"Then this fellow's human?"
"He could be."
"If he is, would he be naked?" Saxton asked.
"Some of those lost expeditions disappeared as long as two thousand years ago," Wallace answered. "A colony could have slipped back a long ways in that time."
"But not this far," Saxton demurred. "They'd still have some traces of their original culture left."
"A one-ship colony would have very limited mechanical resources," Wallace said. "And they'd be isolated here. As soon as the tools and machines they brought with them wore out they'd be almost impossible to replace. The odds are they'd slip back fast."
"I don't know." Clearly Saxton wasn't satisfied—but he let the subject hang. "When we saw him kneeling on the ground, I thought that he was worshipping us. But since then he's been acting as if he thought he was the god instead of us."
They were halfway across a small clearing now and before Wallace could answer the native ahead stopped abruptly. He stood motionless, with his head tilted to one side, as though listening. After a moment he motioned them to move to the left.
As Wallace and Saxton obeyed, Al-fin pointed urgently toward their guns. They drew, and the native turned to stare at the bushes at the far side of the clearing.
"What does he want?" Saxton asked.