As if awaiting the completion of the final step in his long journey to destiny, Jandro watched the stars swing past the field of his vision as the Lavoisier turned sharply to get into the shadow of the planet to prevent observation by the fleet.

Underwood watched the alien individual, trying to fathom the mystery of Jandro and his people. What was the truth about their myth of a fall from Heaven World, which Jandro admitted he did not believe? How had the strange mass of flesh originated, from which they perpetuated the unknown organs within their own bodies? Underwood wondered if Illia were right, if it were the harnessing of some cancerous mutation that had occurred long ago in some forgotten individual and perfected for the whole race.

Most important of all, could Jandro and his people have any bearing on the problem that had brought the scientists across the vastness of space?

To Underwood it seemed unlikely. They had come in search of a strange and deadly weapon, hinted at only in scant records half a million years old. Jandro's people knew nothing of the vast techniques of producing metallic instruments and equipment. They were wizards in glass technology, and in surgery, but it was doubtful if they even knew of the existence of electricity.

The journey was only a matter of hours from the moon to the planet, but it seemed the longest part of the trip to the scientists who crowded about the scanning plates turned up to their highest sensitivity.

From a quarter of a million miles away, the faint details of the ancient cities began to be recognizable on the large screens. The sharpness with which they were revealed was awe-inspiring, for the airless world permitted perfect clarity of vision, and there had been none of the ceaseless winds that were quick to hide the works of man on other planets beneath dunes of sand. Here it looked as if the inhabitants had made a quick, orderly exodus only yesterday, leaving the vast cities for whoever might want them.

Phyfe was ecstatic at the sight. "The archeologists' dream," he said. "The perfect preservation of an ancient civilization."

"I can't see how the atmosphere was destroyed without considerable effect all over the planet," said Underwood. "It doesn't seem possible. Wait—there it is!"

On the horizon of the world appeared a vast scar that looked as if it encompassed at least an eighth of the planet's surface. It looked relatively shallow, though they knew it must be miles deep at the center, as if a searing torch had been touched at that one spot in a great blaze that consumed all the gases in the planet's atmosphere. For hundreds of miles around, the cities and plains showed evidence now of the destruction. It was only on the opposite side of the planet that the works of the ancient inhabitants had escaped.

"That's what did it," said Underwood. "I've got an idea that we'll find actually few cities without considerable damage, but this is more than I hoped for. If there is evidence of the weapon here, we may be able to find it yet."

They circled the planet out of sight of the departing fleet, taking scores of pictures of the remains below for future study. At a point farthest removed from the center of destruction lay one of the largest of the undamaged cities. It was nearly five hundred square miles in area, and almost in the center of it was an area that looked as if it had been a landing for ships. There, Underwood ordered the Lavoisier brought down upon the surface of the Dragboran world.

Under their predetermined plan, Phyfe was now given charge of their archeological activities. He had already outlined the method of procedure. They would move outward in small groups, mapping the city as they went. Their initial goals would be libraries and laboratories, for their first task was to obtain command of the Dragboran language.

As Jandro looked out upon the barren planet, his face displayed its first sign of emotion. He stared at the deserted ruins and his lips moved.

"Heaven World!" he murmured.

Dreyer came up behind him. "It was just a world where men lived," he said. "Something happened a long time ago that made it unfit for your people to live here. Some few of them apparently escaped to the moon and carried on your civilization. That is what is behind your legends of Heaven World."

Jandro nodded slowly. "And it means that we can never possess our world again. I had thought that I would lead my people back here, be the first to reclaim my heritage—and there is nothing to reclaim. Forever, we shall remain in our barren moon of glass while only the ghosts of the gods possess our metal Heaven World!"

"You don't believe in the gods, and less in their ghosts," Dreyer reminded him bluntly.

Jandro remained facing the port without speaking.

Dreyer continued, "Your people would never have followed you here even if the planet had been all that you dreamed. You know that, don't you?"

Jandro whirled, startled, as if Dreyer had been reading his mind. Dreyer pretended not to notice.

"In every civilization there are those who dream of better things for themselves and their world. Would it help if I told you that of all the worlds and peoples that men have found in their wanderings in the void, there are none as highly civilized as yours?"

"A world of bits of glass?"

"A world where the perfection of the individual is the most urgent community enterprise. But you know all of that. Let's go out and see what your Heaven World was like when your people lived here."

Clad in spacesuits, the Earthmen began to pour out of the ship. Phyfe and Underwood directed the dispersal of the small exploring groups who were to move radially in all directions. Though few were trained in the methods of archeology, they understood their objectives well enough to assist in the preliminary identification of specialized centers and in gathering information.

One by one, the groups left the scooters soaring into the sky like bees swarming from a hive. Underwood chose to remain near the landing area with Phyfe and Terry and Dreyer. Illia and Jandro also were part of this group, which were to explore the buildings in the immediate vicinity of the landing area.

Underwood was curious about the thoughts passing through the mind of the stranger as he viewed for the first time the long-dead remains of Heaven World. Here, where there should have been sunlight and gardens and life, there was only the mad contrast of blindingly bright planes and shadows of terrifying darkness, out of which the ghosts of the half-million-year-old dead might suddenly rise.

But since stepping out of the ship in the hastily modified suit that hardly accommodated his bulk, Jandro's face had taken on a look of inquiry and expression of expectancy, as if waiting for the Earthmen to do something, yet not quite understanding their delay.

Underwood was impressed by this curious expectancy, but there were too many other things to be concerned with at the moment. He drew the attention of the others toward an edifice that reared at least two thousand feet into the sky a mile beyond the landing area, but which was connected with it by a long road or ramp.

"Let's have a look at that," he suggested.

Jandro opened his lips hesitantly as if to speak, then suddenly closed them tightly and a new and dreadful expression came upon his face. Underwood was mystified, but dismissed the puzzle from his mind.

His eyes were upon the great structure that loomed just ahead. He soared up around it. Nowhere were there windows or other openings in the heights of the vast, featureless walls.

He dropped back to ground level and found his companions at the edge of the enormous ramp leading down into the depths beneath the building.

He noticed there were only four of them. "Where did Jandro go?"

Terry glanced quickly about. "I thought he was with you."

"No. He probably went after something that looked familiar to him. I guess he can't get lost. The ship is obvious enough out there in the center of the field. Shall we see what's down here?"

Dreyer pointed toward a track leading from the depths. "It's possible this is an underground hangar for their vessels, perhaps an embarkation station, from which the ships were towed to the takeoff area."

Underwood touched the controls of his scooter and led the way down the decline, a scant few feet above its surface. In the field illuminated by the spotlight of the scooter, he could see that the opening at the bottom was close to a hundred and fifty feet in diameter.

The others followed cautiously down the long slope. At the bottom they paused, glancing back, estimating their distance under the great building above. Then Underwood led the way slowly forward into the darkness of the ancient terminal.

Suddenly, in the glare of his light, distant metallic facets reflected the gleam. He went forward swiftly, swinging the light about. Then he realized they were already in the center of a double row of metallic walls.

He focused the light more sharply.

"Ships!" he exclaimed. "You were right, Dreyer. They couldn't be anything else."

The hangar was filled with row on row of the monstrous vessels, towering ellipsoidal shapes whose crowns were lost in the gloom that was more desolate than the absolute darkness. But the long shining hulls looked as if ready for flight on an instant's notice.

The Earthmen dismounted from the scooters and headed for the nearest ship, eyes searching for a port.

"These are wonderful finds from an archeological standpoint," said Terry, "but they're not likely to contain our weapon because they seem to be strictly commercial vessels rather than warships."

"We can't know," said Underwood. "If there was such a state of Galactic unrest as the conflict between the Sirenians and the Dragbora indicates, it might have been that all commercial ships were armed."

"Is that a hatchway?" said Phyfe, pointing suddenly upward.

Underwood stared in the direction of the beam from the archeologist's flashlight. As he did so, a score of beams flashed upon them from all parts of the terminal. Running figures could be seen dimly in the side reflections.

The Earthmen whirled about in astonishment and sudden fear. They started for the scooters on a run, then stopped short.

A voice rang harshly in their ears. "Halt and disarm in the name of Demarzule, the Great One!"

The enormity of their blunder broke upon them simultaneously with all its mind-crushing force. They had imagined every possible contingency—except that of a garrison left upon the planet by the Terrestrian fleet.

Once again they had underestimated Demarzule!

Underwood called suddenly into his microphone, turning up the power to reach the other groups of explorers and those yet at the ship. "Underwood calling. We're attacked by Demarzule's garrison. Defend—"

A laugh cut him off. "They would like to defend, no doubt, but the rest of them are as helpless as you are. Do you suppose that you could outwit the all-knowing mind of the Great One? He will be pleased to see those who dared match wits with him. He will be even more pleased with his servants for returning you."

Underwood could not see the speaker because the ring of lights blinded them, but now one of the spacesuited figures stepped forward into the light of the other lamps and gestured imperiously.

"Back to your ship!" he commanded. "We will return to Earth at once, as soon as all of you are rounded up. Don't think of escape. We outnumber you ten to one in this city, and those of us who stood guard in other places will join us. Our fleet has been notified already of our success and they will return immediately to escort us back."

There was no identifying the voice of the speaker as other than Terrestrian, but there was something in it that none of their semantically trained minds had ever heard before, something that chilled and terrified the sensitive Dreyer.

Underwood sensed it, and his mind struggled to evaluate its implications. The voice was that of one who has seen a great and mighty destiny for himself and his race, all the more shining because unrestricted by reality. And in that great and illusory dream, all creatures other than himself and his chosen god sank into insignificance.

It was the voice and the dream of a madman.

None of the others spoke, but they remained like diligent herdsmen as the scientists were forced to walk back up the long incline, leaving the scooters behind.

Out on the surface again, they saw that there were at least two dozen of the Great One's Disciples, indistinguishable in space garb. They had planned with obvious care, doubtless with maps provided by Demarzule, placing units of their garrison at strategic points where the scientists would be most likely to explore first.

Underwood hoped that perhaps some of the other groups had had better luck than his, but it was unlikely, for the scientists had been totally unprepared for attack. When the fleet had been seen retreating into space, they had assumed that threat from that quarter had vanished with it.

They marched slowly between the black and shining planes of the city's walls toward the Lavoisier, and as they moved they saw other groups of the scientists being led back from the opposite side of the landing area.

The ship had already been taken over. That hadn't been difficult, Underwood supposed. Any approaching figures would have been taken for some of the scientists returning. Inside the ship, when the invaders burst from the airlocks, weapons ready, the scientists would have had little chance.

Underwood and his group were led into the lock and followed by four of their captors with readied weapons. The scientists were ordered out of the spacesuits. When the lock was opened, they were turned over to others who were waiting for them inside the ship. Their original captors returned to the outside.

Underwood's eyes searched the faces of those who had taken over the ship, as if for some sign of the superiority by which the scientists had been trapped, but there was nothing in those faces, only the light of fanaticism shining dimly in the eyes.

Underwood felt sick as he watched Illia led away to be imprisoned in her own stateroom. The men were herded together into another room, and the sound of the locking door was like the final blow to all their hopes.

For moments they looked at each other in silence. At last Terry grinned bleakly. "It looks as if we missed the boat this time, doesn't it? Even if we could find the way out of this rat trap, there are the battleships of the fleet on their way here."

Sound came dimly from other parts of the ship, but the men could identify none of them. They supposed that the other groups were being rounded up and imprisoned. The whole thing had been worked out as if with foreknowledge of their movements. Underwood wondered if Demarzule didn't almost possess such powers.

He crossed to a chair in the corner of the room and sat down to try to think. His thoughts only went around in circles that seemed to grow smaller and smaller until he could concentrate on only the one inescapable fact of their imprisonment.

He wondered what was passing through the minds of the others. Phyfe, slumped upon a bunk, seemed to have been abandoned by the fierce, bright spirit that had carried him along this far in the face of their obstacles. Terry was squirming restlessly. Dreyer sat heavily in the opposite corner from Underwood, a cloud from his cigar almost obscuring him from view.

But there were deep lines in Dreyer's forehead and his face bore a fierce desolation that Underwood had never seen there before—as though all Dreyer's own personal gods had fled at once.

Underwood knew that Dreyer's mind must be wrestling more with the problem of responsibility for their failure rather than with the problem of escape. To the semanticist it would be important to determine whether the men or their science had failed. He had probably eliminated the problem of their escape by evaluating it as impossible.

While his thoughts revolved in endless procession, Underwood's senses became more acutely aware of the scores of sounds carried by the metallic walls and framework of the ship. He found himself straining to identify and separate the sounds.

There was one that persisted above all the others, but it was not the scrape of feet against steel floors, nor the bumping of closing and opening ports. Rather, it was the sound of a voice, so distant as to be scarcely audible.

It tapped at the threshold of his consciousness for minutes before he admitted it was more than imagination. He turned his eyes toward one after the other of his companions, wondering if they had heard it. Then for the first time he distinguished words.

"Men of Earth," the faint voice called.

Underwood stood up suddenly. Terry jerked his head about. "You heard it, too?" he asked.

Underwood nodded. "I could have sworn someone was in this room talking. Listen, now—it's getting louder."

While they stared at each other questioningly, there came a sudden wavering of light in the center of the room. They glanced at the illumination panel, but nothing was wrong there. Still the distortion of light in their midst took on vague shape. It wavered and writhed, as if it were an image on a sheet being tossed in the wind. Then it assumed questionable solidity.

It was human in form, taller than a man and copper-skinned.

"Jandro!" Underwood exclaimed.

The image faded and wavered again.

"How can it be?" murmured Phyfe.

The image was not a thing of reality, Underwood knew. It was no more than conjuration within their own brains, yet the experience appeared identical to all of them. That Jandro was in some strange manner communicating with them, Underwood had no doubt, but the means were utterly beyond comprehension.

"I do not know whether you can hear me or not," the voice of Jandro spoke in their minds. "Listen to me if you can. I see and hear you, and your actions indicate you are aware of my presence. I am communicating by means of the abasic senses. I know now that you neither possess nor understand the abasic organs. It had puzzled me that you did not use them.

"What you are or who you are, I cannot guess. You are not men, of course, for men cannot live without the abasa. Proof that you did not possess it was provided when you allowed yourselves to be trapped and captured. I could not understand it, for I perceived your enemies the instant your ship touched the surface of the planet.

"Our ancient myths and legends speak of creatures such as you, animals who could survive without the abasa, but never were they spoken of as having the intelligence you display. Whatever you have done, you have dispelled our one great legend—not only is metal not reserved for the non-existent gods, it is also permitted to such creatures as you.

"Therefore, I will bargain with you. I will teach my people to know and value the ancient science and the metal culture that they have been denied. You will help me in exchange for my help in overpowering your enemies. Are you willing to do that?"

"Where are you? How can you do this?" Underwood demanded.

"You can understand the thoughts that I speak, but I cannot understand your language." Jandro said.

"There's only one answer," Dreyer said to his companions. "Is it agreeable to all of us?"

The others nodded, and Dreyer spoke quickly in Jandro's tongue. "We will do whatever is in our power."

"I feel that you are sufficiently intelligent to keep your word," said Jandro. "When one of your enemies next enters the room, I will overpower him and you will be free to seize his weapon and to leave. I will be with you later, though you do not see me. I will visit the others now."

The image and the voice were suddenly gone, and the four men looked at each other as if awakening from a dream that they had miraculously shared.

"So the organs they graft in give them telepathic powers," said Terry. "It's funny he didn't get wise to us from the very first when we used spoken language all the time. Or was he reading our minds?"

"No, he wasn't, and can't," said Phyfe. "Recall his words that he had to have us speak in his own language in order for him to receive communication from us here. It would suggest that one faculty was used in impressing our minds with his message, and another was used in detecting our speech. As for our using spoken language at first, he probably allowed for it because we were strangers and gave us the prerogative of selecting our own medium of communication. Do you agree, Dreyer?"

The semanticist nodded. "I think we have witnessed at least two separate functions of the organs grafted into Jandro. And I would suggest that we are about to witness still another if he is able to keep his promise of overpowering the next Disciple to enter our room. Also, do not forget the semantic implications of the abasa to Jandro. He is a man and we are lower animals to his way of thinking. It may not ever be possible to alter that view. We should act accordingly."

There was a moment of silence, then they grew tense with expectancy as the sound of the door lock clicked in the silence and one of the Disciples entered the room.

He stood in the doorway surveying them, a middle-aged man, erect of bearing, obviously a professional militarist. He said stiffly, "In the name of the Great One you are ordered to appear before the Commander for questioning. You will come at—."

A sudden glassy stare crept into his eyes, and a look of intolerable agony flashed across his face. His stiffened, arrogant form stood in utter lifelessness. Then, slowly, it crashed to the floor.