o wonder. It was twilight
now, and the sun was gone. He thanked God that he had a flashlight
with him; long after night came, he was searching in the raw gash
where the first meteor had fallen.

He found the girl, dazed and bleeding, in a cleft between two rocks.
He knelt and took her in his arms. Gently, gratefully, through the
night and the fires and past the broken and the dead, he carried her
back to the ship.

* * * * *

It had all become frighteningly clear to Beauclaire. He talked with
the people and began to understand.

The meteors had been falling since the beginning of time, so the
people said. Perhaps it was the fault of the great dust-cloud through
which this planet was moving; perhaps it was that this had not always
been a one-planet system--a number of other planets, broken and
shredded by unknown gravitational forces, would provide enough meteors
for a very long time. And the air of this planet being thin, there was
no real protection as there was on Earth. So year after year the
meteors fell. In unpredictable places, at unknowable times, the
meteors fell, like stones from the sling of God. They had been falling
since the beginning of time. So the people, the unconcerned people,
said.

And here was Beauclaire's clue. Terrified and shaken as he was,
Beauclaire was the kind of man who saw reason in everything. He
followed this one to the end.

In the meantime, Wyatt nursed the girl. She had not been badly hurt,
and recovered quickly. But her family and friends were mostly dead
now, and so she had no reason to leave the ship.

Gradually Wyatt learned the language. The girl's name was ridiculous
when spoken in English, so he called her Donna, which was something
like her real name. She was, like all her people, unconcerned about
the meteors and her dead. She was extraordinarily cheerful. Her
features were classic, her cheeks slim and smiling, her teeth perfect.
In the joy and whiteness of her, Wyatt saw each day what he had seen
and known in his mind on the day the meteors fell. Love to him was
something new. He was not sure whether or not he was in love, and he
did not care. He realized that he needed this girl and was at home
with her, could rest with her and talk with her, and watch her walk
and understand what beauty was; and in the ship in those days a great
peace began to settle over him.

When the girl was well again, Beauclaire was in the middle of
translati