of--is there anything similar left. So maybe they did most of their
survey work by gliding, somehow, above the ground, not disturbing the
dust... I think the little indentations we saw look Martian. That would
be a break! Mars still has weather. Archeological objects wouldn't stay
new there for millions of years, but here they would! Rodan is
right--he's got something that'll make him famous!"

"Yes--I think I'll have a devil-killer and hit the sack, Frank," Lester
said.

"Oh--all right," Frank agreed wearily. "Me, likewise."

Frank awoke naturally from a dreamless slumber. After a breakfast of
eggs that had been a powder, Lester and he were at the diggings,
sifting dust for the dropped and discarded items of an alien visitation.

Thus Frank's job began. In the excitement of a hunt, as if for ancient
treasure, for a long time, through many ten hour shifts, Frank Nelsen
found a perhaps unfortunate Lethe of forgetfulness for his worries, and
for the mind-poisoning effects of the silence and desolation in this
remote part of the Moon.

They found things, thinly scattered in the ten acre area that Rodan
meant tediously to sift. The screws and nuts, bright and new, were
almost Earthly. But would anyone ever know what the little plastic rings
were for? Or the sticks of cellulose, or the curved, wire device with
fuzz at the ends? But then, would an off-Earth being ever guess the use
of--say--a toothbrush or a bobbypin?

The metal cylinders, neatly cut open, might have contained food--dried
leaf-like dregs still remained inside. There were small bottles made of
pearly glass, too--empty except for gummy traces. They were stoppered
with a stuff like rubber. There were also crumpled scraps, like paper or
cellophane, most of them marked with designs or symbols.

After ten Earth-days, in the lunar afternoon, Frank found the grave. He
shouted as his brushing hands uncovered a glassy, flexible surface.

Rodan took charge at once. "Back!" he commanded. Then he was avidly busy
in the pit, working as carefully as a fine jeweller. He cleared more
dust away, not with a trowel, not with his gloved fingers, but with a
little nylon brush.

The thing was like a seven-pointed star, four feet across. And was the
ripped, transparent casing of its body and limbs another version of a
vacuum armor? The material resembled stellene. As in an Archer, there
were metal details, mechanical, electronic, and perhaps nuclear.

In the punctured co