ecide to drop the ship
any closer to this mad planet you're going to have trouble with the
men."

"Meaning you've been talking to them?" Commander Hugh Dunnam asked
softly.

"Talking WITH them," Ford Gratrick said, matching Hugh's softness.
"Don't try to put me in the position of being a leader of any rebellion
that might develop. I'll confess quite frankly, though, that I want no
part of landing on this God-forsaken hunk of matter, and a good many of
the crew agree on that. It's suicidal. Frankly, sir, I think you must be
under some kind of spell to turn your command over to a spaceman second
class as you did."

* * * * *

Ren's scalp crawled. This had been exactly what he himself had felt! So
others besides him had "felt" that alien contact from below! On impulse
he made up his mind.

"Before anyone says something they might regret later," he cut in, "let
me say that I've made up my mind that it's too dangerous to land. The
effects we experience up here would probably be increased beyond
conception down there. Our thought processes are being affected in ways
we can't understand. It's possible that if we landed the ship would
behave so differently that it would be impossible to get away. So, give
me another two days of study in this orbit and then we'll go back to the
solar system."

While Ren was talking he had a curious feeling, far back in the depths
of his mind. It was as though a section of the bank of a stream had
broken off and dropped into the stream.

_Irrational._ There had been so many such feelings that crept to the
borders of consciousness and faded away without meaning anything.

Time! Ren felt that time was all he needed to get to the bottom of it.
He compared himself to a newborn babe coming into the world. For the
first few months things come and go in meaningless fashion. Slowly the
mind makes order out of them. The oft-repeated patterns become clear
first, then more obscure ones. Finally the baby is able to understand
the apparently senseless sequence of events.

Ren felt that the results would be the same here if he were given half a
chance ... but Ford Gratrick was right, too. It concerned more than the
mind. It struck at the roots of reality that had been used in the
principle of the ship's operation--and there was no way of knowing the
ship would operate once it landed.

* * * * *

Ren Gravenard flicked the ashes from th