.

The alien officer skirted the corpse gingerly. Raf though that he
would like to investigate the body closely but could not force himself
to that highly disagreeable task. There was a chorus of excited
exclamation from the doorway as others crowded there.

But the officer, having circled the carcass, turned his attention to
the dusty floor again. If there had been any trail there, it was now
muddled past their reading, for remnants of the grisly meal had been
dragged back and forth. The alien picked his way fastidiously through
the noxious debris to the end of the long room. Raf, with the same
care, toured the edge of the chamber in his wake.

They were out in a smaller passageway, which was taking them
underground, the Terran estimated. Then there was a large space with
barred cells about it and a second corridor. The stench of the death
chamber either clung to them, or was wafted from another point, and
Raf gagged as an especially foul blast caught him full in the face. He
kept a sharp look about him for signs of those feasters. The feast had
not been finished--it might have been that their entrance into the
storeroom had disturbed the scavengers. And things formidable enough
to drag down that scaled horror were not foes he would choose to meet
in these unlighted ways.

The passage began to slope upward once more, and Raf saw a half-moon
of light ahead, brilliant light which could only come from the sun.
The alien was outlined there as he went out; then he himself was
scuffing through sand close upon another death scene. The dead
monster had had its counterparts, and here they were, sprawled out,
mangled, and torn. Raf remained by the archway, for even the open air
and the morning winds could not destroy the reek which seemed as
deadly as a gas attack.

It must have disturbed the officer too, for he hesitated. Then with
visible effort he advanced toward the hunks of flesh, casting back and
forth as if to find some clue to the manner of their death. He was
still so engaged when a second alien burst out of the archway, a
splintered length of white held out before him as if he had made some
important discovery.

The officer grabbed that shaft away from him, turning it around in his
hands. And though expression was hard to read on those thin features
under the masking face paint, the emotion his whole attitude expressed
was surprise tinged with unbelief--as if the object his subordinate
had brought was the last