side. There were
monstrous, many-colored cliffs and mesas, every one eaten at in the
unmistakable fashion of wind-erosion. Through a notch in the mountain
wall before them a strange, fan-shaped, frozen formation appeared. If
such a thing had been credible, Bordman would have said that it was a
flow of sand simulating a waterfall. And everywhere there was blinding
brightness and the look and feel of blistering sunshine. But there was
not one single leaf or twig or blade of grass. This was pure desert.
This was Xosa II.

Aletha regarded it with bright eyes.

"Beautiful!" she said happily. "Isn't it?"

"Personally," said Bordman, "I never saw a place that looked less
homelike or attractive."

Aletha laughed.

"My eyes see it differently."

Which was true. It was accepted, nowadays, that humankind might be one
species but was many races, and each saw the cosmos in its own fashion.
On Kalmet III there was a dense, predominantly Asiatic population which
terraced its mountainsides for agriculture and deftly mingled modern
techniques with social customs not to be found on--say--Demeter I, where
there were many red-tiled stucco towns and very many olive groves. In
the llano planets of the Equis cluster, Amerinds--Aletha's
kin--zestfully rode over plains dotted with the descendants of buffalo
and antelope and cattle brought from ancient Earth. On the oases of
Rustam IV there were date palms and riding camels and much argument
about what should be substituted for the direction of Mecca at the times
for prayer, while wheat fields spanned provinces on Canna I and highly
civilized emigrants from the continent of Africa on Earth stored jungle
gums and lustrous gems in the warehouses of their spaceport city of
Timbuk.

So it was natural for Aletha to look at this wind-carved wilderness
otherwise than as Bordman did. Her racial kindred were the pioneers of
the stars, these days. Their heritage made them less than appreciative
of urban life. Their inborn indifference to heights made them the
steel-construction men of the cosmos, and more than two-thirds of the
landing grids in the whole galaxy had their coup-feather symbols on the
key posts. But the planet government on Algonka V was housed in a
three-thousand-foot white stone tepee, and the best horses known to men
were raised by ranchers with bronze skins and high cheekbones on the
llano planet Chagan.

* * * * *

Now, here, in the _Warlock'