by harmful conditions. They didn't all go away. Some had already become victims of the danger... a chemical constituent in either the air or the water here which, after a few generations, makes the human body evolve toward smallness.'
Varren shook his head. 'Poor little beggars. They couldn't tell me that but I could guess it from the few scraps of legend they did tell me. It's my guess that they mutated toward that semi-transparency as a camouflage defense against other creatures here.'
Gordon shivered. There was beauty and wonder in the stars, but there was also horror.
'One thing I learned.' Varren added. 'They're terribly afraid of something out there in the west. I got that out of them, but no more.'
When they went back to the ship, it was the last statement that interested Hull Burrel the most.
'It checks,' he said. 'We've been making a sweep with the sub-spectrum radar and it definitely showed large metal constructions several hundred miles to the west. On this world, that can only be the place we're looking for.'
The Antarian thought for a little, then said decisively, 'We'd never make that distance on foot. We'll have to wait until night and move the ship closer. If we hug the treetops, it might fool their radar.'
Night on Aar was a heavy darkness, for this world had no moon. The phantom purred along over foliage glistening in the light of the stars, the scattered, lonesome stars of the Marches. Hull Burrel had the controls. Gordon stood quiet and watched through the viewer-window.
He thought he saw something, finally, something far ahead that glinted a dull reflection of the starlight. He started to speak, but Hull nodded.
'I caught it. We'll go down.'
Gordon waited. Instead of going down at once, the little ship slipped onward, he supposed in search for a clear opening for descent into the forest.
He put his eye to the 'scope and peered. The glint of metal ahead sprang closer, and now he could see that the vague metal bulks were the buildings of a small city. There were domes, streets, walls. But there was not a single light there, and he could see that long ago the forest had come into this city's streets, and its ways were choked with foliage. Without doubt, this would have been a center of that tragically doomed colony of many centuries ago.
But there were a few hooded lights beyond the city. He touched the 'scope adjustment. He could see little, but it appeared that the old spaceport of the dead city had lain beyond it, a dark flat surface that the forest had not yet been able to overwhelm.
Gordon could just descry the glint and shape of a few ships parked there. They were small Class Five starships, not much bigger than the phantom scout. But there was one ship that had something queer about its outlines.
He turned to say so to Hull Burrel, and as his eye left the 'scope, he saw that their craft was still gliding straight forward and had not begun to descend.
Gordon exclaimed, 'What are you doing? Do you figure to land at their front door?'
The Antarian did not answer. Gordon took hold of his arm. Hull Burrel yanked it free and knocked Gordon sprawling.
But in that moment, Gordon had seen Hull's face. It was stony, immobile, the eyes vacant of all emotion or perception. In a flash, Gordon knew.
He bunched himself and launched in a desperate spring at the Antarian. He knocked Hull away from the controls, but not before the Antarian had managed to give them a hard yank in his desperate attempt to cling to them. The phantom scout stood suddenly on its head and then dived straight down through the foliage.
Gordon felt the metal wall slap him across the temple, and then there was only darkness in which he fell and fell.
11
In the darkness Gordon heard the voice of a dead man speaking.
Whose voice was it? Gordon's pain-racked brain could not remember. Then how did he know that it was the voice of a dead man? He did not know how he knew, but he was sure that the man who spoke had died.
He must open his eyes and see who it was that spoke after death. He made an effort. And with the effort, the pain and blackness rolled back across his mind more strongly than before and he did not know anything.
When he finally awoke, he felt that it was much later. He also felt that he had one of the biggest headaches in galactic history.
He did get his eyes open this time. He was in a small metal room with a solid metal door. There was a very tiny window with bars, and orange sunlight slanting through them.
Across the room from him, Hull Burrel sprawled like one dead.
Gordon got to his feet. for a while he stood perfectly still, hoping that he was not going to fall. Then he moved painfully to the Antarian and knelt beside him.
Hull had a bruise on his chin, but no other perceptible injuries. Yet he lay like a man in deathly coma, his coppery face no longer like the side of a rough rock but gone all slack and sagging. His eyes were closed, but his mouth was open and spittle dribbled from it.
Gordon took him by the shoulders and said, 'Hull,' and all of a sudden the living log turned into a maddened wildcat. Hull scrambled up, thrusting Gordon away, glaring at him as if he were an attacking enemy.
Gradually Hull's eyes cleared. His muscles relaxed. He stared stupidly at Gordon and said. 'What's the devil's the matter with me?'
'You were slugged,' said Gordon. 'Not with a club, but with mental force. You were taken under control when we were nearing this place.'
'This place?' Hull Burrel looked around, at the small, dusty metal room. 'I don't remember,' he muttered. 'This looks like a prison.'
Gordon nodded. 'We're in the dead town of the old colonists. And you can't have a town without a jail.'
His head ached. And more than his head was hurt. His pride was severely bruised. He said, 'Hull, I was a sort of hero back in that other time, when I lived in Zarth Arn's body... wasn't I?'
Hull stared. 'You were. But what...'
'I was going to be a hero all over again,' said Gordon bitterly. 'To show that I could be good as John Gordon, too. I've done fine haven't I? Throon, Lianna... they'll be proud of me.'
'You weren't leading this mission, I was,' growled Hull Burrel. 'It was I who fell on my face.' He went to the little window and looked at the street choked with golden foliage. He turned around, his brows knitted. 'Mental force, you said. Then there must be one of those damned Magellanians here.'
Gordon shrugged. 'Who else could do a thing like that? We've been taken like children. They were sitting here waiting for us.'
Hull suddenly shouted loudly. 'Varren! Kano... Rann. . . are you here?'
There was no answer from the crewmen whose names he had shouted.
'Wherever they are, they're not within earshot,' muttered Hull, plainly worried. 'What next?'
'Next, we wait,' said Gordon.
They waited for more than an hour. Then the door opened without warning. Outside it stood a supercilious young man whose black uniform bore in silver the design of the Mace.
'The Count Cyn Cryver will see you now,' said the young man. 'You can walk, or be dragged.'
'All right, we'll walk,' said Gordon. 'I've enough headache already.'
They walked out into the hot sunlight, and along a street that had once been wide. But time and weather had cracked its pavement and seeds had lodged to grow into the feathery trees, so that now it was more like following a path in a forest.
The corroded metal fronts of buildings showed through the foliage, silent and dead. And Gordon glimpsed a statue, the figure of a man in space dress, looking proudly down from the middle of the street. It would be, he
