"They
have taken some, perhaps to them the most needful. But they will not
be able to resist gathering the rest. Surely they will return, perhaps
not once but many times. Until--"
"Until they come to stay." Dalgard was grim as he completed that
sentence for the other.
"That is what they will work for. This land was once under their
mastery. This world was theirs before they threw it away warring among
themselves. Yes, they dream of holding all once more. But"--Sssuri's
yellow eyes took on some of the fire which had shone in those of the
snake-devil during its last seconds of life--"that must not be so!"
"If they take the land, you have the sea," Dalgard pointed out. The
mermen had a means of escape. But what of his own clansmen? Large
families were unknown among the Terran colonists. In the little more
than a century they had been on this planet their numbers, from the
forty-five survivors of the voyage, had grown to only some two hundred
and fifty, of which only a hundred and twenty were old enough or young
enough to fight. And for them there was no retreat or hiding place.
"We do not go bask to the depths!" There was stern determination in
that declaration from Sssuri.
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