It was silent. His headache seemed to be affecting his vision, somehow. Either that or the landing pad wasn't cool yet. When he looked toward the--toward the white formations at the edge of the pad, they seemed to waver slightly near the ground. Heat waves still, he decided. Nimbly, and with a pleasant sense of being home again, he scrambled down the ladder and stood on the ground, tiny beneath the clumsy shape of _Phoenix I_. About halfway between the edge of the pad and his ship stood a tiny cluster of thin, upright poles. From their bases he could see black, snakelike cables twisting off toward the edge, shifting in his uncertain vision. He walked toward them. The silence was so complete it was unnatural. It was almost as if his ears were plugged, rather than the simple absence of sound. Well, he supposed that was natural, after all. He had lived with the buzzing purr of the Skipdrive and the thunder of the rockets so long, any silence would seem abnormal. As he drew closer to the upright rods, he saw each one was topped with a bulge, a vaguely familiar.... They were microphones! They were just like the microphone in _Phoenix I_, the one he had fooled with. He was sincerely puzzled. All that transmit-receive gadgetry in the ship had been foolish, but what was he to think of finding it here on his landing pad? It didn't make any sense. He was getting the uneasy sense of confusion again. The headache was becoming almost unbearable. He walked over to the cluster of microphones. That was probably the place to start. He took the neck of one in his hand and pulled it, but it didn't move smoothly, as the one on his control chair had. It simply tipped awkwardly toward him. Suddenly he felt something on his shoulder, and looked around quickly, but could see nothing. The pressure on his shoulder remained, and he vaguely brushed at it with his hand. It went away. He set the microphone back upright and looked back at his ship. There was another pressure on his opposite shoulder, sudden and harder than the first had been. He slapped at it, and stepped back, uncertainly. One of the microphones tipped toward him, but he hadn't touched it. He took another step backwards, and felt something close tightly around his left arm. He snapped his head to the left, but there was nothing there. He twisted sharply away to the right, and the motion freed him, but his shoulder hit something solid. He gasped, and his throat tightened again. He raised his hand to his head. The headache was getting worse all the time. Something touched him on the back. He spun, crouching. Nothing. He stood straight again, his eyes wide, panting from the fear that was beginning to choke him. His fists clenched and unclenched as he tried to puzzle out what was happening to him. The air closed abruptly around both arms simultaneously, gripping so tightly it hurt.