"We made our landing on the ledge of a gigantic basin that might once have been the container for a vast ocean. Gi-Linn, our ship's scientist, was convinced by the configuration of its floor that the planet had once been blessed with water, air, and in all probability, some form of life. He speculated that the vanished ocean might have once teemed with creatures as those we discovered on Vosa. He was doubtful, however, that life forms had become more advanced than Vosa's. Gi-Linn has a way of leaping to conclusions, a smug fellow. I was pleased to see him proved wrong. * * * * * "We skedded across this dry ocean floor a distance of some two to three thousand amfions, and found its peaks and valleys marvelous to behold but utterly devoid of vegetation. Gi-Linn made some cursory examinations of mineral specimens during our flight, and reported that the planet's crust was an astonishing mixture of various layers, ranging in geological age from millions of years to mere thousands. It was further evidence that this world hadn't always been a barren rock, that a cataclysmic volcanic upheaval had altered its terrain, sifted and blended its strata, had dried its oceans and swallowed its continents. For the first time, we began to look upon this particular planet with more than routine interest. "And then we saw it. "At first, Totin, our navigator, swore it was only an optical trick, an illusion of the sort we had encountered on other worlds. Once, on a planet in the Casserian system, we had each of us seen a herd of cattle grazing peacefully in a green field--this on a planet of interminable yellow dust. But there was nothing dreamlike about the great metallic ruin that came into our sight, this giant who seemed to lift its shattered arm to us in greeting. "I have seen terrors, and beasts, and horrors of the flesh, but I tell you now that never before have I experienced such a pounding of the heart as when that alien monument came into view. For not only was it plainly a remnant of a forgotten civilization, the first we had ever found, but it was also apparent that the ancients who had lived--and died--on this world had been cut from the same evolutionary cloth as we of Illyri. "The figure was that of a woman." Devia, who had been listening open-mouthed, said: "A woman! Deez, how thrilling! It's like some marvelous old fable--" "She stood some ninety amfs high," Deez said, "buried to the shoulder in the arid soil of the planet. Her right arm was extended towards the heavens, and clutched within her hand was a torch plainly meant to symbolize the shedding of light. Her headpiece was a crown of spikes, her features noble and filled with sadness. She was blackened with the grime of centuries, battered by time, and yet still wonderfully preserved in the airless atmosphere.