ed, suddenly realizing what she had
done, bending quickly to help him up.

"Get away, you lady weight-lifter," he growled, pushing aside the
proffered hand and struggling to his feet. "When are you going to
realize that I'm only human, not made of chrome steel bars like the
rest of your people...." He stifled the rest of his words in disgust,
at himself, his temper, this deadly planet and the cantankerousness of
its citizens that was scratching away at his nerves. He turned and
stamped away, angry at himself for taking out his vile mood on Meta,
but still too annoyed to make peace.

Meta watched him leave, trying to say something that would end this
foolish quarrel, but unable to. The largest blank in the Pyrran
personality was an almost complete lack of knowledge of human nature,
and her struggle to fill in the gaps--gaps she was only just beginning
to realize existed--was a difficult one. The stronger emotions of hate
and fear were no strangers to her; but for the first time she was
discovering how difficult and complex was this unusual feeling of
love. She let Jason go because she was incapable of any other action.
Of course she could stop him by force, but if she had learned anything
in the past few weeks, it was the discovery that this was one area
where he was very sensitive. There was no doubt that she was far
stronger than he--physically--and he did not like to be reminded about
it. She went back into the ground-control room, almost eager to deal
with the impersonal faces of the dials and scopes, material and
unchanging entities that posed no conflicting problems.

* * * * *

Jason stood at the edge of the field and watched the ship come in for
a landing, his anger forgotten temporarily in the presence of this
break in routine. Perhaps this was the shipful of scientific eggheads
that Brucco was expecting; he hoped so. It would be a pleasant treat
to have a conversation with someone about a topic more universal than
the bore dimensions of guns. With practiced eye he watched the landing
which was a little sloppy, either a new pilot or an old one who didn't
care much. It was a small ship so not many people would be aboard.
Then the spacer turned for a moment, in a landing correction, and he
had a quick glimpse of a serial number and tantalizingly familiar
insignia on its stern--where had he seen that before?

The ship touched down and the flaring rockets died. There was only the