dged to the door in the left wall. It was locked and
Hellman burned it open with the ship's burner.

It was a wedge-shaped room, piled with incomprehensible alien goods.

The hike back across the room seemed like miles, but they made it only
slightly out of wind. Hellman blew out the lock and they looked in.

It was a wedge-shaped room, piled with incomprehensible alien goods.

"All the same," Casker said sadly, and closed the door.

"Evidently there's a series of these rooms going completely around the
building," Hellman said. "I wonder if we should explore them."

Casker calculated the distance around the building, compared it with
his remaining strength, and sat down heavily on a long gray object.

"Why bother?" he asked.

* * * * *

Hellman tried to collect his thoughts. Certainly he should be able to
find a key of some sort, a clue that would tell him what they could
eat. But where was it?

He examined the object Casker was sitting on. It was about the size
and shape of a large coffin, with a shallow depression on top. It was
made of a hard, corrugated substance.

"What do you suppose this is?" Hellman asked.

"Does it matter?"

Hellman glanced at the symbols painted on the side of the object, then
looked them up in his dictionary.

"Fascinating," he murmured, after a while.

"Is it something to eat?" Casker asked, with a faint glimmering of
hope.

"No, You are sitting on something called THE MOROG CUSTOM SUPER
TRANSPORT FOR THE DISCRIMINATING HELGAN WHO DESIRES THE BEST IN
VERTICAL TRANSPORTATION. It's a vehicle!"

"Oh," Casker said dully.

"This is important! Look at it! How does it work?"

Casker wearily climbed off the Morog Custom Super Transport and looked
it over carefully. He traced four almost invisible separations on its
four corners. "Retractable wheels, probably, but I don't see--"

Hellman read on. "It says to give it three amphus of high-gain Integor
fuel, then a van of Tonder lubrication, and not to run it over three
thousand Ruls for the first fifty mungus."

"Let's find something to eat," Casker said.

"Don't you see how important this is?" Hellman asked. "This could
solve our problem. If we could deduce the alien logic inherent in
constructing this vehicle, we might know the Helgan thought pattern.
This, in turn, would give us an insight into their nervous systems,
which would imply their biochemical makeup."

Casker stood still, trying t