redit I can turn your way."

"Thank you, sir," Ren said, his voice choked with gratitude. In his
heart he knew that he would have sold his soul to the devil for this
coming experience that had been given him without his asking.

He had spent years preparing for this--years that his teachers had felt
were wasted. He had explored all the crazy systems of logic abandoned in
the march of progress. He had even devised systems of his own,
synthesized from undefined symbols according to strange patterns outside
the field of logic.

Yes. He felt that even if the basics of natural law in operation here
were purely nonsense laws, he would be able to penetrate to a rational
manipulation and control of things. Perhaps he might even set up the
pattern operating, and join it in some way with so-called normal
science.

Commander Dunnam came to attention, a twinkle in his eyes.

"At your command, sir," he said, saluting.

"Not that," Ren objected. "Let me just play the part of a scientist
under your command, whose part it is to advise only."

"No," Hugh Dunnam said. "Until we leave this part of space you're in
sole command. Call it what you want--a hunch maybe; but I feel that
there is a purpose in things, and it wasn't chance that gave you the
type of mind you have and threw you under my command on this trip."

"Very well, sir," Ren said, returning the salute. He smiled. Behind his
smile his analytical mind was working rapidly.

"The commander's reactions are not normal," his thoughts said. "They
could not be dictated by anything in his past. Therefore they are
dictated by something outside him--something on that planet below!"

It was a wild conjecture. The more he thought of it the more certain Ren
became that there was some _intelligence_ down there that had already
made contact with the minds in the ship.

Strangely, this didn't alarm him. He felt that "it" was friendly. He
felt that "it" had plumbed the minds of all on board and chosen him to
take over and lead the others.

Eagerly he "listened," but no faintest whisper or flavor of thought came
to support his feeling of an alien contact. In spite of this he went
ahead with his study of things with a confidence that "something" was
watching and would see them through all right.

* * * * *

His eyes turned again to the image of the cold planet below. That image
returned his stare blankly, its inscrutable surface devoid of any hint
of