in all things to  his  wife, Ala Veg, and she was  the one who had
thought of holding a banquet in honour of the arriving spaceship Quest.
     The still unfaded beauty Ala Veg had become bored at home on Faena with
teaching  astronomy to blockheaded Superiors.  She insisted  on leaving with
her husband for the space station,  which only took married couples with the
required special qualifications. They would be able to return to their three
children left  on Faena after  earning enough to last  them for the rest  of
their lives, and Tycho Veg would finally become a workshop proprietor.
     Ala Veg, with the pedigree face of a Superior, a fine, straight nose, a
short  upper  lip and a sensual mouth, went about with a permanently haughty
frown;  she  considered  herself  and  her husband  the two  most  important
Faetians on the base.
     However, the wife  of the station chief, Nega Luton, who  had illegally
taken over the  post of Sister  of Health  without being a qualified doctor,
was  of  a  different  opinion.  Encouraged  by her  husband, Mrak Luton,  a
corpulent donkey, she  passed herself off  as  the  first lady  of space and
never  missed  an  opportunity  to  sting  Ala  Veg  with a reference to the
children  she  had abandoned. Ala  would parry these blows,  sparing neither
Nega's barrenness nor her unattractive appearance.
     Lada,  the young but well-upholstered cook and gardener, a good-natured
woman  with  an  affectionate  smile  on her  broad,  snub-nosed  face,  did
everything quickly  and efficiently, trying  to please everybody. She adored
her husband, proud  that  he, Brat  Lua, was the only one of the roundheads,
thanks to his mother's position in the Dictator's family,  who had been able
to  obtain an education on Danjab, the  continent of the  Culturals.  He was
sent  to  Deimo  both as jack-of-all-trades  and  as a representative of the
roundheads  who were to move  to the  uncomfortable planet  of Mar. Lada Lua
willingly followed him to serve all the inhabitants of Deimo.
     A  signal  from  her communications  bracelet  found  Lada  Lua in  the
greenhouse,  a  transparent cylindrical  corridor thousands  of paces  long.
Apart from Lada, no one used that corridor because it was on the axis of the
space station  and there was  no artificial  gravity created by  centrifugal
force as in the other quarters on the station. The nurserywoman did not feel
her weight as she floated  in and out among the air-roots of the plants. The
function of  soil  was  performed by  a nutritive mist of  the saps that the
roots needed. The harvest in space was much bigger than on Faena.
     The  signal found Lada Lua collecting sweet fruits for the  forthcoming
banquet.
     Holding on to the air-roots, Lada Lua hurried to answer Ala Veg's call.
She had to float quite a distance through the tangled  air-roots and then go
down  the shaft  inside a spoke of  the  giant wheel,  in whose rim all  the
station's quarters were housed.
     The cage in the shaft seemed to fall down into an abyss. The feeling of
weight  began to appear only at  the end of the  ride,  when the cage slowed
down  and stopped. The doors  opened  automatically.  Lada  Lua, her  normal
weight restored, walked out into  the corridor, which seemed to tilt upwards
before and behind her. She did not, however, have to climb any gradients.
     Ala Veg  was rushing about  her cabin, exasperated at the clumsiness of
her husband who was on his knees, unsuccessfully trying  to pin some kind of
frill to her gown.
     Lada Lua threw up her hands in delight.
     Ala  Veg unceremoniously  dismissed  her  husband and  he  went off  to
prepare the welcome for the approaching ship, which would have to refuel. He
realised that  his  wife was  bored to  death  with the monotonous  days and
tedious dinners at the common table, the faces  that she was sick of seeing,
always  the same ones, the  same words  heard  so many  times and the mutual
friction that grew worse  from day to day. Tycho Veg tried to understand his
wife, to excuse her failings, to  put them  down  to homesickness and to her
pining for  her  children. He  was missing them himself. If only one of them
was here, they  would be  so  happy! But  the  presence of children was  not
allowed on the space stations. The Superiors, when complementing  the  staff
on  Deimo,  managed to  oppress  the roundheads  there too. Nega  Luton  was
barren,  Ala Veg already had three children  and at her age, which  she kept
secret, she  had not  decided to have  a fourth. As  a result, the ban  only
affected the  young  Lua couple, who could not have children  on the planet,
nor on the space station.
     After helping Ala Veg to dress, Lada Lua ran to  the  kitchen with  its
glittering pans and dials to boil, roast and bake...
     But the communications bracelet summoned  her  again, this time to Nega
Luton. That important lady loved comforts and luxury more than anything. Her
husband,  a  Supreme Officer  of the Blood Guard, had supplied  her with all
these in full measure  on  Faena. Least of all had the  Lutons wanted  to go
into space. However, they had ended up there by order of the Dictator.
     Lada  Lua switched  the automatic kitchen machines to a set program and
hurried off to Nega Luton.


     When the spaceship Quest went into orbit round Deimo and approached the
station for docking, Mada and Ave never left the porthole.
     The  enormous  planet Mar  with its convex  rim  filled  over half  the
window.  Sol no longer looked like a brilliant round star, but had  become a
blinding disc  with a  magnificent corona.  For a  short  while,  the planet
blotted out its own star, plunging the ship into a swiftly-passing night.
     Hand in hand, Mada and Ave greeted this unusual dawn of their new life,
waiting for the brilliant, curly-fringed Sol to begin rising from behind the
hump of Mar.  The black surface  of the deserts turned brown, and gradually,
according to height, there followed one after another all the most  delicate
hues of a gigantic rainbow  that did not  hang  over the rain-washed forests
and plains, as on their native Faena,  but embraced the desert  planet  in a
crescent that  merged with  the rim of the gigantic sphere.  Mada caught her
breath. She could only squeeze Ave's fingers in silence.
     Then the rainbow glittered  at one point  and  the Faetians  saw Deimo,
their first  destination.  It was the brightest  star in the heavens, rising
swiftly over the rim of the rainbow.
     As it drew nearer, Deimo became  a gigantic, irregularly shaped lump of
rock,  and  soon  a small  star  became visible next  to it. This  was Space
Station Deimo, the Faetians' destination.
     Then they were able to see that this star was a ring inclined at slight
angle to the  mass of Mar. Comparable to  the planet Sat, it was a satellite
of Mar's  satellite. Finally, their eyes began to ache with  staring at this
artificial metal structure, which was reflecting the rays of Sol.
     The first pilot of Quest, Smel  Ven, the  celebrated astronaut  of  the
Superiors, was executing a complicated manoeuvre to approach the axis of the
station's wheel and dock on to  the central compartment. The silvery tail of
the greenhouse extended  from the station,  a bright line  receding into the
darkness.
     When Quest moved up to  Deimo station, engineer Tycho Veg summoned Brat
Lua  to the central compartment as the mechanic who did the heavy work. Mrak
Luton, the chief of the station, did not  consider it  necessary to go up to
the  central compartment  in  order to "float  about  on the  loose" in null
gravity.  He  preferred to  stay  in the  ring corridor and paced  round it,
important and pompous, with his hands thrust behind his back.
     The  name Mrak (Gloom), given  to him in his early youth, suited him: a
pudgy, rectangular face, sparse grey hair and  small, suspicious eyes  under
the tufted eyebrows.
     He  did not linger by the lift-cage but continued  promenading  in  the
same direction all the time until finally, after he had gone round the whole
outer ring, he turned up in the corridor on the other side.
     However, all three Faetesses,  unable to restrain  their curiosity, met
at the lift-cage.
     The  first to  come out into the corridor was the exceptionally tall Dm
Sat.
     The ladies respectfully inclined their heads.
     Two Faetians came next.
     The giant Gor  Terr, up to the eyes in whiskers, was  the ship's flight
engineer  and one  of  the men  who designed it.  He had a pronounced stoop,
thanks to which  his arms seemed  uncommonly long. His friends used  to joke
that in height,  strength and appearance he resembled  the  ancestors of the
Faetians. However, his low, hairy brow hid an exceptional mind.
     His new friend, Toni Fae, educated and refined, wrote poetry.  He had a
round face, a thin nose and wide-open eyes behind big spectacles.
     Nega  Luton took  charge of the  gigantic Gor  Terr.  Ala Veg  took the
youthful Toni Fae under her wing.
     Um Sat went of his own accord to the roundhead Lada Lua.
     "Will the gentle Faetess show me to where I can have a rest?"
     Lada Lua blushed and, beside herself with happiness, led the great sage
to his appointed cabin.
     Ala  Veg ran down the corridor with a provocative laugh, beckoning Toni
Fae to catch up with her. She conducted him into a comfortable cabin and sat
down in a light chair.
     "And so is it not true, Toni Fae, that we have kindred souls.  Is it by
chance that we are both astronomers,  that we find ourselves amid  the stars
and are sitting within reach of one another?"
     Toni Fae took off his spectacles to see more clearly.
     "The stars have made us friends, is it not so?" continued Ala Veg, well
aware of the effect she was having on the young visitor.
     "For the sake of everything I see here, it was well worth flying to the
stars," he murmured, lowering his eyes.
     "I  already know that you're a  poet. But you are also an astronomer. I
want us to have views in common."
     "I would like that so much!"
     They were silent for a moment as they gazed at one another.
     "Soon there will be a banquet. We shall sit side by side."
     "Oh,  yes!" Toni Fae nodded his  head. "But we must  also take Gor Terr
under our wing. He is as helpless as I am."
     "I love  the  helpless ones," laughed Ala Veg, affectionately  touching
Toni Fae's  hand. "You are  a  charming boy and  I'm so happy that  you have
arrived. If only you knew how fed up we are with one another here!"
     Mrak  Luton, who was  finishing his stroll  along the corridor as if no
one had  arrived  at the station, had in fact been  carefully measuring  his
pace. Of  all the new arrivals, he regarded the  Dictator's daughter as most
important.  For  that  reason, he went up to  the  lift-cage at the  precise
moment when Mada, Ave and Smel Ven, the first pilot, came out of it.
     The  chief of  the station  was  chewing  it over in  his  mind:  after
lift-off from Faena, the Dictator's daughter had married Ave Mar, son of the
Ruler of the Culturals. What was this? Politics?
     "May they be prolonged, the successful cycles in the life of the Wisest
of the  Wise  who had the good  fortune to have such  a daughter,"  was  the
flowery welcome with which  he  greeted Mada, and he  announced that she and
Ave had been given two  magnificent cabins in opposite  compartments  of the
station.
     Mada flared up.
     "Was not Station Deimo  in electromagnetic  communication  with Quest?"
she asked angrily.
     Mrak Luton shrugged his shoulders apologetically.
     "If  the customs  of  the  Superiors  are  effective  on  the station,"
continued Mada, as if giving an  order, "then you  must give  my husband and
myself a double cabin and send the roundheaded Lua couple there at once."
     The station chief bowed respectfully as low as his paunch would allow.
     "They exist  to serve. May the cycles in the lives  of the Dictator and
the Ruler be prolonged," he concluded, glancing at Ave for the first time.
     Mrak  Luton personally conducted the young couple to the best  cabin on
the  station, and on the way he showed the glowering Smel Ven his  quarters.
Then he found Brat Lua and Tycho Veg who had just  emerged from the  central
compartment.  He ordered Brat Lua to find  his  wife and report with  her to
Mada and Ave. Only then did he  notice that  Smel  Ven  was  still  standing
outside  his cabin door. Mrak  Luton  went up to him and heard the following
words, uttered in a half-whisper:
     "The Dictator will hardly approve of such hasty hospitality."  Smel Ven
vanished, slamming the door behind him.
     Mrak Luton stared dully at the plastic-covered door.
     Brat Lua  not only brought his  wife to Ave  and Mada,  he also brought
drawings. He  was a calm Faetian of medium height, with a tight, glossy skin
and intent eyes.
     Since his mother had become Mada's nanny he had grown up away from her,
but had always felt her influence. She had even managed to bring her son and
her charge  together and make them friends. However, their meetings had soon
become  impossible.  The  Dictator  shut himself off  from the  world behind
walls. The  boy learned humiliation and injustice. Impressionable and proud,
he became more and more withdrawn.
     He had a rare determination. Mother Lua taught  him that only knowledge
would  compel  even  those who  were oppressing the roundheads  to  take him
seriously. And so he fought stubbornly for every crumb of knowledge.
     The  result  was  that even  in  early  youth,  his  face  acquired  an
expression of firmness and concentration.
     He fell in  love  with Lada  Nep before his  departure for  Danjab, the
continent of the Gutturals, to finish his education there. Finally persuaded
by the nanny  and Mada herself, Yar Jupi agreed, although  he kept his  real
opinion to himself.
     For several cycles, Lada devotedly  waited for her betrothed, intending
after  his return to  leave  immediately on the  Dictator's orders for Space
Station Deimo, created by him to consolidate his authority and ostensibly to
fulfil his plan of resettling the roundheads on Mar.
     Brat Lua was now hurrying  to share with Mada and Ave the fruits of his
reflections and of sleepless nights spent at his drawings.
     "I've been planning how to make  life better  for the  roundheads,"  he
said  hurriedly  but  firmly.  "I've  planned   the  construction   of  deep
underground cities with an artificial atmosphere.  On the surface of Mar, in
the midst of the deserts which you see in the porthole, I have been planning
oases  of fertility. It will be enough to  water them with melted water from
the polar ice and  deliver it to them along underground  rivers.  These will
have to be  excavated." He looked trustingly at his  listeners. "I have been
waiting so long for real men of learning!"
     Mada went up to Brat Lua.
     "We have known one another since childhood,  and we  both loved  Mother
Lua."
     " 'Loved' her?" The Faetian went suddenly on his guard, staring hard at
Mada.
     Inwardly alarmed, Lada Lua went over to her husband.
     "I... I must tell you everything..." continued Mada.
     "What is it? Is the war beginning?"
     "Mother Lua tried to  stop it," said Mada in a flash of intuition. "And
she was killed. Brat..."
     "Killed?" The Faetian went white in the face.
     "She was murdered by that scoundrel  Yar Alt But your mother, and mine,
has been avenged."
     Brat Lua let his head fall onto  the table with the drawings spread  on
it and  began sobbing.  Mada  held Ave by the hand, herself almost in tears.
Lada Lua rushed to the door.
     "Mrak Luton is coming to invite us to a banquet," she whispered.
     "He must not know anything," warned Mada.
     The  little  world of the tiny inhabited islet in the Universe was like
the big world of the planet, rent by hostile forces.


     Chapter Two

        THE GOLDEN APPLE

     Mada's  strongest  sensation was one of  light. It  was  falling  in  a
brilliant mosaic  onto  the ground through the  leaves  of the trees,  whose
trunks  resembled  compactly  grown  roots.  Above,  they  spread  out  like
transparent canopies filled with light. Each fruit up there was like a  tiny
star.
     A stream of foam,  tumbling down  from a  stone ledge, was lit up by  a
quivering  rainbow. The  smooth  lake  that fed  the  current lay tranquilly
there, crossed by a sparkling mother-of-pearl footpath.
     Round  the  banks grew fantastic trees bearing  golden  apples. And the
water lured Mada  from the  depths with the same vivid fruits, very slightly
tinged  with haze, that you could touch so easily by just reaching  out your
hand.
     She thought how ugly the two unwieldy, clumsy creatures  seemed in such
a  setting. They moved  about on their hind legs, holding their bodies erect
but rolling from side to side at  each step. Their sturdy bodies, with belts
high on  the  hips,  were decorated with  a spiral ornament  Their upper and
lower  extremities  were covered  with inflated bubbles and their heads were
enclosed in hard spheres with slits for the eyes.
     Two  enormous birds were swimming across the lake with proudly upcurved
necks; they turned their heads with  their red beaks and made trustingly for
the shore.
     Several light  quadrupeds  came out of the  forest.  They  had the same
wondrous trees with root-branches growing on their heads, but without fruits
or foliage. The creatures began drinking the water.
     A mighty beast with greenish, glittering eyes softly  sprang  onto  the
bright patches in the shade of the canopied trees. His hide merged  with the
bright mosaic. Lithe and powerful,  he made his way soundlessly towards  the
water,  paying no attention to the horned denizens of the  forest nor to the
strange newcomers.
     "I'm not even frightened," said Mada through her helmet intercom.
     "A virgin, unfrightened world," responded Ave.
     "And there's so much light!"
     "The experts on Faena thought it could kill."
     "It can kill only darkness, ignorance and hatred. We have found a world
where evil and hatred do not and cannot exist."
     Mada went up quite close to the watering place. A young reindeer looked
round curiously,  leapt out of the water and dug its wet muzzle into  Mada's
glove.
     "Could you think of such a thing on Faena?" she cried.
     "Alas, there's no room left for them there!"
     "These  are  children  of  light. Open  your visor  and  look. Don't be
afraid, the eye is a  most  self-accommodating organ. They won't believe our
stories on Faena."
     "Millions of Faetians are waiting for them."
     "Aren't we  cheating this way? Why  this  envelope shutting us off from
the new world. I've opened my visor all the way!"
     "Mada, my dear!" warned Ave. "That's dangerous."
     "We've found a  world of amazing beauty, but we haven't proved  that we
can live on it."
     "We must remember Dm Sat's warning."
     "What  is there to be afraid of? Dangerous invisible beings?  But light
is the best medicine for them. I myself am a Sister of Health. Our ancestors
didn't take thought, they injected themselves with illness-creating microbes
in order  to rid all  Faetians of deadly diseases. It is the doctor  on Terr
who should be  the first to shed a space-suit! It is a duty! Besides, I want
to bathe  in the lake. Will  my  Ave, who tamed the ocean waves  on a board,
back out now? Take  the tablets I gave you. They will protect  you from  the
unknown  world of the Planet of Light.  And its light will help us. Take off
your space-suit! And help me."
     "Why are you tempting me, Mada?"
     "So that we can be the first to do what must be done anyway. After all,
we can't go back to Faena without having tried to live here in real freedom.
And not in a shell."
     So saying, Mada plucked a golden apple and held it out to Ave.
     "Peel it for me, please. It has a skin as bright as Sol and as tough as
one of our space-suits."
     When Quest began  approaching the orbit  of  Terr,  the members of  the
expedition found  the  brilliant light of Sol more and more  intolerable. It
became particularly searing when the ship went into orbit round the planet.
     Mada  established that Terr's atmosphere  was strikingly like  that  of
Faena.  Except that  there  was  little  carbon dioxide  and  there  was  no
greenhouse effect.  The planet freely  emitted the  excess  solar  heat into
space. The conditions of  existence on it were consequently similar to those
on Faena, as Ave Mar had once suggested.
     Toni Fae, the astronomer, observed the planet with the enthusiasm  of a
poet. Most of  it was under water and seemed to be hatched with the lines of
the waves. The land and  sea surfaces were strikingly varied in  colour. But
most of all, there were clouds over Terr. Singly, they cast distinct shadows
onto the surface of  the planet, and  in  the misty oceans here and there it
was possible  to distinguish the spiral whirlwinds of hurricanes raging down
below.
     But  nowhere, neither on land  nor on the sea coast, could they see the
patches of  towns stretching out the tendrils of roads. This was what struck
everyone at the first sight of Terr from space.
     "Must be a dead planet," suggested Flight Engineer Gor Terr.
     "It's a live  one!" exclaimed  Toni Fae. "The  green of the  continents
means vegetation. And the others..."
     "That's the whole point; you won't guess what they mean."
     "Why not?" said Toni Fae animatedly. "It's easy!"
     "R-really?" said Gor Terr, astonished.
     "The priests in  ancient times  believed  that every  living  being was
surrounded  by  an aura.  Its  colour  was supposed to  enable the  'psychic
vision' to recognise the most secret thoughts and feelings."
     "You  mean  the  pr-riests  would  have looked  on  Terr  as  a  living
cr-reature?"
     "Yes, so as to draw a map of it," laughed Toni Fae.
     "All  r-right, let's  get  on with it.  I  can  see  black gaps in  the
mountain r-range."
     "That means the Mountains of Bitterness and Hate."
     "Much as on our Faena. There are dirty green valleys r-running into the
distance."
     "The Valleys of Jealousy."
     "And the black and gr-reen ones?"
     "Base Deceit."
     "Is it worth it, starting with such gr-rim names?"
     "Then look at the big land areas."
     "Bright gr-reen."
     "The priests considered that colour to be  a sign of worldly wisdom and
subtle deceit."
     "Let's  be indulgent  to  Terr  and call the dry land the  Continent of
Wisdom without any deceit. And  here is a  narrow  sea with r-red  lightning
flashing over it."
     "The Sea of Wrath."
     "It has a pink bay."
     "The Bay of Love."
     "And the sea coast here is r-russet brown."
     "The Coast of Greed."
     "Not  bad  for  future Terrans.  Will it be  better with  the dark blue
ocean, perhaps?"
     "The Ocean of Hope."
     "And its light blue bay?"
     "The Bay of Justice."
     "That's  better  already.  And these fire-breathing mountains  with the
r-red flames and the black smoke?"
     "The Volcanoes of Passions."
     As  they  carried on with their game, the young Faetians gradually drew
the  first map  of Terr with  amusing names  recalling the  members  of  the
expedition.
     "As for Mada's aura," continued Toni Fae, "that's a spectrum of dawn in
space."
     "And what about Toni Fae himself? Hasn't he  been blazing with a bright
r-red aura ever since the visit to Deimo?"
     Toni looked embarrassed.
     "You see," continued Gor Terr, "I interpret your aura no worse than one
of those ancient pr-riests." And he laughed knowingly.
     "It's not so difficult," said Toni  Fae in an attempt  at self-defence.
"You can see into Ave and even into Smel Ven."
     "R-really?.. Even into Smel Ven?"
     "We're  all  blazing red,"  sighed  Toni Fae, "only the shades are  all
different."
     "Then  shouldn't  we  name  the  seas  after lovers?"  said  Gor  Terr,
clutching at this playful idea.
     "It would be better to call Terr the Planet of Eternal Passions."
     Toni Fae had been right not only about Terr, but about Smel Ven. If  he
had an aura, then it must inevitably be fiery red. He  was burning with love
for Mada, and  the  feelings she inspired would have  streaked his  own aura
with black and dirty-green.
     Fate's  darling on Faena, a celebrated  astronaut, the favourite of the
Faetesses, he had not even dared to make Mada's acquaintance although he had
often admired her on the Great Shore. He had hoped that the prompt departure
into  space  would cure him, but..  Mada was close at hand to  humiliate and
destroy  him with her marriage  to an insignificant half-breed whose  father
had gained the Ruler's chair by nefarious means.
     Like many longfaces, Smel Ven never did things  by halves. Which is why
he had become a celebrated and fearless astronaut and  had flown to Terr. He
had not  been unpleasant or cunning  as a young man, but Mada's contempt had
stirred up the hidden  sides of his character. Seeing how happy Mada and Ave
were together  and hating them  for that reason,  he  brooded  on  plans  of
revenge  as cunning as  they were cruel... But he had to remain  beyond  all
suspicion. The planet Terr itself was going to help him!
     Quest,  its  braking engines  switched  on,  was decelerating,  without
friction in the atmosphere  and without any overheating of the cabin's outer
surface. Gor Terr, the ship's designer, carried out the landing as "lift off
in reverse", in his own words. He did not apply the parachute brakes typical
of  the  early  stages in  Faetian astronavigation. The spaceship could make
landfall as slowly as it had lifted off.
     Quest came down  on its three landing feet, towering  above the tallest
trees  and   listing   dangerously.   The   automatic  controls  immediately
straightened it up.
     The astronauts pressed their  faces  up against  the portholes. A dense
forest of unrecognisable trees rose on either side of a river.
     "This is  Terr," announced Dm Sat, "that is to  be the  birthplace • of
our successors! In the meantime,  however,  we  must refrain from taking off
our space-suits. We have yet to explore the unknown world of this planet."
     First, they lowered  the  instruments  through  the  open  hatch,  then
dropped  the ladder, and strange  figures  wearing  stiff  space-suits began
climbing down to the ground.
     The last to  emerge were Smel Ven and Mada. Smel Ven helped Mada to put
on her helmet.
     "Could it be that a Faetess like Mada Jupi..."
     "Mada Mar," she corrected him.
     "Could it  be  that a Faetess  like Mada could agree  with  Dm  Sat and
disgrace herself with this garb?"
     "You are suggesting a brave deed that is worthy of you, Smel Ven."
     "There is  nothing  in the world that could frighten me. But  I  am the
ship's pilot, and an element of return is vital to Um Sat."
     Mada frowned at his pompousness.
     "You consider yourself the most valuable?" Smel Ven restrained himself;
it was not in his interests to annoy Mada.
     "You are a  Sister of  Health yourself  and will feel a need to discard
that clothing as soon as  you go  into the new world." Mada pulled down  her
visor.


     The sunset on Terr was spreading over the river.
     In space, the astronauts had become  familiar with Sol and his furious,
raging brilliance. But here,  in the evening of  their first day on Terr, it
was  possible to  stare with  the naked  eye  at the reddish, flattened Sol,
shorn of his space corona. Elongated  clouds were  beginning to  gather near
its oval disc.  Two of them, coming from different directions, joined up and
divided Sol  into  two. And then  a miracle happened.  Instead  of  one, two
heavenly  bodies  hung over  the  horizon one  after the other, each of them
purple in colour.
     Mada could not take her eyes off this spectacle as  she watched the two
bodies  change in size: the lower one touched the sea of forest,  the  upper
one became thinner  and  thinner, dwindling to  a mere segment of a disc and
finally disappearing altogether. The  lower part of Sol also vanished behind
a big cloud. Now the whole sky  flickered with fire. And, as if in a crimson
ocean spreading above the clouds, there hung  lilac waves, and very high up,
illumined by  the sinking Sol, there floated  a solitary  white island,  its
red-hot edges blazing.
     The sunset glow was gradually dying away,  but the  little cloud burned
on without going out. Then,  as if all  of a sudden, darkness  came down  on
Terr. Night had fallen, just as on Faena. And even the stars were the same.
     Except  that  Terr did  not have at that time  a  magnificent nocturnal
luminary like Faena's satellite, Lua, which  gave such beauty to the Faetian
night and  which had  appeared near Terr a  million years  later. The planet
Ven, however, was particularly brilliant here. Toni Fae pointed  out to Mada
the  evening star that had begun shining  on the horizon like a spark in the
flames of dawn. It was still the brightest object in the night sky.
     The astronauts continued admiring the sky of Terr for  quite some time.
Strange nocturnal sounds came from the forest.
     Urn Sat suggested spending the night in the rocket.
     Mada  went back  inside  reluctantly, although she  could  take off her
heavy space-suit in there.
     She could  not shake off the unpleasant impression  made  by Smel Ven's
remarks.
     Next  morning,  the Faetians went for a  stroll through  the  forest in
pairs. They were to assemble by the rocket at a prearranged time.
     Long shadows  lay on the ground. According  to the  instruments, it had
turned cooler. They were about to see Sol set on Terr for the second time.
     Ave and Mada  were  late. Urn  Sat was alarmed. Toni Fae  painstakingly
kept  calling  the  missing  pair.  Mada  and  Ave  did  not  reply,  as  if
electromagnetic communications had broken down.
     Gor Terr sent up two signal rockets in succession. They soared up  into
the  colourful evening sky,  leaving  curly trains of smoke behind them. The
red and yellow curves floated across the heavens for a long time.
     "From  red  to  yellow,"  quipped  Toni  Fae.  "From love to  wisdom. A
hopeless call."
     Gor Terr shook the inflated sleeve of his space-suit at him.
     Smel Ven kept apart as  if nothing had happened. His  helmet  concealed
tightened lips and downcast eyes.
     His hopes were  finally fulfilled. Mada ran out  of  the  forest in her
skin-tight, wet undergarment. She had taken off her space-suit!
     Smel Ven trembled and raised his visor.
     This was the Mada whom the sculptors had tried to catch sight of on the
Great Shore and  whom Smel Ven himself had admired.  Head flung back  on the
slender neck, dark  blue, ecstatic eyes. She  was  holding a golden apple in
each hand.
     "Ave and I are now the first inhabitants of Terr. It'll go down  in the
planet's history!"
     Ave  followed  behind  her,  also  without  his  space-suit.  They  had
evidently been enjoying a swim. He was also carrying two golden fruits.
     "Maybe we are  at fault," he  said  in  response to  the reproach in Dm
Sat's eyes, "but  it's now been proved that Faetians can  live on Terr.  The
planet  will  feed them.  The labours  of  the  colonists will be generously
rewarded. This means an end to overpopulation on Faena!"
     Dm  Sat  merely  gave   Ave  a  look;  the  other  bowed  his  head  in
embarrassment.
     "We simply carried out an experiment.  Someone had  to, otherwise there
would have been no point in flying here."
     Smel Ven waited for  many days, but in vain. Ave and Mada, Terr's first
inhabitants, enjoyed all the benefits of the paradise they had found and did
not succumb to any form of illness.
     After  a sufficient  period of  time had elapsed. Dm  Sat permitted the
other Faetians to take off their space-suits.
     They took  this  alien world of  nature at once: the  air,  filled with
strange  perfumes,  the bright light, unknown  on  Faena, and the unfamiliar
sounds coming from  the forest. Something  would be walking about  in there,
hiding, leaping from branch to branch, shrieking, bellowing. Then, suddenly,
all the noises would die down  and from  the  depths of the  forest  Silence
itself would seem to be watching the uninvited guests.

     Chapter Three

        PARADISE FOUND

     Dm Sat  was  regarding his companions with a kind  of  strange sadness,
trying not  to go near them. He made  a sign to Smel Ven and climbed up into
the  rocket. The First Pilot of Quest  found the  scientist already lying on
the couch in the common cabin. His  cheeks were hollow and the pouches under
his eyes were even more pronounced.
     Smel Ven stopped  a short distance  away. His narrow  face with the big
bald  patches on his  head looked even longer because of the straggly little
goatee beard.
     "I feel a great weakness," said the Elder. "I have no headache or rash.
It might pass off. Let the Sister of Health stay with me; the rest can carry
on with their work. However,  I still  consider  it my duty to hand over the
leadership of the expedition to you, as the ship's commander."
     "So be it,"  declared Smel Ven  solemnly, drawing  himself up  as if on
parade.  "I  assume all the  authority! Henceforth, I  shall be in charge of
everything. And I order you, my aged friend, to lie down. You know where the
provisions are. I forbid all subordinates to come near the rocket."
     "Even the Sister of Health?" asked Um Sat quietly.
     "Even her," snapped Smel Ven. "She will be useful to the others if they
fall ill as well."
     Um Sat laughed weakly but said nothing.
     "I am leaving now," Smel Ven hastened to say.
     "I am  replacing you," said the  old man  after him,  but the hatch had
already slammed shut.
     Um Sat wearily closed his eyes. When would he stop making mistakes? Why
ever did they think him wise?
     Smel Ven assembled all the astronauts.
     "Um Sat has ordered me to inform you that the camp is being transferred
from the rocket into the forest. As it will be hard for the old man to spend
the night there, he has delegated the leadership  of the camp to  me  as his
deputy."
     "But the forest's dangerous at night," commented Toni Fae.
     Smel Ven looked at him contemptuously.
     "I don't  know who is more graced with cowardice: the astronomer or the
poet."
     Toni Fae flushed. Gor Terr interceded on his behalf.
     "Caution is useful, even in a leader."
     "What risk can there be," said Smel Ven aggressively, "if we've come to
a world of love and harmony?" And he turned to Mada and Ave.
     "Who's threatening us?" said Mada, backing him up.
     Ave nodded silently.
     The explorers collected up everything they needed, armed  themselves at
Gor  Terr's  insistence with pistols, though loaded  only with  stun bullets
harmless to animal life, and set off into the forest.
     Mada urgently wanted to see Um Sat, but Smel Ven refused to let her; he
was anxious to get into the forest before darkness fell.
     They pitched camp  on the shore of the lake from  which the stream fell
into  the chasm. White  birds  with curved  necks were  swimming on rippling
water that was tinged with mother-of-pearl.
     "Why do they have such long necks?" asked Toni Fae.
     "To fetch up underwater weeds," replied Mada.
     "A very peaceful occupation," commented Gor Terr.
     The  evening glow was already flickering in  the sky when Smel Ven sent
Mada and Ave to survey  the other shore of the lake. They had  to make their
way across the stream, jumping from rock to rock.
     They walked on,  occasionally  stooping under  low branches, dressed in
their  clinging black  suits and  delightedly looking  about them. Suddenly,
they both stopped in their tracks.
     A reindeer, its antlered head flung back, raced past  in front of them.
A powerful beast with a spotted hide was following it in  great soft bounds.
It  overtook the reindeer and pounced on its  neck.  The victim,  its artery
bitten  through, made  a last  desperate bound and collapsed  under  a tree.
There was a bellowing sound. The beast was tearing its prey to pieces.
     Ave snatched at his pistol to reload it with poisoned bullets.
     "We daren't  take  lives  here,"  intervened  Mada. "We  mustn't  bring
Faena's morals with us."
     "I'm afraid they already exist here."
     "But why?"
     "The laws of life's development on the planets are exactly the same."
     "But what about the watering place?" protested  Mada  weakly. "None  of
them attacked any of the others there."
     "A  beast  of prey  can't just slaughter animals.  It  lets them  live,
drink, propagate  and grow. Otherwise  it won't  have  anything to eat. It's
like a forest animal-breeder: by catching the weakest when  out  hunting, it
improves the selection of the herd."
     Mada made  no objection.  She  walked  along at  Ave's  side, dejected,
conscious of his hand  on her shoulder. But suddenly he snatched it away and
slapped his  forehead.  Mada involuntarily did the same. Then she  stared in
bewilderment at her fingers, which were  stained with  blood. It had  become
dark in the forest and there  was  a  buzzing noise  everywhere. Tiny flying
creatures swooped  on the Faetians and began stinging them. Ave and Mada had
to pluck branches and beat the flies off.
     They found Smel Ven  alone in the camp. He was frantically slapping his
cheeks and neck.
     "Filthy creatures!" he swore. "We'd be better off in our space-suits."
     "I was terribly wrong," began Mada at once.  "Ave and I  have just seen
murder in the forest. Murder is committed here as on Faena! We must move the
camp  back to  the rocket as  soon  as possible,  to open ground where there
aren't any insects or beasts of prey."
     "We're  not going back to the rocket," snapped Smel Ven. "There's a far
more terrible death in store for us there-the one that was lying in wait for
Dm Sat."
     "What  d'you  mean?" Mada  was outraged.  "And you.  Dm  Saf's  deputy,
wouldn't allow me, as a doctor, to be with him?"
     "Such was his will. It's  not  just filthy flying creatures  or spotted
predators, but the hidden microworld that's bared its teeth at us."
     "I'm going to Um Sat!" declared Mada.
     "With me," added Ave.
     "Only  cowards who've found a  pretext escape by running away!" shouted
Smel Ven after them, forgetting his own false warning.
     Mada  ran ahead.  Ave could  hardly  see  her  outline in  the  swiftly
approaching darkness. Suddenly, his heart contracted with pain. It seemed to
him that Mada had  been stopped by a gigantic round-shouldered creature with
long, dangling  arms. He drew his pistol, which he  still hadn't loaded with
live  ammunition, but noticed  that Mada was not  in the least  afraid.  Ave
gasped with relief. That showed how badly his nerves had been set on edge by
the forest episode! He hadn't recognised Gor Terr. And now the puny Toni Fae
also turned up.
     Ave put his pistol away and only then  did he see at least five figures
like Gor Terr with  him. The Faetoids  knocked Toni Fae and  the frantically
resisting Mada off their feet. The whole gang of them charged at Gor Terr.
     Ave  dashed towards Gor Terr,  but couldn't  tell him  from  among  the
similar round-shouldered,  shaggy beasts. They sorted themselves out and all
five of them hurled themselves on Ave.
     He hadn't time  to draw his pistol. He merely shook off  the assailants
clinging to him. They were bigger  than Ave, but had  no idea  how to fight.
Using his fists and his feet, Ave scattered the beasts as  they fell on him.
Two of them writhed under a tree, the others flung themselves at  Ave again.
Throwing over his shoulder one who stank  of sweat  and mud, he glimpsed Gor
Terr dealing with his opponents. Several shaggy carcasses  were squirming at
his feet. But  still more of the enemy were tumbling down onto his shoulders
from the trees. Ave tried to shout  that he should run to open ground, but a
shaggy paw clamped  itself over his face. Ave twisted the paw till the bones
cracked.
     Mada  was nowhere to be seen. Nor was Toni  Fae.  Only Gor Terr and Ave
Mar continued the unequal struggle.
     "Hold out, Ave!" shouted Gor Terr. "These are all of one local family!"
     Ave flung aside the first assailants,  but at  least a dozen fresh ones
leapt on him. Four taloned paws fastened on to each of his hands and feet.
     The  young Faetian summoned up all his strength,  heaved and crashed to
the ground, crushing his  enemies  underneath  him. More shaggy beasts leapt
onto the  pile of weltering  bodies. He felt as if  he had  been bur