Caine looked from one to the other. "Yes, yes," he said, aloud.

He turned to the gray-caped Venusians and found the somber eyes watching him, in their kindly way. One of them reached out and touched Caine's shoulder above the broken arm. Others moved to the bodies of the man and woman and bent over them, making floating motions with their delicate green hands.

Praying? Caine wondered, watching these motions. He shrugged. He couldn't hold a thought very long.

The mist was evaporating quickly. Caine, looking up, thought he could see a pointed outline. Then suddenly—high above—there was the golden temple, a shimmer of towering spires of yellow beauty, splashed over by brilliant sunshine.

Caine turned his face up to a strange sun, a blinding sun that sent its bright life down through the leaves. And Caine was aware that the caped figures were kneeling all around, praying in a jumble of voices, their hands stretching up to the infrequent visitor of light.

What are they saying? Caine asked, smiling queerly. What is it they're saying? Screece? The Sun? The most valuable gem on Venus? Is that what they worship in the golden temple? Caine looked at the man and then at the woman. Is that what they had come from Earth and from Mars to find? The Sun? He felt the laughter starting in him again, as though it were someone else laughing. But his mouth widened and his teeth glistened in the sunlight, and he laughed long pealing laughter.

"Here it is," he said, staggering to the side of the man's body. "Here's your gem. Do you see it, Fairchild?" He pointed to the sky. "Give it to her," he said, laughing through his words. "No? I'll give it to her for you then. How's that?" He turned and moved slowly to the woman, stumbling. "Here," he said to the woman's staring eyes. "Here it is, you see?"

He looked at her face, shadowed by a large leaf of a vine-tree. He reached up and jerked the leaf away so that the sunlight fell full on her white face. "There! Take it! From Charles, to you, through me. Isn't it beautiful, so big, so brilliant, so...." The laughter was getting in the way of his words and he could feel tears going down his face.

Pale green hands were holding him so that he wouldn't fall. And they were moving him away toward the temple. Caine looked at the large kindly eyes around him, feeling the hands guiding him. He couldn't stop laughing, only he wished to God he could, because it made the pain worse. And he couldn't take 

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