Beyond it lay a line of rust that might have been a sword at one time. Coiled over it was a heavy loop of thick plastic that ended in a group of wires, apparently of stainless steel. Each wire ended in a row of cutting points. It might have been a cross between a knout and a bolas. He had a vision of something alien and sinister coming at him with one of those, and shuddered. There was a ruin of rust and corroded parts further on that might have been a variation of a machine gun. Lenk started for it, to be stopped by a shout. "Hold it!" It was Jeremy's voice, and now the tank came around a corner, and headed toward him. "Stay put, Lenk. That thing may be booby-trapped. And we can't be sure here that there has been time enough to make it safe." Lenk shuddered again, and climbed in hastily as Jeremy held open the door. It was tight inside, but reasonably safe, since the tank had been designed for almost anything. Jeremy must have seen him leaving the ship and followed. But by noon they had abandoned the fear of booby-traps. Either there had never been any or time had drawn their stings. Lenk wandered through the section already roughly surveyed, and declared safe. He felt convinced the inhabitants of this world once had been more like men than most other races. They had been two-legged, with arms and heads in a human position on their upright bodies. Judging from the size of the furniture, they had been slightly larger than men but not enough to matter. The pictures on the walls were odd mostly for the greenish tints of the skin and the absence of outward noses or ears. With a little fixing and recoloring, they might have been _people_. He came to a room that had been sealed off, pried open the door, and went in. It smelled stale enough to indicate that it had been reasonably air-tight. Benches and chairs ran along one wall, and a heavy wooden table occupied the middle. On that were piled bits and pieces in a curious scramble. He studied them carefully--belts, obviously, buttons, the inevitable weapons, scraps of plastic material. A minute later, he was shouting for Jeremy over the little walkie-talkie. The xenologist appeared in less than five minutes. He stared about for a second, then grinned wryly. "Your first, eh? I've found a lot of them. Sure, those were corpses there once." He saw Lenk's expression, and shrugged. "Oh, you were right to call me. It proves we weren't crazy. Wood and some cloth still preserved, but no bones. I've got a collection of pictures like that." "A corrosive gas--" Lenk suggested. Jeremy shook his head vigorously. "No dice, Captain. See that belt? It's plant fiber--something like linen. No gas strong enough to eat up a body would leave that unharmed. And they had skeletons, too--we've found models in what must have been a museum. But we can't even find the fossil skeletons that should be there. Odd, though."