On the way back to the ship, I formulated all sorts of theories to explain the creature. It was a monster out of subspace, generated by etheric force; it was a radiation-creature without tangible physical body; it was-- I had half a dozen conjectures, each as unlikely as the next. But we returned to the ship safely, without any trouble whatever. I was sure of one thing: the creature was real, no matter what hell-void had spawned it. * * * * * When we returned, I saw the tense faces of the men in the ship ease. "All right," Donaldson said. "We've both been out there and come back. I say we ought to investigate this place fully. There's been a high-level civilization here at one time, and--" "Suppose it's this monster that killed off that civilization?" Forster suggested. "Then it's our duty to investigate it," I had to say. "Even at the cost of our lives." Here I agreed with Donaldson; monster or no, it was our job to fathom the secrets of this dead world. We agreed to explore in twos, rather than risk the customary complement of six all at once. Two men would go out; five remain within, three of them space-suited and ready to leave the ship to answer any emergency call. Mickens and Forster drew the first assignment. They suited up and left. Tensely, we proceeded about our shipside duties, cataloguing information from our previous stops, performing routine tasks, busying ourselves desperately in unimportant work to take our minds off the men who were out on that desert together. An hour later, Forster returned. Alone. His face was pale, his eyes bulging, and almost before he stepped from the airlock we knew what must have happened. "Where's Mickens?" I asked, breaking the terrible hush in the cabin. "Dead," he said hollowly. "We--we got to the mountain, and--God, it was awful!" He sank down in an acceleration cradle and started to sob. Doc Graves fumbled at his belt, drew out a neurotab, forced it between the boy's quivering lips. He calmed; color returned to his face. "Tell us about it," Hamner urged gently. "We reached the back end of the plain, and Leo suggested we try the mountain. He thought he saw a sort of cave somewhere back in there, and wanted to have a look. We had to go over that sharp rock shelf to get in there. "So we started to scale the cliff. We were about a hundred feet up, and going along a path maybe four feet wide, when--when--" He shuddered, then forced himself to go on. "The monster appeared. It popped out of nowhere right in front of Leo. He was taken by surprise and toppled over the edge. I managed to hang on." "Were you attacked?" I asked. "No. It vanished, right after Leo fell off. I went down to look at him. His facemask had broken. I left him there."