ss time
on her hands, were mysteries. Mysteries, at times, even to herself. But
her heart was sometimes very light, and glad to be alone, and at other
times, very sad, and very sure that mankind itself was not what she
would wish it to be. In searching her heart, Alfreya knew she was very
well rid of all that clutter in the caverns overhead.

* * * * *

From the outer darkness of space came a tiny shape, speeding on and on
toward this sun and captive planet. It was going from nowhere to nowhere
at a terrific rate.

There are many shapes adrift in space, bits of rock, celestial debris
awash in the infinite oceans of ether. But this shape was not a rock. It
was of metal, and within it was a man named Peter McCarthy.

He was a very hungry man, and a very thirsty man, and when the great red
sun reached out and pulled his ship to itself, Pete in his fuel depleted
craft gave silent thanks that at last the end had come.

This would be a quick clean death in the flames, and Pete turned his
back on the sun and waited. But when he heard the air screaming about
his hull, he turned back to the bow view panes again.

"Well, I'll be damned!" cried Peter McCarthy. For a huge green planet
had pushed itself between him and the sun, and he did not like that at
all. "It's another of cruel Fate's devices to lengthen my torments!"
said Peter, and wept salt tears of weakness.

But his hands responded automatically. They thrust to the controls in
front of him and fired the long unused jets. A bit of fuel had collected
in the bottom of his tanks, and the jets blasted out, the ship lifted,
held itself upright on a pillar of sudden flame. Pete let it sink,
swiftly but gently, so that it fell hissing into the rolling green seas
without smashing to bits.

It sank down through the green waters like a stone, and McCarthy fell
weakly across the controls, and did not move a finger to change her
downward course. In truth, he hoped the ship would never come up again.
He was sick and tired of fighting against death.

Hours passed, and he slept, dreaming vague little dreams of eating and
drinking and flirting with the girls in the streets of Port Freedom. No
light came through the single hemisphere of transparence in front of his
nose, and he finally switched on the search-beam on the ship's nose.

"Stuck in the mud, I hope, jade that she is, and good for her, making me
die like this," Pete muttered, hating even t