He shouted and twisted loose and started to run back toward the ship. He stumbled against an invisible something, fell against another, but it kept him upright and prevented his falling. Several times as he ran, things he could not see brushed him, touched him on the shoulders and back. By the time he scrambled up the ladder, his breath was short, and coming in little whimpers. The headache was the greatest pain he thought he could ever have known, and he wondered if he were dying. He had to kick at invisible things that clutched at his feet on the ladder, and when he reached the edge of the port he stood kicking and flailing at nothing until he was certain none of the--creatures, things were there. He shut the port swiftly and ran breathlessly up to the control room. He threw himself into the padded chair. Finally he lowered his head into his hands and began to weep. 2. Night. The land turned gray and silver and white under the chill light of the rising moon. The buildings of Gila Lake Base IV were sharp and distinct, glowing faintly in the moonlight as if lit somehow inside the concrete walls. On the landing pad, _Phoenix I_ squatted darkly, clumsily. The moon washed its bulbous flanks with cascading light that flowed down the long surfaces of the hull and disappeared into the absorbent blackness without trace. Tiny prickling reflections of stars glinted from the once-polished metal. At the edges of the Base, where wire meshes stretched up out of the desert dividing the things of the desert from the things of men, nervous patrols paced forlornly in the night. One of the blockhouses at the inner edge of the landing area presented two yellow rectangles of windows to the night. Inside the blockhouse were two men, talking. One of the men was in uniform, and his collar held the discreet star-and-comet of a staff officer, SpaServ. He was young for his rank, perhaps in his early forties, with gray eyes that now were harried. He sat on the edge of his desk regarding the other man. The second of the two was a civilian. He was slumped in an oddly incongruous overstuffed chair, with his legs stretched out straight before him. He held the bowl of an unlit pipe in both hands and sucked morosely on the stem as the SpaServ brigadier talked. He was slightly younger than the other, but his hair was beginning to thin at the temples. He had sharp blue eyes that regarded the tips of his shoes without apparent interest. Colin Meany was his name, and he was a psychiatrist. Finally General Banning finished his account of the afternoon, raised his hands in a shrug, and said, "That's it. That's all we have." Colin Meany took his pipe out of his mouth and regarded the tooth-marked bit curiously. He shoved it in his coat pocket and walked over to the window, looking out across the moon-flooded flat to the looming, ominous shape of _Phoenix I_. He stood with his hands clasped behind him, rocking gently back and forth on his toes.