Like Drog, he found only land there, and no continent. The land was ocean bottom. He consulted his map, but there was nothing below his skimmer that corresponded with the cryptic markings: A-N-T-A-R-C-T-I-C O-C-E-A-N. He turned his skimmer around and started back for New York. * * * * * Volval, cruising from the Alps to the steppes and back again, found nothing to explain the disappearance of the Earthmen. Many cities, many lands, hamlets and villages, huts and palaces.... It was the same every place. Silence. Fleeting glimpses of the carnivores and sometimes tinier-but-similar beasts. But no Earthmen. * * * * * Klendro had passed over the surface of Australia fifty times in his five alloted days without discovering life of any sort other than the carnivores. And they, for some reason, were unusually well represented in that region. They had come at his skimmer in grinning swarms, but the barrier held firm, and the unlucky nearer ones spun away with scorched flesh glowing red, to be torn to pieces by their companions. When he decided further investigation was useless, Klendro was very glad to leave that place. A group of the carnivores gave chase, but Klendro spun his ship about long enough to shoot metal darts into two of them. As the others swerved back to begin an impromptu feast on their wounded companions, Klendro turned the skimmer up to full speed and made quick connection with the homing device on the ship, back in New York. * * * * * "I don't understand it," said Gwann, on the night of the fifth day. The Venusians were all back in the ship in Times Square, having a meal together that was partly to satisfy their appetites, partly to celebrate being together again with their friends. "It's incredible, all right," said Jorik. "A whole planet--and of a high degree of civilization, too--wiped out. The very vegetation dying. And that's the frightening part of it: Not _dead_, mind you, _dying_. That means that whatever happened here happened _recently_." "And those constructions in the buildings," said Volval, staring bemusedly at the wall, "the ones marked S-t-a-i-r-w-a-y. I wonder what they were for." "Obviously they were decorations added by the architect," said Drog. "Any fool can see they served no purpose. If anything, they _hindered_ the use of the access slots to the various levels of the buildings." "Well," said Gwann, "our work here is through. We'd better be heading back to Venus." "And your report?" asked Jorik. "Positive," said Gwann. "Favorable for immediate possession and colonization." "It's a good little planet." Jorik nodded. "But why do you suppose the Earthmen all vanished?" "We'll probably never know," Volval sighed. "Not unless," said Klendro, indicating a bale of salvaged Earth materials, "our linguists and archeologists can make some sense out of this junk here."