strange to me."

"It is a world the size of your native one," came words of information. "Around a star it spins, light-years away from the world of your birth. One face of Dondromogon ever looks to the light and heat, wherefore its metals run in glowing seas. The other face is ever away in cold darkness, with its air freezing into solid chunks. But because Dondromogon wavers on its axis, there are two lunes of its surface which from time to time shift from night to day. These are habitable."

My eyes were tight shut against the dust, but they saw in imagination such a planet—one-half incandescent, one-half pitchy black. From pole to pole on opposite sides ran the two twilight zones, widest at the equators like the outer rind of two slices of melon. Of course, such areas, between the hot and cold hemispheres, would be buffeted by mighty gales ... the voice was to be heard again:

"War is fought between the two strips of habitable ground. War, unceasing, bitter, with no quarter asked, given or expected. Dondromogon was found and settled long ago, by adventurers from afar. Now come invaders, to reap the benefits of discovery and toil." A pause. "You find that thought unpleasant? You wish to right that wrong?"

"Anyone would wish that," I replied. "But how—"

"You are going to ask how you were brought here. That is the mystery of the Masters." The voice became grand. "Suffice it that you were needed, and that the time was ripe. There is a proper time, like a proper place, for each thing and each happening. Now, go to your destiny."

I rose on my knees, shielding my face from the buffeting wind by lifting a forearm. Somewhere through the murky clouds showed a dim blocky silhouette, a building of sorts.

The voice spoke no more. I had not the time to wonder about it. I got to my feet, bent double to keep from being blown over, and staggered toward the promised haven.

I reached it, groped along until I found a door. There was no latch, handle or entry button, and I pounded heavily on the massive panels. The door opened from within, and I was blown inside, to fall sprawling.

I struck my forehead upon a floor of stone or concrete, and so was half-stunned, but still I could distinguish something like the sound of agitated voices. Then I felt myself grasped, by both shoulders, and drawn roughly erect. The touch restored my senses, and I wrenched myself 

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