The sun, so far out, was very small and its warmth was barely perceptible. But there was vegetation. The surface temperature was above freezing. The Lauriac Laws had predicted that the central metallic core would be small, and the greater part of its mass should be stony. The radioactives in Earth's thin rocky crust produce a constant flow of heat from the interior to the surface. It is considered that it is enough heat to melt a fraction of an inch of ice in a year. On this planet, with a crust many hundreds instead of mere scores of miles thickness, the internal heat was greater. The world was not frozen, and life existed here. It was a pallid, unnatural sort of life which had developed to live in starlight with a feeble assist from a very bright nearby star which happened to be its sun. There was a base here, too. Kelley located it when he found a resonant return of certain frequencies from the ground. It was not a reflection, but resonance. And so they found the base. It had been built by engineers the humans on the _Lotus_ could only admire. There were gigantic doors which could admit the _Lotus_ herself. They were rusted shut and had to be opened with explosives. There were galleries and tunnels and laboratories. There were missile launchers and missile-storage chambers. There was a giant dome housing a telescope men had not even dreamed of equalling. It was not an optical telescope. Ultimately they found a mortuary, where the members of the garrison were placed when they died. The _Lotus_ was not equipped for the archeological and technological studies the base called for. Its function was to scout out things for especially qualified expeditions to study. And, of course, there was the political situation back on Earth.... * * * * * On the fourth day after landing, the skipper sent for Nolan. The skipper sweated a little. "Nolan," he said querulously, "we've found something." "A bug-eyed monster?" asked Nolan dourly. "No." The skipper mopped his forehead. "Back yonder, on Three, you took a few looks from twenty million miles and figured out what had happened there. We'd have worked it out eventually, but you saw it at once. You're lucky that way. Now we've found something. It's an--instrument. We're short on time. Come with me and make some guesses." He led the way, explaining jerkily as he went. The thing was in a room by itself, with its own air system and apparently its own food store. It was inside four successive systems of locked doors--all of them inches-thick stainless steel. It was intended that the last door could be opened from inside. It was evidently the very heart of the armed base on Planet Five. Anything sealed up like that would have to be either incredibly valuable or incredibly dangerous.