Trehearne could not place their positions. They sounded alike, all as though they spoke inside his own helmet. He worked on, hoping to catch sight of someone. The sick sun had worn out its burst of energy and was sinking into exhaustion, dimmer, redder, with the effect of an abnormal sunset. A kind of shadowy dusk crept between the feet of the tall distorted growths. Trehearne began to feel uneasy. He knew it was only the cumulative effect of the surroundings and the prisoning armor. He refused to pay attention to it. But it would not go away. It came in waves, with a prickling of nerve-ends and a lifting of the hair. He continued doggedly to throw the small fungi into his sack. He wanted to talk now more than ever, but he was afraid to, afraid that his unreasoning fear would show in his voice and disgrace him. He began to make long swings back and forth, trying to find somebody, but he could not, though he knew they must be close by. He was very hot, but his back turned cold and trickles of icy moisture ran down it. The unhealthy dusk grew thicker, and the shadows were red. He began to see movement out of the tail of his eye, as though something or someone walked stealthily just out of sight behind the screening growths. "Yann?" "What?" The bodiless, distanceless voice, speaking thinly in his ear. "There's no life here, is there? I mean, outside of these stinking mushrooms." "Not that anyone knows about. Why?" "Nothing. It was only a trick of the shadows, I guess." "Getting nervy, little Earthling?" "Listen, the hell with you and your smart cracks." "Think nothing of it," Yann said unabashed. "We all get nervy. I'm almost finished. How about you?" "Pretty soon." "Well, hurry up." Silence. An occasional burst of voices over the helmet phones, confusing, jumbled. The men weren't talking so much now. They were tired, and the place oppressed them. Their spirits were going down like the light of the sun, sprawling hugely over half the sky with the red light running out of it like blood. Trehearne watched the shadows constantly, turning uneasily round and about with a blind feeling at his back. His nerves still pricked and rippled, and would not be quieted. His sack was nearly full. He thought about the ship, about lights and familiar faces and getting off the suffocating armor. There was a monstrous fan-shaped growth glaring crimson in the sinking glow. It was flanked on one side by a bloated puffball colored black, and on the other by a crinkled, convoluted monster blotched with brown and yellow. It had at its feet a brood of little ones, enough to fill the remaining space in Trehearne's sack. He walked toward it, brushing by the blotched and convoluted thing. He felt at his back a sudden tug and a snapping. He turned, floundering in the soft mould with his heavy boots. He turned as fast as he could but there was no one, nothing, and then it dawned on him what had happened. His oxygen line had been ripped loose.