, he thought, who held a sharp knife in his hands. "William Kirk, of course."

Harry Loren nodded apologetically. "Oh, yes. I can't remember everyone. It's been so long. How are you, William?"

Kirk's eyes flickered. "I'm fine."

"That's nice," Harry Loren nodded. His wild hair brushed over his shoulders and reflected its yellowness against the sun. The knife then, the one that Kirk had thought about a moment ago, appeared in the figure's hand. "Bastard," Harry Loren hissed, and he was leaping at Kirk, the knife making a sweep toward Kirk's stomach.

Something kept Kirk from squeezing the trigger, and instead he swung his pistol so that it struck the brown, weathered knuckles. The knife flew into a thicket and Loren, screaming, was upon Kirk, reaching for Kirk's neck. Kirk wrenched backward and at the same time swung the barrel of the pistol toward the yellow flying hair. There was a cracking sound, and Harry Loren, brown and wild-looking, crumpled silently before Kirk's feet.

Kirk examined the man, then he reached down and picked up the knife from the thicket. It was crudely hammered out from some kind of alloy, but sharp nevertheless, and it could have been deadly in a hand like Harry Loren's.

Kirk looked again at the yellow-haired man on the ground. He was wearing some kind of ragged cloth about his waist and nothing else. Across his back, Kirk could see, was a curving scar, an inch wide and ten or twelve inches long. It was white and very noticeable against the brown of the man's skin.

Kirk bent down, looking at the scar carefully. It could have been made during a crash of a rocket, but there were, he noticed, fine whiter ridges running along the length of the scar as though they had been made by fine comb-like teeth. A talon, perhaps. Some kind of strange claw. Kirk straightened quickly.

It went through his head that Harry Loren