Two dimly gleaming bodies, dead worlds clinging to a long dead sun out here at Galaxy edge. The glow of the Milky Way touched them, the ghostly glow of candles at a wake, and only emphasized their drear darksomeness and lonesomeness. Edri whispered, "Well try the outer planet first. Give me a hand, Trehearne." They crawled aft between the crowded banks of equipment to a detector that had come from the _Mirzim's_ hold. Edri fumbled at it. "In Orthis' day they used radioactive fuel, of course," Edri mumbled. "We calculated its half-life. Even supposing his bunkers were nearly empty there should be enough left to register on this counter. A teacupful would do it." Trehearne helped Edri adjust the shielding apparatus on the mechanism until the needle was still. "What about natural radioactive deposits on the planets themselves?" he asked. "We get a break there. Too old. The last radioactive element will have practically died out millions of years ago." He raised his voice. "Keep the skiff as low as you dare, Quorn. The counter has a wide sweep. Take it slow." He crouched over the telltale needle. Trehearne moved forward again. The planet was small, less than two thousand miles in diameter. Between the intense gloom and the motion of the skiff he could see nothing but a black featureless desolation, rifted here and there with white that he took to be the frozen remains of an atmosphere. He thought what it would be like to land there and shivered. They quartered and swept the planet carefully. The telltale needle of the counter remained motionless. Edri said, heavily, "We'll go on. Pray we find it on the other planet. Pray Orthis didn't come down on the dark star. It would take forever to find him there." Quorn fed in power and cleared away. The port dimmed again, and Edri moaned. "He's about out," Quorn said. "Looks like whatever is done, we'll have to do the most of it." The second world was larger than the first by three times or more. It was not content to be featureless. It thrust up gnawed and shattered ranges, stripped bones of mountains sheathed in frozen gases. It showed forth dreary plains coated white with congealed air, glistening faintly in the light of the great galactic wheel. It turned toward the watchers the naked beds of its vanished oceans, sucked dry to the deepest gulf. It displayed the scars of its long dying, the brutal wounds of internal explosion, the riven gashes of a shrinking crust. A hideous world that seemed to remember beauty still and to resent the cruelty of death. Edri whispered, "Pray--pray that the damned thing moves." Instead of doing so, he cursed the needle that it did not stir. "Keep going," said Trehearne. They kept going. The needle quivered. Edri let out a hoarse cry. "Easy! _Easy!_" Tears began to run down his cheeks. He sobbed. The needle was still again. "Circle!" Trehearne shouted to Quorn. "Circle till we get it centered."