But the painting didn't fit. Nevin wasn't an artist. He was a biologist, scarcely second to Darling. The message of three years before had been a phony, then. There were men still on the planet. And that meant, West told himself bitterly, that his own plan had gone awry. For Pluto was the only place in the Solar System where there would be food and shelter and to which no one would ever come. He remembered how he had planned it all so carefully ... how it had seemed a perfect answer. There would be many years' supply of food stacked in the storerooms, there would be comfortable living quarters, and there would be tools and equipment should he ever need them. And, of course, the Thing, whatever it might be. The horror that had closed the planet, that had set the space patrol to guard the planet's loneliness. But West had never been too concerned with what he might find on Pluto, for whatever it might be, it could be no worse than the bitterness that was his on Earth. There was something going on at the Pluto laboratories. Something that the government didn't know about or that the government had suppressed along with that now infamous report of three years before. Something that Darling could have told him had he wanted to ... or had he been able. But now Walter J. Darling was past all telling. West would have to find out by himself. West stepped to where he lay, lifted him to the cot and covered him with a tattered blanket. Perched on the cot head, Annabelle chattered and giggled and drooled. "Come here, you," said West. "Come on over here." Annabelle came, slowly and coyly. West lifted her squeamishly, thrust her into an outer pocket and zipped it shut. He started toward the doorway. On the way out he picked the empty bottle from the floor, added it to the pyramid outside. CHAPTER TWO The White Singer West's craft fled like a silvery shadow between the towering mountain peaks shielding the only valley on Pluto that had ever known the tread of Man. Coasting in on silent motors in the shadow of the planet, he had eluded the patrol. Beyond the mountains he had thrown in the motors, had braked the plunging ship almost to a crawl, taking the chance the flare of the rockets might be seen by any of the patrol far out in space. And now, speed reduced, dropping in a long slant toward the glass-smooth landing field, he huddled over the controls, keyed to a free-fall landing, always dangerous at best. But it would be as dangerous, he sensed, to advertise his coming with another rocket blast. The field was long and smooth. If he hit it right and not too far out, there would be plenty of room. The almost nonexistent atmosphere was a point in favor. There were no eddies, no currents of air to deflect the ship, send it into a spin or a dangerous wobble. Off to the right he caught a flash of light and his mind clicked the split-second answer that it must be the laboratory.