dled the smooth, rounded pebbles. He could feel the heat through his protective hide—the water was hotter than the hottest day in the southern regions. He was bemused by the smoothness of the pebbles, and fingered them with pleasure, sorting them according to size, arranging them on the green-covered bank. He started with the larger pebbles and stacked smaller ones on top to form a small mound. He was for the moment a child, playing children's games. His mind was idle. At first he did not note the difference in weight as he fingered a small, rounded pebble and lifted it. Then the shift of a cloud let a glow of sunlight through and the pebble in his fingers glowed with a life of its own, yellow and rich. He made an explosive sound through his small lips. Hard material. Of much the same heft as his treasured nugget of gray hard material, but yellow, unbelievably beautiful. Feverishly, he pawed through the pebbles of the stream. His efforts roiled the water with silt until he was unable to see. He berated himself for greed. Many a Healer went through life without finding a single nugget of hard material. He now owned three, and this latest find was, by far, the most wonderful. He spent a long period contemplating it. It showed no signs of having been crafted. It was irregular in shape, but smoothed by the action of the stream. It showed no hint of corrosion, remaining yellow even in the tainted air. Sated with the sensations he received from the nugget, he began to speculate on its origin. Being heavier than the pebbles it had been lodged at the bottom of the stream when he found it. Perhaps hard materials were formed naturally, under the surface. He shuddered. Seated on the softness of the strange soil, he could more fully comprehend the meaning of below the surface. When walking on solid stone, or on the smoothness of the plains of glass, one often forgot that there was a subsurface. Here and on the escarpment's face, subsurface had meaning, for one could see the exposed layers of rock, the different shapes and textures. He carefully placed his hand on the bank of the stream, down low, near the surface of the water. The hard projectiles tingled his small finger scales, but the increase was insignificant. Had the action of the running water cleansed the earth itself? An entirely new concept thundered into his brain. He loved life, revered it, as did every member of the race. He would not have considered breaking the most ancient of laws, lest he lose prematurely that precious gift with which he was entrusted. And yet, he had held his hand below the surface, next to the exposed soft soil of the creek bank and he had lived, had not even been endangered. This valley, he thought, was different, unlike any other spot on the planet, at least any spot he had seen. The air was clean. Pure water cut through the surface earth and exposed pebbles and beautiful nuggets of hard material. Not daring to openly entertain his new idea about the subsurface he walked back to the basin and watched the rushing water emerge from the rocks. He moved a few stones experimentally, placing them where the water gurgled from the confining basin. Guiltily he searched the area and found only solitude. He told himself he was not breaking the law. He was merely shifting rocks— this was permissible as long as the rocks were lying free on the surface. The pile of rocks grew, but the water ran between them undeterred. He filled the chinks with small pebbles, then with gritty small particles, scooped from the floor of the creek. The flow of water was slowed and the level rose in the basin. His tough feet dislodged some vegetation from the banks of the creek and he picked up a piece, seeing that a certain amount of the soft earth clung to it. He was shocked. He dropped the offending bit of green, then picked it up again. It was lying free, wasn't it? He knew he was stretching logic, for his feet had dislodged it. But the vegetation had a wet, spongy feeling and he placed it in the chinks between the rocks of his dam. It held back the water so well that he recklessly trod up and down the banks of the creek to loosen more of the green material. His dam grew, until finally a trickle of water began to run around the far edge. At first the water was soaked up by the soft earth. Then it puddled, ran. He watched, fascinated, waiting for it to begin to cut into the soft material and expose the rocks underneath. By nightfall, his diverted stream was running all the way down the valley to join the old stream bed a short distance above the lake. The water running over the new earth was muddied by its passage, yet the cutting away of the soft material had not begun. Rack spent an uneasy, guilt-ridden night. In the morning his curiosity overcame his guilt, for the running water had begun to loosen more of the earth. The new stream bed was noticeably depressed and here and there rocks showed through. Moreover, the hard projectiles were no more frequent than before. But it was going to be a very slow process, he determined some days later when the bed of his diverted stream was still composed of softened mud. He left the valley reluctantly. Soon he was caught in a fresh storm and weathered it inside his protective covering of the Material. He wandered and explored, but nowhere did he find anything as interesting as his valley. Everywhere he was confronted by bleak, barren rocks, yielding nothing. During a lull in the storms he jogged back to the east, coming on his valley just as he began to eat seriously into his reserves. He breathed the pure air, watched his stream work, and noted that more and more rocks and pebbles were showing in the new stream bed. He slept beside the heated water of the basin for many nights, spending his days searching the old stream bed for more hard-material nuggets. He found none. Impatient, as his time grew short, he removed his dam, returning the water to its original channel, and began to search the new stream bed. He found only mud and bare, unpolished pebbles. He decided to build another dam and worked feverishly, the technique familiar now, to build up the low area on the side of the basin where his first artificial creek had overflowed. The newly diverted stream was maddenly slow in carving a channel, and as his time grew less and less he cut his daily ration of broth and worriedly watched the storms worsen as the sun circled drew toward its end. He found the object on his last day in the valley. The timing seemed to be significant, as if nature had been withholding the bombshell to the last possible instant. He came upon it as he was sorting through the rocks and pebbles in his second stream bed. He knew when he picked it up that something exciting was happening. It was different. The pebbles and stones were sharp-edged, broken. This object was smooth, oblong, and rounded on the ends, although it was darkened and pitted. And it was strangely light in his hands, having neither the weight of natural stone nor the heavier feel of the hard materials. He cleaned it in the running water, rubbing the accumulated mud from it, heedless of the fact that in fingering the mud he was technically digging. The mud was from below the surface. But his excitement allowed no moralizing. The object had the look, the feel, of being crafted. At first, when he saw that it was transparent, he was deflated. It was, he felt with a sinking heart, merely an abandoned piece of the Material. But further examination and comparison proved that idea to be wrong. It was not as light as the Material, nor did it have the feel of life possessed by the smooth, flexible substance created by the Far Seers. It was definitely artificial and totally alien—obviously not a product of his civilization. There were two possibilities: either it had fallen from the sky, as some Far Seers suggested the hard materials had, or it had been made by some earlier inhabitant of the planet. As he packed and left the valley, he prepared his arguments. He, at least, was convinced that he had a bombshell to toss into the minds of Red Earth and all the other doubters. For if the object that rested in his pack had not been made by his civilization, and if it had not fallen from the sky, there was only one other explanation. It was a relic of the Old Ones. And to have evidence that the Old Ones could have fabricated something so like the Material would force a revision in the thinking of the entire race. IV His pack, almost empty of broth, was light on his back, allowing Rack to stride along easily. Yet it became evident even before he had gained the eastern bank of the river that he had underestimated the severity of the weather conditions. Pictures of changes in the face of the satellite, which he himself could not see, but for which he had an inner feel, flooded his mind. Soon the new circle would begin and time would bring the abatement of the winter storms. Meanwhile, the outside atmosphere was chilled to a point only slightly above his own body temperature, and the southeasterly movements of the masses of polar air were violent enough to cause Rack's self-confidence to be severely shaken. Already he had been afield longer than ever before, thanks to the store of relatively good air in his valley. However, he had still been gradually using his reserves and now, with the plains of glass stretching endlessly ahead of him, his inventory of his system showed that he did, indeed, have cause for concern. The outside air was totally unbreathable. Not a particle of it was allowed below the lock above his lungs. As he tested it, his gills pumped violently, sending condensed clouds of pure poison swirling out from his neck. In a vain effort to replenish his stores, he scouted up and down the river, but not even at water level could he find clean air. There was nothing for him to do but strike out across the plains and hope for a break in the overcast. He moved at a steady, slow pace designed to make maximum distance at a minimum cost. Fresh, he had crossed the plains in a double picture of a day. Now he would be lucky to be able to set foot on the rocky soil of the eastern side in a discouraging picture of days. He did not fear for his life. Should his very being become endangered, he would call for aid, but only as a last resort. His pride would push him on, and his regard for others would cause him to expend his own life force, rather than call a relatively fragile Power Giver out of her safe retreat into the deadly storms. At the end of the day he had made very little progress, so he pushed on in the darkness of night, guided by his instinctive sense of direction. He paused long enough to finish his broth supply, overeating in an effort to accumulate quick energy for a dash. He jogged on, burning himself, until the first light of dawn glowed weakly through the solid curtain of gases that lay over the plains. Wherever the plains dipped he would bend to test the air near the surface, but the conditions were totally toxic. Later in the day he rested, crouched under his sheet of the Material. He had as far to go as he had come, and beyond the plains he would have to cross the rugged, broken land that stretched for even a greater distance before he approached the nearest establishment. It would be a breach of politeness to break in unannounced on another individual, but life was the important thing and no one would turn him away. Thus he set as his goal the establishment nearest the badlands on the east and prepared himself for the unpleasant task of imposing his needs on another. Under ordinary conditions it would be inexcusable, but, remembering the importance of the object he carried in his pack, he felt justified. He could feel the strain as he moved out, walking with long strides, but more slowly than he would have wished. His scales registered a high amount of projectile emission from the heavy atmosphere. His feet were beginning to know a certain soreness. He did not waste energy in trying to heal them, but saved all his force for fueling his giant heart, that vital organ within him that sent blood swirling through his body to pick up the particles of good air from storage cells. The discomfort he felt was his just punishment for the greed that had caused him to overstay his capacity. Another night found him exhausted and still on the plains. His senses were dulled. He no longer had an exact picture of the remaining distance. Endless plains flowed under his feet. The densest clouds he had ever experienced isolated him within a circle of vision extending scarcely beyond his outstretched arm. It would be interesting to compare notes with Red Earth's Keeper, to see just how many sun circles one would have to look back to find a storm of equal toxicity. He would have a great tale for his offspring. He realized with a start what a strange thought this was for a Healer who had shown no signs of readiness. Perhaps the knowledge of his own mortality had prompted the wayward speculation. He was indeed threatened. For the first time in his life he was in a situation from which his vast endurance, his strength, his own resources, could not extricate him. He admitted it now. He was beyond his own abilities and it was only a question of time before he would have to open his mind and admit his failure to another. Yet, his pride pushed him on. Each step used up his reserves. He slowed to a crawl, but he was determined to make it to the rocks. There, with any luck at all, he would be able to find pockets of usable air. Calling a Power Giver into the thick of the stagnant storm would rob her of a portion of her life and, Power Givers being the most short-lived, fragile beings of the race, he refused to ask such a sacrifice. Pain was signaling the far-reaching waste of his body when his feet encountered something other than the hopeless smoothness of the plains, and for a moment his spirits lifted. He made respectable time into the towering boulders, his sensitive nose seeking air but finding only unusable gases. Even at his pace he was still more than a day's march from the nearest establishment. Above his head the stagnant masses of air began to shift. He could feel the movement on his scales and allowed himself one last hope. If the storm began to blow over, perhaps cool air of a usable purity would come in behind it. He wrapped himself, slowed his metabolism, and went into a state of nearly suspended animation in which his heart beat only occasionally and his mind darkened and slowed. A few good lungfuls of air would give him enough strength to make the establishment. But the movement of the air masses soon ceased—it had been only a local phenomenon. Checking his resources he estimated he could safely wait the coming of a new day. He dropped his heartbeat to the minimum level and, in a state of quasi-death, waited through the long night. His mind held only a token of awareness— a spark of life lying there, banked, waiting to rouse him, waiting to open the gates and send out that last desperate admission of foolishness. As the rising sun dimly lightened the rocks, awareness seeped down through the protective layers of his mind. He stirred. The toxic conditions were still total. A feeling of overwhelming sadness swept him as he opened his mind and sent. Sadness was replaced with horror as he realized the weakness of his signal. He burned the last of his reserve cells, converting the energy into a truly desperate call, knowing even as he lapsed into darkness that he had waited too long. His last awareness was not fear of death, but shock at his miscalculation. His mistake would take one unit of life—it just happened to be his own personal unit—from the pitifully small store of life on the planet. He did not mourn his own loss, but the loss his carelessness had inflicted on the whole. Deep-lying cells were robbed. His extremities were beginning to lose the flexibility of life. His brain was numb, dark, and he was unaware. Nature, sometimes kind, sometimes cruel, spared him the knowledge of his dying. V Since there was no hereafter in Rack's world, he knew, when he felt the caress of good air in his lungs, that he was alive. He lay on an unfamiliar rack, his huge chest pumping at a fast rate, his depleted cells drinking thirstily, his lungs sucking up air at a tremendous rate. He stopped breathing immediately, rolled back his outer lids, found himself in an establishment, and opened his inner eyes to see in the semidarkness. «Thank you,» the thoughts of a Power Giver said. «I was afraid you were going to bankrupt me of air before you awoke.» He was lying under a coverlet which, in the comfort of the establishment, was unnecessary, and, in fact, rather too warm. He threw it of