out why. And you know the Dumps better than any metal
person--or human--on Phobos."

So that was it. I felt a vague dread, a premonition of disaster. I had
such feelings before, and usually with reason. This too, was an
acquired sensibility, I am sure. For many years I have studied the
Builders, and there is much to be learned of their mobile faces and
their eyes. In Jon's eyes, however, I read no trickery--nothing.

Yet, I say, I had the sensation of evil. It was just for a moment; no
longer.

I said I would think it over.

* * * * *

Senator Langley was distinguished. Jon said so. And yet he was
cumbersomely round, and he rattled incessantly of things into which I
could interpret no meaning. The she who was his wife was much younger,
and sullen, and unpleasantly I sensed great rapport between her and
Jon Rogeson from the very first.

There were several other humans in the group--I will not call them
Builders, for I did not hold them to be, in any way, superior to my
own people. They all wore spectacles, and they gravitated about the
round body of the Senator like minor moons, and I could tell that they
were some kind of servitors.

I will not describe them further.

MS-33 I will describe. I felt an unconscionable hatred for him at
once. I can not say why, except that he hung about his master
obsequiously, power pack smoothly purring, and he was slim limbed,
nickel-plated, and wore, I thought, a smug expression on his
viziplate. He represented the new order; the ones who had displaced us
on Earth. He knew too much, and showed it at every opportunity.

We did not go far that first morning. The half-track was driven to the
edge of the Dumps. Within the Dumps one walks--or does not go. Phobos
is an airless world, and yet so small that rockets are impractical.
The terrain is broken and littered with the refuse of half a dozen
worlds, but the Dumps themselves--that is different.

Imagine, if you can, an endless vista of death, a sea of rusting
corpses of space ships, and worn-out mining machinery, and of those of
my race whose power packs burned out, or who simply gave up, retiring
into this endless, corroding limbo of the barrens. A more sombre sight
was never seen.

But this fat ghoul, Langley, sickened me. This shame of the Builder
race, this atavism--this beast--rubbed his fat, impractical hands
together with an ungod-like glee. "Excellent," he said. "Far, far
better, in fac