aid,
peering. "It's not only a sample of alien engineering--and a thundering
big one at that--but an object lesson on the weird workings of alien
logic. If we could figure out what possessed the Bees to build such a
maze here--"

"Then we'd be the first to solve the problem of alien psychology,"
Farrell finished acidly, aping the older man's ponderous enthusiasm.
"Lee, you know we'd have to follow those hive-building fiends all the
way to 70 Ophiuchi to find out what makes them tick. And twenty thousand
light-years is a hell of a way to go out of curiosity, not to mention a
dangerous one."

"But we'll go there some day," Stryker said positively. "We'll have to
go because we can't ever be sure they won't try to repeat their invasion
of two hundred years ago."

He tugged at the owlish tufts of hair over his ears, wrinkling his bald
brow up at the enigmatic maze.

"We'll never feel safe again until the Bees are wiped out. I wonder if
they know that. They never understood us, you know, just as we never
understood them--they always seemed more interested in experimenting
with slave ecology than in conquest for itself, and they never killed
off their captive cultures when they pulled out for home. I wonder if
their system of logic can postulate the idea of a society like ours,
which must rule or die."

"We'd better get on with our survey," Gibson put in mildly, "unless we
mean to finish by floodlight. We've only about forty-eight hours left
before dark."

* * * * *

He moved past Stryker through the port, leaving Farrell to stare blankly
after him.

"This is a non-rotating world," Farrell said. "How the devil _can_ it
get dark, Lee?"

Stryker chuckled. "I wondered if you'd see that. It can't, except when
the planet's axial tilt rolls this latitude into its winter season and
sends the sun south of the crater rim. It probably gets dark as pitch
here in the valley, since the fog would trap even diffused light." To
the patiently waiting mechanical, he said, "The ship is yours, Xav. Call
us if anything turns up."

Farrell followed him reluctantly outside into a miasmic desolation more
depressing than he could have imagined.

A stunted jungle of thorny brambles and tough, waist-high grasses
hampered their passage at first, ripping at coveralls and tangling the
feet until they had beaten their way through it to lower ground. There
they found a dreary expanse of bogland where scummy pool