It came to him with something of a shock that he was thinking rationally once more. His mind was completely clear. He felt ashamed of the foolish, groundless terror that had unnerved him in the ravine. He tried to understand what had happened to him but it was beyond analysis. In retrospect he realized that the danger had been less than what he faced on any normal day in the Air-Command emergency maintenance service. The only logical explanation was the food they had given him. It must have been heavily drugged with a new poison known to the Vininese. Dirrul was tempted to go back and rescue Glenna, if she were still alive after the torture to which she had been subjected. But he knew it was more important for him to contact Vininese Headquarters first. He had a message to deliver. Glenna herself would have wanted that. In two hours Dirrul was on the plain again. All the suffering of the past few hours was gone. The plentiful purple grass had quenched his thirst and surprisingly eased his hunger as well. He felt keenly alert and alive. The sun was warm, the air was balmy. He was on Vinin. Spiritually he had come home, to the thing he believed in. Not many men had such opportunity to realize their dreams of perfection. To cap the triumph Dirrul knew it might still be possible to make his report and save the Movement on Agron. From the top of a purple-swathed knoll he looked down across a twisting red stream toward the suburbs of the city. Magnificent black-stone villas, surrounded by stylized gardens, were on both sides of the green highway. Further on, close to the city, were the crowded workers' quarters, behind them, hidden in a faint mist, the rectangular masses of public buildings reaching up toward the stars. This was as Paul Sorgel had so often described it. Such grandeur could only belong to the capital city of the Vininese Confederacy. Under the brow of the knoll Dirrul saw one of the stone block buildings within its protective double walls. A huge trumpet-like transmitter was exposed at the top of the structure. In some ways it resembled the Beam Transmitters on Agron but the differences were so striking Dirrul knew it was a totally new device--possibly a more efficient variation invented by the Vininese. The faint hum of machinery and the regular movement of the sending tube indicated that the machine was running--but for what purpose Dirrul could only guess. The yard between the two walls was patrolled by a smartly disciplined score of Vininese. Dirrul considered going to them to ask for transportation to the city but changed his mind. It was very possible that the installation was secret. The guards might have had instructions to dispose immediately of any intruder. On the whole it seemed wiser to go a little farther to one of the walled villas.