He glanced away, up and across the rocky ride and to the upper reaches of the glacier. A dull red glow moved down the route he and John Drinkard had recently taken. Keen eyes could readily see that it had the shape of a man.
"That is Dzorr," said Dzell. "We grew in the same membrane. He is erasing our trail across the ice, John Drinkard."
Drinkard watched the glow until it slowly faded. "Very smart. We can tell tales, but there won't be any proof, eh?"
"That is correct," said the strange man. He turned to Chuck Evers. "You wonder about the statement that we grew in the same membrane. I should have said that we are twins."
Evers caught his breath. "Telepathy," he breathed. "John wasn't out of his head."
The chill night wind rippled across the alpine field. The little fire flickered and glowed. Overhead, the stars were blue and red and yellow ice.
"The truth is simple," said the man called Dzell. "We have told it before, but no one believed, and it has not seemed wise to support our facts. We, Dzorr and I, with our companions Dzinn and Dzett, are explorers."
John Drinkard slapped his hand against the boulder beside him and seemed reassured by its solidity. He shook his head to clear it.
"I don't get it," he objected. "Chuck and I could call ourselves explorers, too, if rambling around the mountains every chance we get falls under that heading."