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and the extra length of the journey should not be much more dangerous, since you will be helping us as you agreed.”
    “Right. That is excellent—though I wish we had been able to find something we could give you in actual payment, so that you would not feel the need to take time in spice-gathering.”

    “Well, we have to eat. You say your bodies, and hence your foods, are made of very different substances from ours, so we can’t use your foodstuffs. Frankly, I can’t think of any desirable raw metal or similar material that I couldn’t get far more easily in any quantity I wanted. My favorite idea is still that we get some of your machines, but you say that they would have to be built anew to function under our conditions. It seems that the agreement we reached is the best that is possible, under those circumstances.”
    “True enough. Even this radio was built specifically for this job, and you could not repair it—your people, unless I am greatly mistaken, don’t have the tools. However, during the journey we can talk of this again; perhaps the things we learn of each other will open up other and better possibilities.”
    “I am sure they will,” Barlennan answered politely.
    He did not, of course, mention the possibility that his own plans might succeed. The Flyer would hardly have approved.

2: THE FLYER
    The Flyer’s forecast was sound; some four hundred days passed before the storm let up noticeably. Five times during that period the Flyer spoke to Barlennan on the radio, always opening with a brief weather forecast and continuing a more general conversation for a day or two each time. Barlennan had noticed earlier, when he had been learning the strange creature’s language and paying personal visits to its outpost in the “Hill” near the bay, that it seemed to have a strangely regular life cycle; he found he could count on finding the Flyer sleeping or eating at quite predictable times, which seemed to have a cycle of about eighty days. Barlennan was no philosopher—he had at least his share of the common tendency to regard them as impractical dreamers—and he simply shrugged this fact off as something pertaining to a weird but admittedly interesting creature. There was nothing in the Mesklinite background that would enable him to deduce the existence of a world that took some eighty times as long as his own to rotate on its axis.
    Lackland’s fifth call was different from the others, and more welcome for several reasons. The difference was due partly to the fact that it was off schedule; its pleasant nature to the fact that at last there was a favorable weather forecast.
    “Barl!” The Flyer did not bother with preliminaries—he knew that the Mesklinite was always within sound of the radio. “The station on Toorey called a few minutes ago. There is a relatively clear area moving toward us. He was not sure just what the winds would be, but he can see the ground through it, so visibility ought to be fair. If your hunters want to go out I should say that they wouldn’t be blown away, provided they wait until the clouds have been gone for twenty or thirty days. For a hundred days or so after that we should have very good weather indeed. They’ll tell me in plenty of time to get your people back to the ship.”
    “But how will they get your warning? If I send this radio with them I won’t be able to talk to you about our regular business, and if I don’t, I don’t see—”
    “I’ve been thinking of that,” interrupted Lackland. “I think you’d better
come up here as soon as the wind drops sufficiently. I can give you another set—perhaps it would be better if you had several. I gather that the journey you will be taking for us will be dangerous, and I know for myself it will be long enough. Thirty-odd thousand miles as the crow flies, and I can’t yet guess how far by ship and overland.”
    Lackland’s simile occasioned a delay; Barlennan wanted to know what a crow was, and also