Her voice rose slightly. "I can sense a living presence deep inside the ship. More than one, I think. There's a kind of swarming." "A swarming?" "I'm not sure about that," Joan said, quickly. "I don't think they're moving about much. The thoughts seem to come from one direction. I can just make out a shape now; it's tall, and very slender." "Winged?" Langford whispered. "No, no, don't prompt me!" Joan was excited. "The important thing is that I can see it. I may never see it clearly. Gauzy--yes, it _is_ winged. It has gauzy, shining wings, folded on its chest. Two clawlike appendages, raised in a praying attitude. Perhaps I saw that in your mind; you mustn't interrupt again." "I won't!" Langford promised. "The creature is horribly agitated!" Joan said. "It looks upon your ship as a menace. Its brain is humming with fear; it is preparing to contact you, warn you. It's getting ready to warn you in a strange way. It has prepared something for just such an emergency. Something small, glistening. I can't make it out, but it's putting the object into a luminous shell!" "That's right!" Langford said, forgetting his promise. "They shot the shell into the void; we picked it up with a magnetic trawl." There was a brief silence as Joan thought that out. Then her lips twisted in a strained smile. "If you say another word--" "Sorry!" "It's bad; it hinders." She raised her arms in a gesture of grim urgency. "Now the ship is moving swiftly away from your ship. I can dimly sense vast distances rushing past. And there's a feeling of loneliness, of utter desolation. No despair, exactly; it's as though I were sensing the utter desolation of deep space through a mind filled with a bitter nostalgia! "If the feeling wasn't so intense, so strange and bewildering, I'd say it was a '_Carry me back to old Virginia_' feeling! Does that make sense to you? It's like--someone thrumming a guitar a billion miles from home, whistling to keep up his courage, remembering something very precious and beautiful lost forever. I can't explain it in any other way." She was silent for a moment. Then she said: "Now a planet is taking shape in the darkness. It's pale green and crossed by a long, wavering streamer of light. I can make out continents and seas." Joan stiffened. "Ralph! There's only one planet in the Solar System that catches the sunlight through great swarms of meteors in the plane of its ecliptic. The lights of the Zodiac! It must be the Earth!" * * * * * Langford dared not speak for fear of breaking the spell. Joan was trembling now, as though thoughts from the past were impinging with a tormenting intensity on her inner vision. "The ship's out of control!" came suddenly. "It's plunging down through the lower atmosphere toward a vast expanse of jungle. A tropical rain forest. A mist is rising over the trees and a burst of flame is coming from the ship. It's zigzagging as it descends."