Hilary was on his feet, peering upward. "I thought I saw—there, there it is again."
The other two were on their feet also, weariness forgotten, heads thrown back.
High overhead, in the overturned cup of the sky, an irregular pink wisp formed before their wondering eyes, and vanished again. But more slowly, than the first time.
"Well?" asked Wat, puzzled.
"A cloud." Hilary's voice was a prayer.
"Hell," said Wat disgustedly. "If that's a cloud I'm a Mercutian. There wouldn't be enough water there to moisten a canary seed."
"And even if there were it wouldn't matter now," said Grim calmly. "We're discovered."
long slim flier shot athwart the brightening sky, paused suddenly in flight as though jerked by an invisible string. The next instant the valley was illumined by a transparent glow. It enveloped the Earthmen, made crystal figurines of the most solid among them. They seemed like wraiths through which, as in a glass, more could be seen beyond. The solid ground, the rocks, were transparencies floating in an ocean of airy nothingness. A search beam!