rters Command. If his
teleray hadn't been understood there might still be a chance for him
to make his report in person.

The ship crashed against the hard ground. Dirrul felt a wrenching pain
as the automatic safety arms pinioned him fast to cushion the fall,
before hurling him free of the blazing control room. After that he
lost consciousness.

V

When Dirrul opened his eyes it was after dark but the triple moons of
Vinin were full and the landscape glowed with a yellowish light. He
had fallen into a ditch which ran beside a narrow, green-paved road.
In the distance, hidden in a dense copse of blue tree-like
vegetation, he saw the fragments of his wrecked ship. The purple grass
of Vinin spread richly all around him, damp and warm. At the bottom of
the ditch a reddish trickle of liquid washed over his feet.

His throat ached with thirst. His tongue clung like sand to the roof
of his mouth. He knew that an Agronian could live in the Vininese
atmosphere but he was uncertain whether his body could assimilate the
native liquids. Yet to ease the torture he dipped his hand into the
red fluid and rubbed a few drops over his lips. The sting of salt
increased his torment.

His body shuddered with pain as he pulled himself to his feet. He
crept a few feet along the green highway, and slowly his will mastered
his strength so that he could walk erect. He began to orient himself a
little. On the horizon he saw the skyline of the city he had observed
from the air and he knew he was following the road in the right
direction.

But the distance was greater than he had estimated. He walked for an
hour and the city still seemed no closer. Nor had he seen any sign of
habitation where he might go for help, nothing except the towering
endless yellow stone wall which he had been following for more than
half an hour. There was neither gate nor break in the stone. Atop the
wall regularly spaced brackets held three naked wires in place.

The wall probably guarded the estate of a Vininese official, he
decided. In that case the wires were either a warning device or a
charged trap against thieves. Dirrul was puzzled by the obvious
deduction. Such things were necessary on Agron to protect important
installations like the Beam Transmitters--but he had hardly expected
there would be a need for them on Vinin. Yet when he considered it
objectively, why not? Every system of society, no matter how ideal,
would produce inevitable malcontents--