toward the creatures. McCray heard a smothered exclamation in his suit-phones.

"Are you all right?" he demanded sharply. The great crystal eye turned round to look at him.

"Oh, the man who spoke to me." Her voice was taut but controlled. The accent was gone; her control was complete. "I am Ann Mei-Ling, of the Woomara. What are—those?"

McCray said, "Our kidnappers, I guess. They don't look like much, do they?"

She laughed shakily, without answering. The creatures seemed to be waiting for something, McCray thought; if indeed they were creatures and not machines or—or whatever one might expect to find, in the impossible event of being cast away on an improbable planet of an unexplored sun. He touched the woman's helmet reassuringly and walked toward the aliens, raising his arms.

"Hello," he said. "I am Herrell McCray."

He waited.

He half turned; the woman watching him. "I don't know what to do next," he confessed.

"Sit down," she said suddenly. He stared. "No, you must! They want you to sit down."

"I didn't hear—" he began, then shrugged. He sat down.

"Now lie stretched out and open your face mask."

"Here? Listen—Ann—Miss Mei-Ling, whatever you said your name was! Don't you feel the heat? If I crack my mask—"

"But you must." She spoke very confidently. "It is s'in fo—-what do you call it—telepathy, I think. But I can hear them. They want you to open your mask. No, it won't kill you. They understand what they are doing."

She hesitated, then said, with less assurance, "They need us, McCray. There is something ... I am not sure, but something bad. They need help, and think you can give it to them. So open your helmet as they wish, please."

McCray closed his eyes and grimaced; but there was no help for it, he had no better ideas. And anyway, he thought, he could close it again quickly enough if these things had guessed wrong.

The creatures moved purposefully toward McCray, and he found himself the prisoner of a dozen unattached arms. Surprised, he struggled, but helplessly; no, he would not be able to close the plate again!... But the heat was no worse. Somehow they were shielding him.

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