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plants sought other sources. Their tendrils reached toward Rondl as he floated close. He quickly moved clear. It was amazing how much he knew, when the information was triggered by experience. Probably if he could only return to his most familiar haunts, much of his memory would return—but he needed his memory to find those haunts. Vicious circle.
    He skirted a dull natural wall and entered yet another valley. This one was filled with water—a large lake or small sea. Rondl swooped over it. This was a new experience! The lines crisscrossed sportively above the water, and when they dipped into it, it didn't matter. Rondl dived, following one past the surface; progress was much slower underwater and the light diminished, but he could manage nicely. The Band body was largely immune to moisture, as well as to extremes of heat and cold; he belonged to one of the most stable living forms in the Galaxy.
    There—he had intercepted some more information! He must know about other creatures of the Galaxy too—if only he could evoke the proper data. But he could not. Not voluntarily.
    He pursued the line for some distance, following it down toward the bottom; the light had dimmed almost to nothingness. It didn't matter, since there was no one to communicate with and he did not need light to sense the line itself. This slow-motion, liquid-medium travel was pleasant, as contrast, and perhaps it would help evoke some of the information so tantalizingly locked in his mind. Interesting that this conductive medium did not dissipate the energy of the line. But magnetism was very special stuff, obviously.
    Then something loomed. Instantly Rondl's danger-awareness flared. The sea creatures consumed anything they could catch! Why hadn't he remembered that before? He had so blithely flown right down into their region of power. This one was behind him; he saw its dim bulk by the refractions in the water, and by its crude magnetic component. Its frontal orifice was open, and the interior glowed slightly. The creature was straddling his line; Rondl had to flee forward. But the line continued down, with no crossing lines; this could mean trouble.
    The water creature pursued, propelling itself swiftly through the water by threshing its flukes. In this medium, it could move faster than Rondl could. Trouble, indeed!
    Was this a Kratch? No, it was a Trugd. Now his capricious memory yielded him such a detail—now that he had been trapped. Why couldn't his memory have had the simple courtesy to warn him before he descended to the point of dubious return?
    Rondl moved on down—and found an intersection whose other line led upward. But the Trugd was too close; it would catch him long before he reached the surface. He had to continue on down, seeking cover, some place the monster could not follow. Some place too small for it to pass.
    Now he was near the bottom of the lake/sea. There was almost no light; the contour of the land was obscure. The murk did not interfere with his perception of magnetism, but still he felt increasingly uneasy. He detected the minor metallic components of some plants or rooted animals; fortunately, they were not predators. He brushed past them, and so did the Trugd.
    Suddenly the monster caught up to him. Its huge glowing frontal orifice was set with sharp bits of bone: teeth. These teeth slammed together as Rondl hurled himself out of the way.
    Now he was off the line. No power was coming in. He had saved himself from immediate consumption, but he was fading. He became uncomfortably aware that too great a drain of bodily energy would cause him to disband, to die. Magnetic energy held his physical substance together; there had to be sufficient charge to keep, as the expression went, body and aura together.
    Yet the monster had control of the line. To return there was to be crunched. That would represent forced disbanding; in fact, that was what the monster sought. The sudden release of the metals and energy of