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The route he chose was rocky, but it was nearly the only practicable route away from the burned-dead landing place. He climbed toward what on this planet was the east. There were pinnacles and small precipices. There were small, fleshy-leaved bushes growing out of such tiny collections of soil as had formed in cracks and crevices in the rock.

Sergeant Madden noted that one such bush was wilted. He stopped. He bent over and carefully felt of the stones about it. A small rock came out. The bush had been out of the ground before. It had carefully been replaced. By someone.

“The rockets came this way,” said the sergeant, with finality. “Hauled over this pass to the Cerberus. Somebody must’ve knocked this bush loose while workin’ at getting ’em along. So he replanted it. Only not good enough. It wilted.”

“Who did it?” demanded Patrolman Willis.

“Who we want to know about,” growled Sergeant Madden. “Maybe Huks. Come on!”

He scrambled ahead. He wheezed as he climbed and descended. After half a mile, Patrolman Willis said abruptly:

“You figure they all left, before anybody tried to find ’em?”

The sergeant grunted affirmatively. A quarter mile still farther, the rocky ground fell away. There was the gleam of water below them. Rocky cliffs enclosed an arm of the sea that came deep into the land, here. In the cliffs rock-strata tilted insanely. There were red and yellow and black layers–mostly yellow and black. They showed in startlingly clear contrast.

“Right!” said Sergeant Madden in morose satisfaction. “I thought there might’ve been a boat. But this’s it!”

He went down a steep descent to the very edge of the sound–it was even more like a fjord–where the waters of the ocean came in among the island’s hills. On the far side, a little cascade leaped and bubbled down to join the sea.

“You go that way,” commanded Sergeant Madden, “and I’ll go this. We’ve got two things to look for–a shallow place in the water coming right up to shore. And look for signs of traffic from the cliffs to the water. By the color of those rocks, we’d ought to find both.”

He lumbered away along the water’s edge. There were no creatures which sang or chirped. The only sounds were wind and the lapping of waves against the shore. It was very, very lonely.

Half a mile from the point of his first descent, the sergeant found a shoal. It was a flat space of shallow water–discoverable by the color of the bottom. The water was not over four feet deep. It was a remarkably level shoal place.

He whistled on his fingers. When Patrolman Willis reached him, he pointed to the cliffs directly across the beach from the shallow water. Lurid yellow tints stained the cliff walls. Odd masses of fallen stone dotted the cliff foot. At one place they were piled high. That pile looked quite natural–except that it was at the very center of the shore line next the shoal.

“This rock’s yellow,” said Sergeant Madden, rumbling a little. “It’s mineral. If we had a Geiger, it’d be raising hell, here. There’s a mine in there. Uranium. If a ship came down on rockets, an’ landed in that shoal place yonder … why … it wouldn’t leave a burned spot comin’ down or takin’ off, either. Y’see?”

Patrolman Willis said: “Look here, sergeant–“

“I’m in command here,” growled Sergeant Madden. “Huks didn’t booby trap. Proud as hell, and touchy as all get-out, but not killers. Not crazy killers, anyhow. You go get up yonder. Up where we started down. Then go on away. Back to the squad ship. If I don’t come along, anyhow you’ll know what’s what when the Aldeb comes.”

Patrolman Willis expostulated. Sergeant Madden was firm. In the end, Patrolman Willis went away. And Sergeant Madden sat at ease and rested until he had time enough to get back to the squad ship. It was true that the Huks didn’t booby trap. They hadn’t had the practice, anyhow, eighty years ago. But this was a very important matter. Maybe they considered it so important that they’d changed their policy concerning this.