naked chest; it felt suddenly cold and forbidding. The ragged peaks piled on the western horizon were no longer simply photogenic curiosities of an alien world, but symbols of undefined terror.

Why had the supply robot crashed? Why had the prisoners been able to get away without a casualty? Had it been planned by an officer of the station? If so, where was he now—with the prisoners, dead in the commissary, or among the four survivors? The tide of questions hammered at Tchassen's mind, but he came up with no workable answers. His real trouble stemmed from the fact that he knew so little about the Earth people. Their reasoning was beyond rational analysis. They were physically identical to normal human beings, and it was almost impossible not to assume that their thinking would be normally human, too.

When Tchassen reached the communications pillbox, the Sergeant, the Corporal, and Tynia were inside. In the gloomy half-light he saw the others silently trying to patch together the broken wires of the transmitter. It was hopeless; Tchassen saw that at once. Only a master technician could have made sense out of that jumbled maze. The other three knew that, too. They stopped when they saw Tchassen and looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to tell them what to do. With something of a shock, he realized that he now ranked as station commander.

"I don't believe the explosion wrecked the transmitter," Tchassen decided uncertainly.

"It was torn up like this when I first came in," Tynia told him.

"So we couldn't get in touch with the occupation base. Obviously one of the prisoners did it. They must have had—" The Captain licked his lips. "They must have had outside help."

"What do we do now?" Tynia's voice was shrill with rising hysteria. "We can't radio for a rescue ship. How do we get away?"

"It's up to us to find something else."

She moved close to Sergeant Briggan, reaching for his hand. "The Earth people are outside somewhere, waiting to kill us. We can't escape, Captain! And you start talking nonsense—"

Very deliberately Tchassen slapped the back of his hand against her cheek. The pillbox was abruptly very still. She stared at him, her eyes wide. Slowly she raised her hand and touched the reddening mark on her face. She shrank against Briggan and the Sergeant put his arm around her shoulders.

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