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marvelous job of bringing her up, but he sometimes overestimates her. She convinced him, just then, that everything is all right; but I don't— we don't know. What do we do?"

"We do just what he asked," pointed out another. "Even if the kid's wrong, there's no harm hi having the shuttle ready. Why is everything so shaken up?"

"Because we know what will happen to Easy and her father if she's wrong," replied the geophysicist. "If she's been speaking from her own knowledge, fine; but if that ten-legged weasel made her lose her temper and shoot her mouth off so as to justify her actions—" He shook his head grimly. "She believes her own words now, all right, and so does her father. If they're disappointed—well, the kids have stayed alive down there so far because of the self-control of the Rich family." He ended the discussion by cutting in another phone circuit and transmitting Rich's request to the engineers.

Raeker had been eating and, occasionally, sleeping in the observation room; he'd forgotten by now how long he had been there. The robot was rather out of things, but he could still watch. His pupils seemed to have been re-absorbed into Swift's tribe, and were being told what to do alternately by the chief himself and by Easy in the bathyscaphe. Nobody was asking Fagin what to do or how to do it, but in spite of this things were happening almost too fast for Raeker to keep track of them. He knew that Easy had had an argument with Aminadabar-lee, though he wasn't clear as to the details; he had been told about her promise to be off the ground the next day, but had no more idea than anyone else how she expected to do it. He had had his share of Aminadabarlee's temper, for the Drommian had not by any means been silenced by Easy's flare-up, and had spent some time pointing out to Raeker the foolishness of separating his pupils from their own culture, and how much more would have been learned about Tenebra if contact had been made with Capitulation; Operation; Elevation 179

Swift's people in the first place. Raeker had not actually been rude, but his answers had been rendered vague by his preoccupation with events on the ground, and he had thereby managed to offend the lutroid more than ever. He knew it, but couldn't bring himself to worry seriously about the prospect of severed relations between Sol and Dromm.

He knew in a general way what people were doing on the ground, but he couldn't understand all of it, and no one bothered to tell him. It never occurred to Raeker that this might have been at Easy's request; that she might be going to extremes to make sure that nothing like useful information got back to the Vindemiatrix and the being who had angered her so. He could only watch, photograph, record what conversation he could hear, and try to interpret what went on.

The raft was launched, and Nick and Betsey took Swift out on the surface of the pool to a point just outside one of the bathyscaphe's observation ports. Raeker could see the meeting between Tenebrans and the ship's two occupants^ but could not hear their conversation— Easy was, of course, using the outside speakers, and the robot was too far away to hear these directly. The talk was long, and quite animated, for the gestures of all parties concerned could be seen—the port was large enough to let Raeker see fairly well into the 'scaphe even from the robot's vantage point. He tried to interpret the motions, but had no luck.

Conversation did not end until nearly night; then the raft returned to the shore, and everyone began to pack up. A dozen cave dwellers helped carry the raft, others helped pull the cart. For the first time, Swift paid attention to the robot; he ordered it to come along, using Nick as an interpreter. Raeker agreed briefly; the journey was obviously to escape the sea, which would presumably come at least as far inland tonight as it had before.

"Where will the big ship go tonight?" he asked, more 180