The flat, wide-tracked vehicle swerved in a tight arc, throwing up low ruby-colored clouds on either side. Its engines throbbed a new note of power, and it scuttled in a straight line across the desert floor like a fleck of shiny metal drawn by an unseen magnet. Behind it rose a thinning monument of green-black smoke, and between its tracks was a wavering line of indentations in the sand already half-obliterated by the weight of their own shallow walls. But they became deeper as the vehicle raced ahead; and then at length they ended, and the vehicle halted. There was a mound of sand that the winds, in their caprice, would not have made alone, for they sculptured in a freer symmetry. And the child-like figures seemed to realize that at once. With quick precision they levelled the mound and found Johnny Love. They took him into their vehicle, and deftly matched and replenished the waning gas mixture in the cylindrical tanks on his back. Then they drove away with him. * * * * * "Ferris?" "Ferris was your astrogeologer-navigator. He died when you crashed." "Harrison ... _Janes_?" "Harrison and Janes are not due for nine more days. But you are in no danger." There was darkness and warmth; his throat was dry and it burned. It was hard to talk, and Ferris was dead. Harrison and Janes were not due for nine more days. Somebody said so. Nine more days and then everything would be-- Panic shook him, sent blood throbbing to his head and brought consciousness back hard. His eyes opened and he was suddenly sitting bolt upright. "But Lamson, you were twenty days behind--" And the racing thought froze solid in his fumbling brain. Then there was a torrent of thoughts and memory overran them, buried them, and red desert was rushing up to engulf him. He screamed and fell back with his hands clawing at his eyes. "You are in no danger. You had thought our planet lifeless; it was an error. We live underground, John Love. That is why you did not see us, or surface indications of our existence. A group of us speak your language, because for eleven days we have been studying your brain and analyzing your thought-patterns." Johnny was bolt upright again, and now his eyes were wide and his hands were knotted, and where there had been only light and shadow before there was full sight now. Swiftly he was off the low cot and on his feet looking for the speaker, arms ready to lash out and hit. But he was alone in the small, sterile-looking chamber, and his muscles were so much excess baggage. He tried to recover his balance: he had forgotten about the slight gravity. He tried too hard, and his body crashed, confused, into a wall. A--damn them, a _padded_ wall! He regained his feet. Stood still, and raced his eyes about him. There it was--above the cot. A small round, shuttered opening--some sort of two-way communication system. He wondered if they could see him, too. If they could, that part of it worked only one way.