"That's all right," Larry said shortly. Now that he saw Xylon at really close range, he realized that the man was older than he had thought. His appearance of youth vanished when you saw the many fine wrinkles in his face and the weariness around his eyes. He had a dissolute appearance. Xylon might be sincere in his bid for friendship, but Larry felt that there was something serpentine and evil about the man. With Diana and her father and a few others, they walked along one of the many winding paths of Chotan. Larry noticed that the chemically grown plants had no scent at all. The motionless, warm air was suffused with a misty and golden light. Small, neat houses built in various bright colors stood amid their plots of grass. It was a strange scene to Earthly eyes, that cavern far below the Moon's chill surface, but it was a pleasant spot in its way. The women they passed along the walks were dressed like Diana, in a gayly colored loin-cloth with a narrow band across the breasts. Most of the men wore a loose, colored cloak in addition to the single garment. Only a few were armed. Larry had taken off the right mitten of his space suit to shake hands with Pyatt and Xylon in the council chamber. Several times he had started to replace the mitten, but something had always distracted him and he was still carrying it in his left hand. Now, as he happened to give the mitten a shake, a small insect of a blood-red color fell out and landed on the walk. It looked something like a miniature scorpion. Larry had only a hasty glimpse before Pyatt of Kagan leaped forward and crushed the crawling thing with the heavy sole of his sandal. "That was a _spanto_!" he said. "Their bite means death within ten seconds. I wonder how it came to be in your glove!" "I wonder myself!" Larry said grimly, looking across the field at the green-cloaked figure of Xylon, who had turned off on another of the branching walks. It would not have been hard for Xylon to have dropped the insect in his glove! As if in answer to his thought, Diana spoke quietly: "I do not trust Xylon any farther than I can see him, friend Larry! There is something unclean in his eyes when he looks at me." "If he looks at you too much while I'm here I'll break his jaw!" Larry said. The girl looked up at him with a sudden smile that was also a challenge. "I begin to understand why my father has always said that I would like the men from Earth better than the Lunarians!" XI