ore surprising to Edwin Dollard, when Dollard awoke,
aroused from his long sleep--and conscious in the passage of time of
no more than a second's absence from the world of sense and
light--that this life should have found him.

He awoke, aware of stinging pain in his eyelids and the jabbing of a
thousand needles below the surface of his skin. A glaring white bulb,
suspended in an ice-blue ceiling, dug into his pupils with relentless
intensity.

A voice, couched in a low-throated growl, spoke just above his ear in
an unintelligible language. A second voice, farther away, answered
with a guttural purring.

Dollard slowly revolved his field of vision until it rested upon the
first creature who had spoken. His eyes made out a man-like apparition
in a white smock buttoned to a metal harness, a tall lithe figure
whose curiously pointed face regarded him with unblinking interest.

"You are come to, I notice," the creature said, employing a rasping
blurred form of English. "I am Shir K'han, of the people of Tegur,
detailed to interpret your meager tongue, oh frozen primate."

"You're not human ... but at least you're intelligent," Dollard
snorted. "Where am I?"

"On board a vessel of the Tegurian fleet, bound for the home planet."

"Which one do you call 'home'?"

For reply, Shir K'han gestured towards a bulkhead paneling at the far
end of the room. Dollard's eyes focussed on a trimensional photo-mural
of Terra. In the representation, the continental outlines of the
planet were the same; but if the colors were reproduced accurately,
then the earth had lost the bulk of its polar cap and become a
tropical world. The Sahara was a verdant green, while a great portion
of the Amazon valley was inundated by bluish seas.

* * * * *

Dollard attempted to sit up; the struggle was what first caused him to
notice his nude body was strapped by polished steel clamps to a long
flat porcelain table. Rolling his head to one side, he discovered that
the table's rim contained a long shallow trough which had not been
scoured too clean. Deepening stains remained of whosever blood it was
that had been contributed from the last autopsy performed on the
surface of the table.

"Why'm I tied up?" Dollard demanded.

"A temporary precaution," Shir K'han replied, soothingly. The growl of
his voice had now reduced itself to a monotonous purr, which reminded
Dollard of nothing so much as a ... but then, he shook