Her eyes kept searching above her. Now the dread silence that had followed, for an instant, after the piercing shriek of the dying _Gruoon_, seemed to affect her more than the sound had. She shook her head, her eyes lowering to look apprehensively about her, then back to the thick greyness above. She turned indecisively in several directions, took a few steps in one direction, then hesitated, turned in another; then abruptly and hysterically changed her previous course entirely and was running directly toward him. Yes, she was completely lost, and that was indeed a strange weakness in an organism. Only fifty _kimm_ away was the intricate machinery that had brought her here, and which sheltered more of her kind, including her lover whom she ached to see again. Incredible. And this SHIP mechanism full of her kind, aliens, were intending to remain here on his world! It was an amazing paradox. They intended to rely for their survival on a number of synthetic defense methods, constructed from basic elements and powered by various energy principles. This girl had just unsheathed such a device for her own protection--just now, long after the _Gruoon_ had attacked and died! If she had any inborn protective instincts at all, they were so weakened from lack of use or by heredity that only now had they gotten around to warning her. And these beings had mechanical detectors based somewhat on his organic equipment. But they were utterly inadequate to meet the predatory ferocity of his world. Why had these irrational creatures ventured from their own comparatively safe world to this? If they actually intended to remain, their chances of survival depended on almost immediate adaptation. But that would be impossible, of course. He watched her with a lonely and hungry eagerness. She had slowed her pace to a walk and had already begun edging unwittingly to the right in what would prove to be a long erratic circle leading away from the SHIP. But she would not go far, even on the wrong course. She was walking headlong and blindly into the silently waiting arms of the bloated, motionless _Trumask_. He waited, too, watching her. Somehow she seemed more a thing of beauty as she approached death. Death lent a sadness that added to her beauty a kind of poignancy. His eyes half-lidded dreamily as the full softness of the emotion flowed through him. The synthetic defensive mechanism was held out in front of her as she edged along. She was beautiful as she moved. And on this world of his, no warmth or softness of her kind could exist. It would die. On his world the only living thing that remotely suggested this girl from another planet to his hungry mind was the delicate soft petal of the _Minon_ blossom. But on close inspection of the unwary or forgetful, even this spit out a deadly white venom. He slid his long writhing length, slithering soundlessly between the _Trumask_ and the girl. * * * * *