Once more they donned the protective suits and helmets. Lorine opened a locker, handed each of them an electro pistol. "I'll feel better with this," Jeffers said grimly, lifting a long duralloy cylinder with a lens-covered bore. "Radiant-gun," he explained. "Transforms matter into radiant energy, by an instantaneous stripping of electrons. Landreth used to have these at Io Base, but I worked out this smaller model myself." * * * * * They stepped down into soft, glutinous muck. Vision stopped five yards away. Curt expected the gloom to come alive with motion and sound and unseen terrors, but there was none of that here. A terrible quiet enfolded them. The matted-walled chasm seemed to extend interminably. They proceeded along it, finding their vision gradually improved. Curt hurried forward, stayed close beside the girl. "You mentioned something about a region where these--these Phibians wouldn't go. Did you ever find out why?" Lorine nodded. "They claimed that far in the Swamp was a god that spoke to them! They were afraid of it." "Spoke to them?" "Yes. With the voice that has no sound. Warning them back." Curt was startled. "The voice that has no sound. Telepathy! But it's strange we've felt nothing!" There was no sight or sound of a living thing, but hot blasts of wind from above brought a miasmic swamp odor. It became almost an opiate to their senses. Curt noticed the tangled walls on either side were beginning to widen away. And there was something else, as he felt his mind preternaturally alert despite the cloying odors. He imagined he felt the faintest thought-impression impinging on him, subtle and eerie, almost a feeling of being under surveillance. He glanced about at the others. They were feeling it too. Suddenly the loom of jungle broke. They emerged into a downward sloping place that seemed all swamp; a vast circular area black and quiescent, with jungle rising on all sides. Descending toward it, they noticed a vague glistening shape protruding just above the area of muck. "The spacer!" Tor Ekkov exclaimed. "Must be the one you saw, Emmons--it crashed here!" Curt peered closer, then shook his head. He pointed out greenish swamp tendrils entwining over and about the hull, mute evidence of time. "It's a spacer all right," Jeffers was taut with excitement. "It's the one Landreth boarded near Io, three years ago! By all that's holy, we've found it!" They could only make out the stern, but the very size of it indicated that the rest of the hull must be gigantic, far beneath the primordial ooze.