les they could see
the white bones of the _Mavis's_ crew lying on the reddish sand of the
valley bottom.

"There they are," Jervis said quietly. "Just bones. Those were my
shipmates."

Wayne saw Sherri repress a shudder. Little heaps of bones lay here and
there on the sand, shining brightly in the hot sun. That was the crew of
the _Mavis_--or what was left of them.

Colonel Petersen entered the room and confronted the crew. "We're here,"
he said. "You know the schedule from now on. No one's to leave the ship
until we've made a check outside, and after that--assuming it's OK to go
out--no more than six are to leave the ship at any one time."

He pointed to a row of metal magnetic tabs clinging to the wall nearest
the corridor that led to the airlock. "When you go out, take one of
those tabs and touch it on your suit. There are exactly six tabs. If
none are there, don't go out. It's as simple as that."

Four men in spacesuits entered the room, followed by two others. The
leader of the group saluted. "We're ready, sir," he said.

"Go out and get a look at the bodies," the colonel told the men, who
were Medical Corpsmen. "You know the procedure. Air and sand samples
too, of course."

The leader saluted again, turned, and left. Wayne watched the six
spacesuited figures step one at a time to the wall, withdraw one of the
metal tabs, and affix it to the outer skin of his suit. Then they went
outside.

Captain Wayne and Sherri James stood by one of the portholes and
watched the six medics as they bent over the corpses outside. "I don't
get it, I just don't understand," Wayne said quietly.

* * * * *

"What don't you get?" Sherri asked.

"Those skeletons. Those men have only been dead for two months, and
they've been reduced to nothing but bones already. Even the fabric of
their clothing is gone. Why? There must be something here that causes
human flesh to deteriorate much faster than normal."

"It does look pretty gruesome," Sherri agreed. "I'm glad we've been
ordered to keep our spacesuits on. I wouldn't want to be exposed to
anything that might be out there."

"I wonder--" Wayne muttered.

"What? What's the matter?"

Wayne pointed to one figure lying on the sand. "See that? What's that
over his head?"

"Why--it's a space helmet!"

"Yeah," said Wayne. "The question is: was he wearing just the helmet, or
the whole suit? If he was wearing the whole suit, we're not going to be