them. But she was screaming in delight as she turned now and then to beckon them on. One overtook her and brought her down with a waist tackle. She rebounded to her feet, however, and took off again.
Two of the pursuers collided and sprawled on the ground. They sprang up and tore into each other. Unconcerned with the personal dispute, the chase struck off in a new direction, heading toward the ship as it paralleled one of the nearby fenced-in estates.
Behind the wire mesh, a burly young man came charging down the main steps of the manor and raced along with the others.
“That be the way!” he yelled encouragement. “Her go get! It’s gaining you are! Hurry!”
He drew up in time to avoid crashing into the side fence, then stood there watching the chase recede in the distance.
Within a hundred feet of the ship, one of the men fell out of the group, panting. He squinted at the vessel, then crept forward, circling to the right. Within arm’s reach, he walked back and forth alongside the hull, giving it a close inspection. Finally he paused and fumbled with his clothes.
Cassidy started. “Look what he’s doing!”
“Against the side of the ship, too!” said Mason.
Hearing them, the native jerked his head up toward the hatch, then backed off for a better view.
“Stinkers!” he yelled, shaking his fist. “Out here come and fight! Take you both on I can!”
When they only gaped, he whirled and sped off to rejoin the chase.
“You see?” said Cassidy. “Now what do you think?”
“I think we’d better get that directional stabilizer working.”
*
It took more than an hour to locate the trouble. “The rectifier circuit’s shot,” Cassidy said finally. “But maybe we can patch it up. Some of the amplifiers I suppose we can do without. But a hyper-oscillator we’ve got to have.”
“Say, you’re doing it too,” said Mason.
“What?”
“Talking like the natives.”
Cassidy looked up. “Guess it’s something that grows on you. Well, what do we do now?”
“Maybe the natives can help us.”
“If they don’t even know where they’re from, they probably left their volts and amps behind too. But that’s only an assumption.”
“In that case,” Mason said with a sigh, “there’s only one thing left to do—take Riva up on her invitation to, ah, play.”
“Funny,” Cassidy grunted, heading for the hatch.
“I was only joking.”
“I’m not. If we can get in that house, we’ll know for sure whether or not they’ve developed electronic devices.”
Halfway across the field, they were almost run down by the laughing girl and her retinue of galloping suitors, if that’s what they were. She was a well-proportioned blonde whose wind-frothed tresses suggested a nymph in flight.
At the fence, they were confronted by Riva, who smiled up at Cassidy and said, “You I was just going to come and get. Ready to play yet you are?”
He looked away and cleared his throat. “Not quite, Riva. We’d like to visit your house.”
“It’s some interesting games I know. Enjoying them you’d surely be.” Her smile, revealing even teeth that contrasted ruddy cheeks, was as persistent as her intent on playing.
Staring at the girl, Cassidy wrestled with a pang of wistful envy over the Olympian life he had witnessed thus far on this world. Maybe they were all irresponsible and childlike. But was that bad?
*
Mason pointed in alarm toward the meadow in front of the next estate. An ominous-looking, furry thing, supported on six or eight spindly legs, was racing across their field of vision.
“Hurt you he won’t,” the girl assured them, noticing their apprehension. “Nothing to be afraid of there is.”
“What is it?” Cassidy was still trying to determine whether it was an overgrown spider or a dry-land octopus.
“Look!” Mason exclaimed. “It’s on a leash!”
And Cassidy noticed the thong that extended from the creature to the human who was running along behind it.
“To Wolruf he belongs,” the girl explained. “One of them I can get for you too—if you want.”
Her slender hand reached out through the fence and tugged at Cassidy’s sleeve. “To chase me wouldn’t you like?” she asked, pouting.
Glancing behind her, Cassidy spotted the girl’s father bearing down on them in a sprint that was nothing short of phenomenal for his age. He began shouting with the last few strides and was in full lung when he hurled himself at the fence. “Git! Out! Away! I’ll—”
Riva moved back and glanced overhead and Papa, seeing some hidden significance in her gesture, lowered his voice.
“You I’ll tear into and apart I’ll rip!” he went on in a menacing whisper. “Your limbs I’ll scatter like—”
“Papa, it’s not afraid of you they are.”
“They’re not?” He was disappointed.
“The house they want to come in and see.”
He began working up a rage again, but caught himself and looked up into his daughter’s face. “Mean you—my house they want to see?”
When she nodded Papa seized the lowest strand of wire and lifted the fence high enough for Cassidy and Mason to crawl under. “Why, arranged it can be, I think.”
Its architectural prominences rendered shadowless in the tri-solar light, the manor was even more imposing close at hand. Of stone construction, it flaunted millwork and beams whose rich carvings would have been welcome on any mansion in the known Galaxy.
Mounting the steps, Mason observed, “Nice little layout they’ve got here.”
Riva moved closer to Cassidy. “Inside is cozy,” she said behind a coy smile. “Play we can really in there.”
Papa had been at the door for some time, fumbling with the lock. In a burst of impatience, he drew off and gave it a solid kick. Then he went back and tried rattling the handle. After a while there was a click and it swung open.
Cassidy followed him into a blaze of iridescent color and unfamiliar form. The huge, circular room was like a vast diorama and it was impossible to tell exactly where the solid objects blended in with the jumbled geometric pattern of the wall.
He walked across a carpet
