Yann was full of excitement. "This is the system I told you about, Trehearne--the one where I was factor so long. I got to know the natives like a brother." He laughed and clapped Trehearne on the shoulder. "We make a good stop here, and when our work's done I'll show you some things!" The _Saarga_ set down on a world of emerald heat. Besides the starship the landing field contained half a dozen battered interplanetary craft, brought out piecemeal by the Vardda and operated by them between the wild planets of the system. The great stockaded factory was one of the largest Trehearne had seen and the strangest. The "logs" that formed the stockade and made the walls of the warehouses were of crystal, cut from the crystalline forests that covered much of the land. Trehearne thought of them as trees and forests, simply because they had stems and branches, but they were inorganic, the glittering proliferation of sublimated alien chemicals. They glowed and flashed under the fierce green sun, showing glints of weird color where a prism formation broke the light. And also, in their shining branches, they netted the many-colored rays of the brighter stars that burned even in the daylight sky. There was a town beyond the factory. It too was built of the crystal logs over foundations of black rock sunk in the ooze. Thick vines clambered everywhere, bearing bulbous fruit. Undergrowth, green almost to blackness, stood between the trees. There was a smell of fragrant rottenness, cloying, sweet. Trehearne worked his long shifts, moving and sweating through a bath of molten jade. It was a large world and heavy. The gravity dragged at him. The letters of the freight lists swam under his eyes. When his own job was finally finished, he found Rohan and Perri still hard at it, but Yann was through and waiting for him. "Come on with me now," said Yann, and smacked his lips. "Wine, cooled in deep wells. Make a new man of you." "A hell of a world," said Trehearne. "You should see the others of this system. This is the pick of the lot." They walked through the outer compound, a sort of caravanserai crowded with folk from the other planets, brought in for the trading. Cold-blooded creatures with crimson eyes, ophidian princes of the inner worlds, wrapped in golden mantles against the chill. Slim, furred kings of the outer planets, capped and girdled with precious stones, still and panting in the heat. These and others watched the two tall Vardda, thinking their own thoughts. They passed through the gate out of the factory, wading in soggy mud. The sun was setting in a welter of lurid green, tinged with peacock hues. Trehearne looked at the town ahead, the straggling lanes, the crystal huts that crouched in sordid beauty, the encircling forest of ungodly trees. Doubt assailed him. "Perhaps we should stay in the factory. There'll be plenty of wine and more comfort."