The nearest sleeping reptile which he had selected as his mark
stretched lazily without raising its head or opening its small eyes.
And the sun caught on a glistening band about its short foreleg just
beneath the joint of the taloned pawhands. No natural scales could
reflect the light with such a brilliant glare. It could be only one
thing--metal! A metal bracelet about the tearing arm of a snake-devil!
Dalgard looked at the other two sleepers. One was lying on its belly
with its forearms gathered under it so that he could not see if it,
also, were so equipped. But the other--yes, it was banded!

Sssuri stood at the grille, one hand on its stone divisions. His
surprise equaled Dalgard's. It was not in his experience either that
the untamed snake-devils, regarded by merman and human alike as so
dangerous as to be killed on sight, could be banded--as if they were
personal pets!

For a moment or two a wild idea crossed Dalgard's mind. How long was
the natural life span of a snake-devil? Until the coming of the
colonists they had been the undisputed rulers of the deserted
continent, stupid as they were, simply because of their strength and
ferocity. A twelve-foot, scale-armored monster, that could tear apart
a duocorn with ease, might not be successfully vanquished by any of
the fauna of Astra. And since the monsters did not venture into the
sea, contact between them and the mermen had been limited to casual
encounters at rare intervals. So, how long did a snake-devil live?
Were these creatures sprawled here in sleep ones that had known the
domination of Those Others--though the fall of the master race of
Astra must have occurred generations, hundreds of years in the past?

"No," Sssuri's denial cut through that. "The smaller one is not yet