Jayn and Ueln stared at him with pale, sorrowful faces. Kwint fingered his bow, and seemed about to step forward. Puko did, but Tefior grabbed him by the hair.
Yorgh turned and walked slowly away.
"Yorgh! Wait!"
Vaneen ran after him.
"We'll go together! I was there with you!"
"No!" he groaned. "Jayn, she went because I took her. Kwint! Ueln! Hold her!"
He broke away and ran toward the thing on the plain, not thinking, not even hoping. The voices behind him died away.
After he had covered a quarter of a mile, he noticed that the metal thing was like the ships of the Sea People in some ways. It was rounded, like a hull, and its upthrust bow—
To his amazement, there were four men standing under it when he arrived. Yorgh gaped at their queer clothes.
"Well, look at him!" said one of them with a strange accent. "Is that what's been sending out a repetitive message that's well over two hundred years old? I thought the plague wiped this planet clean."