territory."

"We're pretty sure," said Myra Hake. "One person, given time to hide, we might have missed. Those three together, caught by surprise, we could not have missed.

You see the difference?"

Barton saw. He agreed, and congratulated the two on a good job well done. ". . . but the next time you want to go fucking around with the sleep-zapper-or anything else you're not briefed on-for Christ's sake, ask first!"

Grave-faced, the two agreed. Barton didn't believe a word of it. But either they could take care of themselves or they couldn't, and bis bet was that they could.

The main thing was what to do next-and that was his decision, no one else's.

There was only one possible answer. "Tomorrow morning," he said, "some of us are going up the moun- tain to see the totem pole. Dressed like locals.

"Be thinking about it."

Barton and Limila, next morning, were the last to as- semble in the galley. Alene was serving breakfast; Cheng and Eeshta were packing marching rations into belt pouches, to be worn under the Demu robes.

"A bunch of early birds," said Barton, and noted that the replies were cheerful. He took a cup of coffee and sat

"Hungry?" said Alene. He nodded, and she set a tray

before him.

"Past service. Thanks." . ^ "Barton," said Abdul, "I have information about the

drive."

"You got it working?"

"No, I cannot. But I know what has happened.**

"Damage permanent?" Barton said.

"Again, no. But it is not a matter of repair. Focused on this ship is a beam of incident energy that neutralizes and cancels the wave forms of our exciter output, so that it cannot activate the generator fields."

"Through the Shield, it does that?"

304.

"Yes, Barton. Like the laser, this beam is coherent radiation, but of dimensions that penetrate our hull with- out damage to it. I tried a method of evading the effects, but my effort was fruitless."

"What was it?"

"I changed the exciter frequency slightly-there is a workable range each side of peak tuning, without much loss of efficiency. But the Demu device followed my ad- justments exactly."

"In other words," Barton said, slowly, "we're stuck here until we can get to their gadget and turn it off."

"It would seem so."

Barton had another thought. "They'd have" conked us at high altitude, if they could have. And you know-I bet they tried. It's a damned good thing we came in fast, and took that side swoop at the monolith-that's probably what threw them off. Otherwise, we could have been splattered over a couple of acres. Shield or no Shield."

"Jesusl" he said. "Abdul-make a tape, warning off Thirteen and Thirty-four, so they don't try to land. Beam it straight up, thirty-degree spread, max power, and leave it running-loop tape. Okay?"

"Yes, Barton-immediately. Is there anything else I should do?"

Barton thought. "Yes. Can you rig a good loud alarm to sound off if the interference stops and the drive goes operative again?"

"Easily. But why-? Oh, I see."

"Yeh. So that whoever's available can lift this baby the hell out of here-fast. Waste fuel like crazy by going all- out max, and stay low and flat until Cleopatra's Needle is I ''ow the horizon. Everybody got that?"

"But, Barton," said Limila, "what of those who are not on the ship at such a time? Are they to be left?"

"No. The ship comes back later, of course. Comes back the same way-low and fast and sneaky-and makes a sidewise pass at the monolith with enough speed so that if the drive goes dead, you can coast out of range, to safety."

"That range would be a matter of estimate," said Ab- dul.

"Hell, yes-the game doesn't come with any guaran- tees on it."

"I know. Very well, I will arrange the tape and the alarm."

305.

"Okay-and good work, Abdul, finding out what the

problem is."